Article

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My article is on how emerging and new media technology affects the election cycle.  The author identifies how campaigning had adapted to meet the internet by creating 'stages' in how they are advertised and showcased.  First is the most traditional version of newspaper and print ads, and then television spots and public debates are shown.  But the last stage that has developed is in the digital sector.

The internet has changed how elections are campaigned because it has created an entirely new space to advertise in.  Campaign web banners are not only fundamentally different from print ads - and aimed at a much younger audience, for the most part - but video ads and websites must not only match the information of the candidate, but also match the expectations of the viewer.  An internet user will not trust a candidate whose website looks basic and unconvincing, and will see them as less trustworthy.

However, the internet is also critical, because it has the greatest reach in the shortest amount of time.  There are billions of internet users, and a decent majority of Americans, at least, will likely be online and be available to be targeted.

This is related to Internet Communication because it is about how candidates and their campaigns are adapting and changing to suit the internet, and then communicate their intended message - why they would supposedly be the best for office - directly to internet users, generally with a younger audience (specifically, us) in mind.

Network Laws

Network laws are not laws like those passed in congress, but more like gravity.  They try to explain how the internet works and how it is expanded so much in such a short period of time.  Because of this, the laws apply to kinds of growth in networks, specifically Local Area Networks and Wide Area Networks.

There are three main laws:

Sarnoff's Law: Value of a network increases linearly with the number of people in it

Reed's Law: Utility of a network increases exponentially

Metcalfe's Law: Value of a network increases by roughly square, or n2

Of these laws, I most agree with Reed's Law.

I don't think there is a set average rate of communication between each person on a network, but I do believe what you are capable of doing changes.  The more people, the more access to information, the more people to tell that information to, the more people for those people to spread the idea, the more people to make a joke about it and run that joke into the ground in a week...

Connectivity on the internet is a web, not a straight line.  So as you add more people, everyone has an extra line, which means an increase that is exponential, not linear.