VOA慢速英语:Can Social Media Improve Voter Turnout?

We have all witnessed the power of social media. It helped elect Barack Obama president in two thousand eight. It also helped to support popular revolutions in two thousand ten and eleven that forced several long-time rulers from office.
我们都目睹了社交媒体的力量，它帮助奥巴马总统在2008年当选，也有助于支持人民革命在2010与2011年推翻几个长期统治者。

Now, research suggests that social networks could have an even greater effect on elections, helping to increase the number of people who vote.
现在，研究表明，社交网络对选举能产生更大的影响，帮助增加投票的人数。

The new report appeared in the journal Nature. It estimates that about one third of a million more people voted in America’s two thousand ten congressional elections all because of a single message on Facebook.
这份新的报告发表在《自然》杂志上。据估计，大约有33万多人完全因为Facebook上的一条消息而参加美国2010年国会选举投票。

James Fowler is a political science professor at the University of California, San Diego. He led the research in partnership with Facebook’s Data Science team. They studied the effect of a “get out the vote” message on more than sixty million Facebook users. The social network placed the message at the top of their Facebook news feeds on Election Day two thousand ten.
James Fowler是美国加州大学圣地亚哥分校的政治学教授。他负责与Facebook数据科学组一起合作的研究。他们研究了“出门投票”这条消息对6千多万名Facebook用户的影响。2010年选举日当天，Facebook将这条消息放到了它们新闻推送的顶部位置。

JAMES FOWLER: “And in the message, there was button that says ‘I Voted’.” There was also a link that you could click on that allowed you to look up your polling place. And in some of the messages we also showed people the pictures of their friends who had clicked on the ‘I Voted’ button earlier in the day.”
JAMES FOWLER：“在该消息中，有一个按钮写着‘我投了’。还有一个可以点击的链接让你查找自己的投票站。而在一些消息中，我们还向人们展示了当天早些时候按过‘我投了’的他们的朋友的照片。”

We spoke to Professor Fowler on Skype. He says the team later compared this information to publicly available voting records.
我们在Skype上采访了Fowler教授。他说，该小组随后将这些信息和公开的投票记录作了比较。

JAMES FOWLER: “And one of the remarkable things that we found was that when we were comparing the people who received these messages to the people who received no messages, the people who saw the message without the faces of their friends actually voted at exactly the same rate as the people who saw no message at all. But the people who saw faces of their friends they actually voted more.” 
JAMES FOWLER：“当我们将收到这条消息和没收到这条消息的人们做比较时，我们发现的一件显著的事情就是，看到消息但没有看到朋友面孔的人的投票率实际上和完全没有看到消息的人一样。但在消息中看到朋友面孔的人实际上投票率更高。”

The researchers say the results of the study show that the message directly influenced about sixty thousand extra people to go and vote. Even more importantly, says Professor Fowler, the friends of the people who saw the message also were influenced to vote. He says this led an additional two hundred eighty thousand people to take part in the elections. As a result, the message influenced a total of three hundred forty thousand people.
研究人员称，研究结果显示该消息直接影响了约6万额外的人去投票。更重要的是，Fowler教授说，看到了这条消息的这个人的朋友也受到影响去投票。他说，这样导致了额外的28万人参加选举。因此，该消息共影响了34万人。

And, Professor Fowler says the experiment led to an even more interesting finding. It is that in the world of social networking, like in the real world, not all friends are equal.
而且，Fowler教授说，该实验导致了一个更有趣的发现。这就是，在社交网络世界中，和在现实世界中一样，并不是所有的朋友都是平等的。

JAMES FOWLER: “It wasn’t all of these online connections that matter. The average person on Facebook today has about one hundred fifty friends. And when we just looked at the close friends, those closest ten people on Facebook, we found that they were driving the whole effect. That all of the extra two hundred eighty thousand voters were coming from just ten out of your one hundred fifty friends.”
JAMES FOWLER：“并不是所有在线好友都受到影响。如今Facebook上平均每人有约150个朋友。当我们只看他们在Facebook上最亲密的10个朋友，我们发现他们驾驭了整体效果。额外的那28万投票者都来自你150个朋友中的这10个朋友。”

The researchers say the study suggests that voting is a social behavior. They say social networking may be the best way to get more people involved in the democratic process. And they think this in not only true in politics, but in other areas as well, including public health.
研究人员称，这项研究表明，投票是一种社会行为。他们说，社交网络可能是让更多人参与民主进程的最好方式。他们认为，这不仅体现在政治上，还体现在包括公共卫生在内的其它领域。