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With Barack Obama's victory today being attributed to women voters, it looks like we still live in a quasi-patriarchal world as far as the alpha male territory of social media is concerned.

In the 2012 US presidential election the traditional ways of campaigning- canvassing, fund-raising and character assassination, played the same part they always have. However, this time the tools were the top social media networks and content optimised for mobile devices.

The Gender Divide

Facebook and Twitter were the top names and weapons of choice for Romney and Obama, with Tumblr also gaining increasing momentum to distribute images which reflected election trends. Tumblr's animated gif images make it the perfect medium to ridicule, as the jokes loop on and on.

However, it seems that very few female voices triumph amongst this onslaught of channels, which serve to accentuate male prowess. To some extent this is true both in the design of many types of new media and the gender of those who are top influencers amongst their peers.

As you may of heard, there is a US election taking place at the moment, with the results just a matter of hours away. Instead of going through opinion polls, repeating tired old quotes and trying to guess who is going to win, we're taking a look at the slightly more light-hearted side of things- how the internet has treated the election campaigns.

Just because Obama and Romney have spent billions of dollars over the course of months on their election campaigns, it doesn't mean everyone is going to take them seriously. Below you can find some of the funniest and weirdest memes that have come out of the last few months of campaigning.

1) Big Bird's Appearance

Things really started to take off once the presidential debates began. With a live audience of millions, any small mistake or odd phrase was quickly picked up on. The biggest thing to come out of the first debate in October was, strangely, Big Bird from Sesame Street.

A PBS (the public TV network) journalist was chairing the debate and Mitt Romney admitted that he would cut the government funding currently given to PBS. The quote that really grabbed everyone's attention was this: "I like PBS, I love Big Bird, but I am not going to keep spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for".

Erik Redli is a university graduate from Slovakia who is currently living in London. In the first of a two-part article, he describes five things he initially found unusual and different about London:

London is a city where man can have everything if he is able to take the time and spend the money. It may be paradise for the tourists, but after a few years, some of the permanent residents can start to have second thoughts about the expense and constant waiting, and decide to relocate to the outskirts, or to the countryside.

I have spent 6 months of my life there and could give you a long and boring lecture on the history, customs and politics of this conglomerate of cultures. Instead, I pinned together ten observations- things that I happened to find interesting since I first entered the ‘big world' four years ago. Some of them are peculiar only to London, but most of them can refer to much of the ‘Western World'. In this first part I look at everything from sport to work.

Hurricane Sandy has devastated the East Coast of America this week, leaving flooding, power cuts, fires and fallen trees. As with any big event these days, the internet has been awash with photos, updates and videos from people suffering the storm first-hand.

The storm has taken centre stage on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as thousands of people share their experiences. Here we bring you a look at some of the most shocking, terrifying and amazing videos and photos to have appeared online. 

Giacomo Tirelli is an Italian student in his first year at Goldsmiths University in London. Here he explains  why he chose to study in London and why he's learning from the city all the time:

Differences are what make the world a unique place, and it is within these disparities that citizens are likely to learn more about themselves and the people around them. Some cities offer the opportunity to live in this stimulating environment more than others. London is well known for its multiculturalism and its uniqueness.

Here, people willing to broaden their minds are able to share their experiences and backgrounds. In this setting, the ‘others', as the media often relate to them, become ‘us', and the idea of a unity and community develops among people, even if dissimilar from one another. Therefore, religion, skin-colour, ideology, cultural background, sexuality become secondary priorities in choosing your friends.