Social media has revolutionized how people form political opinions and make election decisions. Social platforms like Twitter are used by candidates to broadcast messages, build excitement for the candidate, inform voters about policy, and identify voters interest to properly target audiences for both voting and donating. Social media is an important tool in promoting political change and allows access to and conversation about political debates. With more Americans using computers, smartphones, and the internet politicians are turning to social media to reach voters. The Internet is a real-time interactive medium that allows people to send and receive information.
In this era of politics, social media has very high power and influence. Since our generation can’t seem to put down their phones or stop refreshing Facebook, many members of politics use their social media accounts to announce their opinions on certain topics. It could be said that the mass media has a “hold” over the political arena. Media can even “make or break” political careers or political parties. Thus, it becomes very important for political members to keep their social media accounts updated.
Because of the Internet, citizens can get more current political information conveniently. There is no limit on number of people, area, time and hierarchy. Widely dispersed and good interaction can attract more people to focus on political news. Nevertheless, media can influence citizens’ view of representatives. People may vote blindly.
Social media has become a daily use all across the world. Although social media platforms have started to just make an impact in the early 2000s. Political activists depend heavily on the media to get their ideas placed on the government agenda. Media started in politics by writing new papers and listening to the politician on the radio, yet has transformed into seeing the cadiate live speaking on the television or on social media platforms. Mass media can be beneficial to the candidates when relaying their message to a later audience at any given time and day.
Because no one single person owns the internet, the public is free to read, write, and share anything they want on their computers. The government and any politician can easily interact and get feedback from the public because of the large accessibility of online sites to people around the nation and world. This innovation has made the public more politically engaged and knowledgeable, shifting more power into the public hands by actively responding to and improving government responsiveness, and increasing accountability. Social media has increased the polarization between the political parties by following those who are similarly aligned, rather than those with differing views, as well as increasing voter turnout by a large margin. The internet allows a larger view of social and political views by taking out a middleman that regulates the content; unlike print and other electronic media sources, the internet is free for the people to express their opinions and share it with like-minded people without the government or corporations getting in the way, allowing a new political freedom to the people.
As an institution of public good, the American news media system has slowly become less reliable and increasingly unpopular in recent years. This unreliability has become an issue especially when it comes to political coverage. The article examines these consequences by analyzing the 2004 Presidential election and what affects the media had on voter habits. It concludes that, unfortunately, mistrust of mainstream media has led to a voters mistrusting campaign news, and instead relying more on the partisan peers cues. The article argues that this also suggests levels of media distrust are connected to greater partisan voting and the ratio of uniformed voters to informed voters is heavily misbalanced in favor of uniformed.
The media gets people to form opinions on who they want to vote for, the media is even getting people who weren?t even interested in voting out to the booths this election. Media is becoming powerful in these races where the presidential race could be determined not by the best debate, but by the best tweet. Works cited Boulianne, Shelley. " Social Media Use and Participation: A Meta-analysis of Current Research," Information, Communication & Society, 2015.
Since America is immense and extends from the Pacific to the Atlantic Oceans, it is very convenient to be able to make a connection with everyone without having to traverse the entire country. Television creates a “feeling of direct contact” between presidential candidates and the populace (Source A). By involving more of the population, the elections are made more democratic. However, with more involvement of the people, comes the simplification of the language and topics used during the elections.
As stated by an online article titled “How Social Media Affects Politics” by Heather Satterfield, a marketing manager;
This comes in handy with politics as well, accurate government statistics, live streams, politicians tweeting on twitter, debates on youtube, it may not be the best thing for politics but politics is changing and evolving to the internet and social medias. " Today, with the public looking to smartphones for news and entertainment, we seem to be at the start of the third big technological makeover of modern electioneering. The presidential campaign is becoming just another social media stream, its swift and shallow current intertwining with all the other streams that flow through peoples devices. This shift is changing the way politicians communicate with voters, alter the tone and content of political speech"(Politicio). The Mass media has and always will have a powerful influence on politics, but in todays society the individual has much more power than ever before because of the mass media.
As Vivian Michaels states in her article, “A survey conducted by the Pew Center of Research showed that approximately 35% of people between 18 and 29 years used social media as their most reliable information source for the 2016 U.S. presidential election” (3). There is nothing wrong in using social media as your most reliable source of information, but you must be aware of all the misinformation and biased information supporters and influencers use to favored and manipulate the public opinion of their preferred candidate. The reason social media can influence a political opinion, or any other opinion of a certain topic is by cause of how easy it is to share and connect with people that have the same opinion as you; therefore, when the masses see how many “likes” or “shares” that opinion has, they will immediately believe that the opinion presented is the right
Firstly, social media is an immediate free platform for sharing information between voters and politicians. Social media such as Twitter and Youtube allows candidates to exposure their values and beliefs. Voters can a lot of
Political impact of Social Media Atheer AlOthman Hala AlMashali Maha AlSunaidi Yara AlFozan The use of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and other social media has changed the way politicians and citizens handle politics. And because of the influence of social networking sites, it have been adopted by political figures.
Social media was developed to link people to the world and is an effortlessly convenient method for communication. Due to this, people are able to get in touch with just about anyone from all over the world and it no doubt has an incredible amount of influence on our lives. However, not all of it may be positive. Almost everyone is aware of how social media impacts us on a micro scale, but what about the influence it has on a macro level? Interestingly enough, it has taken a tremendous toll on politics.
Social media is an online service, platform or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people who share interest or activities. Some famous sites are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. The generalization of the internet makes us live conveniently and fast. We live in time where communication is possible without having to exert so much effort. We live in the time where social media is the main medium of communication.
