[Air-L] Facebook in Rural Communities, Elected Officials and the Friend Cap

[Steven Clift]

Is anyone out there researching the use of Facebook in rural
communities and its connection to political and/or public life?

When many of your friends are the "who's who" in a town of say under
20K how does this mix with public life. Are thing more or less
transparent? Are connections among the "in" crowd excluding folks on
the other side of the tracks or are socio-economic layers starting to
mingle more?

On another track with the tornados in North Minneapolis our Mayor was
unable to "like" the Facebook page about it because he already had
5,000 friends. Your cap seems to combine friend and page liking. Folks
were asking the mayor to respond but he couldn't.