Presidential Candidates: Social Media Analysis

“We should look upon speech and action in a human being as persuasive, as expressive, as being used for the purposes of getting others to see events in the light that the…. [communicator] wishes them to be seen,” wrote Rom Harre`. The quote stated is the foundation and understanding of a presidential debate and the candidates themselves. As an individual in society, I never understood one of the most important roles of being a citizen. I never comprehending the basis of politics and presidential debates; however, something that is extremely terrifying is most individuals don’t. Throughout the course of the semester, I have learned a tremendous amount of information that makes me a more educated voter and individual on politics as a whole.

Media has such a huge effect on the success of the candidate. Social media is used worldwide and is has become second nature to today’s society. The presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney provides a perfect example of this tactic. During the presidential debate in 2012, Barack Obama utilized social media a significant amount more than Mitt Romney did leading to his victory. He used social media to campaign more and utilized a very reliable source which he was aware everyone would be using. I never realized how much of an impact social media could have on a presidential debate. Many Presidential candidates are taught to use many different tactics to have a successful debate with his/her component. One of the most famous and widely used is pivoting. This is used to avoid a question that is being asked by not technically replying to the question. This is something that Hillary Clinton is extremely well at and portrayed throughout most of the debated with Donald Trump. Pivoting a question can also lead to something that is key to not only a presidential debate but any debate. The goal of a presidential candidate is to align society with the uniform vision and which is done by

My group, Fact Checkers Unite, focused on the facts of the debates. Many people perceive presidents as be trustworthy, reliable and know every single detail about the situation because these roles are the sole propriety of being president. While watching the debates an immense amount of individuals assume these things are present in presidential candidates; unfortunately, that is not always the case. It is shocking to see how many people are unaware of fact checking. Our group did a survey on Twitter to see how many people utilized this resource and the results were shocking. The survey showed that only 25 percent of people used Fact Checking, 25 percent somewhat used it and 50 percent did not even know it existed. Taking the results into consideration it shows how many people vote based on false information. Being a part of this group has shown me the importance of fact checking information encountered even outside of presidential