This Washington Post story opens by talking about two Ohioans who are heavily involved for their respective parties in the 2008 -- Republican Chris Myers and Democrat Katie Stoynoff. Both have used social media as a political organizing tool.

From the Nov. 3 Washingon Post via a tweet by Jay Rosen:

Though they share almost nothing in common politically, Myers and Stoynoff are part of a growing set of Americans, "a participatory class," as Lee Rainie of the Pew Internet & American Life Project calls it.

Online social networking sites -- socnets, from community blogs to YouTube -- are changing how the members of this class get their news, whom they trust to provide it and how they act on it. Whatever the source, they comfortably and routinely comment on the news, reproduce it, then forward it to relatives, friends, co-workers and, yes, strangers.

The relationship between candidates and their supporters has shifted, too. Supporters see themselves less as agents of campaigns but as independent of them.

And with the Internet making it easier than ever for voters to fund a candidate, act as their own publishers and search for information (and misinformation), the Washington political establishment -- candidates, strategists and journalists -- has been forced to loosen its grip on setting the narrative of the campaign. For voters such as Myers and Stoynoff, this is a sign of how the electoral process has been democratized and individualized. It's neither McCain's nor Obama's campaign. It's their campaign.

"A campaign used to be the big gear trying to get you, the smaller gear, to turn around, to line up with their agenda and what they represent," Myers says. "Now, through blogging, through online donations, whatever, the voter is now the big gear."