Social Media and Politics

Then:

While politics is an old subject with old rules, there comes along every once and a while something that changes the nature of politics and one of those things is social media.  Social media as a subject however is a new phenomenon and it is difficult to talk about its past because it is relative new.  The past for social media is short (Facebook is only about 12 years old and Twitter is about 10 years old) as far as presidential election cycles that means they have both been around for about three of them.  The subject of what effects they have on politics is equally new.

It is somewhat debatable when or if social media began to influence politics but it was early on that candidates used the new mediums as means of promoting themselves and this continues to do so.  The problem is all the theories are new and varied as far as what constitutes influence.  Social media early on though has been used to organize groups for political action and activists have seized on the idea of using social media to organize and plan events.  It has been in the past as a counter journalism to the mainstream to present events live and up front.

Social media is about connections and so is politics so they were a natural fit right out of the gate.  In large part, what has been explored in the past is how social media can organize and shape the face of politics through information and education.  If there is a problem with talking about the history of social media and politics it is that it is short and it is difficult to draw any hard and firm conclusions.

Now:

When it comes to things involving politics and social media dwell in the realm of theory and there are many. Sociologists and political sciences have debated even what social media is, but the conclusion in general is that it is a media that is used for social interaction that encompasses political empowerment and activism but also a reflects popular culture and entertainment.  In other words, social media can have many uses for social interaction but allows for political activism and empowerment.

The first concern of these new media sources is what they are doing to conventional and current media and the questions are more prevalent than answers.  The first being whether social media even influences political outcomes or simply provides a better platform to do already existing political activism.  This a real question because the question is raised as to how significant is the power of social media itself.  One answer is that social media is no better or worse as far as influence in and of itself but that political activism and change requires the same thing it has always required – passion for a cause.  Without this passion, many argue social media is just social media.  We may be more informed as to the issues facing us and have better connections but motivating people to act requires something greater than what social media can provide.  

If there is any place that is not being disputed is that social media is providing alternatives to traditional media.  Most younger activists glean all their news from social networking rather than tradition news casts or twenty-four-hour news networks.  This is what has made it difficult in many recent elections to get accurate polls as the younger generation of millennials don’t live in the world of home phone polling or traditional news source polling demographics.  This last election cycle, several networks admitted that their polling data for millennials was inadequate. 

On the other hand, Twitter Traffic this last election was off the charts indicating how vital it was to encourage people to vote and promotion of candidates.  The consensus is that Trump won the Twitter wars and it has lead some to think that it is what gave him the election.  Others simply state that Trump had the ability to leverage Twitter but whether this gave him the election is a matter for debate and it may take several months to fully analyze the data. 

In any case, Trump had much more social media popularity in the early going and many pundits pointed to this data as a potential for a Trump victory and they turned out to be right.  Political scientist will probably be talking about this for a while as to how many likes a candidate gets during the campaign and their margin of victory.  

As more hard data and studies are done, social media is used by candidates to organize and network but it might also be said there must be that passionate spark for a candidate or the best social media campaign might not help you win.  Is social media the creator of successful campaigns or is social media buzz the reflection of a campaign that already is successful? That is a question for the future as there simply is not enough data from enough different election to draw truly firm conclusions yet.

Later:

There have been many innovations in the history of politics and technology and many of them have had a significant effect.  The question for political scientists is what effect long term will social media have on political activism campaigns and elections in the future? 

There are simply too many reports now to sort this stuff out.  Every time I did research I got conflicting data and pundits taking both sides of the social media issue and its effect on political activism. 

Some argue that social media is just an extended way of spreading one’s own opinion and it affects very little actual change other than people’s voices have an extended range.  Others argue that it causes change in people’s opinions.  Another side of this battle, is whether campaigns with social media decide elections or the message and passion must be there.

I don’t see social media and politics departing from each other anytime soon regardless of the conflicting data.  This seems to be a match that is destined for a long partnership.  As time passes answers will come, but until clear answers are given Twitter campaigns and Facebook Memes will continue to dominate the face of politics for the foreseeable future.

Politicians will continue to hire social media directors for their campaign.  If there is one thing for sure politicians must get used to the transparency of social media and how instant it gets messages to the masses.  The transparency issue has victimized many older politicians as it becomes difficult to retract or reverse one’s positions without the other sides social media instantly crying “flip-flop”.  Lying I think will be much more difficult so perhaps social media’s transparency will finally end one complaint about politicians. 

If there is one dream we all have, it is that politicians will leave the realm of rhetoric and get to having actual ideas that will help.  Ass much as we can decry lack of privacy and the government looking in on us, social media give people the power to record and transmit information about politicians, political activism and elections that make it more difficult to get away with fraud and other election shenanigans.  Perhaps on the future this will get so prevalent as to clean up politics.

If recent election result is a consideration, then I think the opposite is true.  Every flaw of every candidate was revealed and yet no a single thing seemed to affect the candidates to the point that it hurt or helped them significantly.  Is apathy more the trend?  The current climate of mudslinging and no one caring if the mud is true or not, would indicate that social media is becoming so prevalent and common place that apathy toward it is more common that actual activism resulting from it.

Whatever the future hold until the next big thing comes along to replace social media, if it ever does, one thing is for sure its influence will be debated and researched.  Our only hope is that as future research is done the influence and affect it has will be better understood.  

     

References:

Ciment, J. (2013). Social media. In R. Chapman & J. Ciment (Eds.), Culture wars in America: An encyclopedia of issues, viewpoints, and voices. London, UK: Routledge. Retrieved from http://0-search.credoreference.com.libcat.ferris.edu/content/entry/sharpecw/social_media/0

Atton, and Atton, C. (2010). Alternative media. In J. Downing (Ed.), Encyclopedia of social movement media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Retrieved from http://0-search.credoreference.com.libcat.ferris.edu/content/entry/sagesmm/alternative_media/0

van Tryon, P. (2015). Integrating social media into learning and instruction. In M. Spector (Ed.), The SAGE encyclopedia of educational technology. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Retrieved from http://0-search.credoreference.com.libcat.ferris.edu/content/entry/sageet/integrating_social_media_into_learning_and_instruction/0