ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the four dominant social media outlets for campaign politics: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and email. The communication modes exhibited on social media are very different than the clearly top-down processes that characterize the traditional earned and paid media strategies. Social media's importance stems in part from changes in the way people consume political information. Facebook is the outlet that most comprehensively combines social media's potential assets, and its reach is impressive. Twitter provides a more top-down experience but seems to offer more political content as well as a mobile-friendly format. Social networks are less important for YouTube than the others, but YouTube may offer the most potential in terms of user-generated content. Email's capacity for social sharing is impressive. Email and other forms of social media outlets can be impactful campaign communication tools. Social media provide plenty of opportunities to encounter political content.
