Montana Tea Party members are using social networking tools to connect with each other and spread their message, according to KBZK’s Erin Yeykal.
Local Tea Party leader Henry Kriegel told Yeykal that they use social media like Facebook and YouTube to bring people together and not as a substitute for in-person human interaction.
Montana State University political science professor David Parker said that social media sites bring politics back to a more personal level, which is akin to the way people interacted with politics in the 1800s.
Parker:
“Politics used to be very, very personal in the 19th century. Politics was very much a show, and people were intimately engaged in this, and they came to these rallies and barbeques and spent the whole day there. And when the 20th century happened, and radio and television expanded, that intimacy was lost. Now these new social networking tools in a lot of ways are creating that intimacy and closeness again through the Internet.”
Read Yeykal’s full report here.