Impact of social media on American politics
De-Wit, L., Cameron Brick, and Sander Van Der Linden. “Are social media driving political polarization?.” greater good. Berkeley. Edu (2019). Retrieved from: https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/is_social_media_driving_political_polarization
In the article, the authors evaluate the battle rages demonstrated on Twitter and Facebook and how they influence the real world’s politics. According to the author, Americans seem more divided in terms of political parties than before. The article is relevant to the topic of study since it highlights the division of American experience due to the invention of social media in terms of politics.
Thesis
In as much as social media has brought innovations in almost every aspect of businesses globally, It has worsened the situation by bringing about about divisions within the politics by playing a part in voter manipulation, information warfare, criticism, and the social media sites fail to provide truthful information of a person.
Outline
- Support Paragraph 1
- Voter manipulation
- The active social media participants have increased, creating an essential platform for politicians to communicate, especially in the period of political elections (Bode, 27).
- Social media keeps on changing the political communication initiative due to the aspect of being regarded to be a tool for mobilizing and informing users in new ways.
- This is a new trend in the political field to make the campaign on different social media platforms.
- Politicians try to capitalize on social media by putting out their beliefs, actions, and opinions on some issues. Tools of social media that include Youtube, Twitter, and Facebook allow the politicians to speak to voters the voters without incurring any costs directly.
- Also, Political polls are an essential part of every campaign. They are often confusing because you can find many posts that support one and other posts supporting the other political party. Political Polls widely influence voter perceptions, even if they are flawed.
- Support Paragraph 2
- Information warfare
- Political parties do not only use social media sites such as Facebook Instagram or Twitter as advertising agents but also utilize them to monitor how a public may react to a certain idea (Enikolopov et al. 150).
- Social media is like a weapon to spread political issues and fundas.
- A well versed social media marketing manager knows that citizens of the country can be made to engage in communicating among themselves about political issues. Especially platforms of social media like Facebook,youtube, and twitter provide new ways to stimulate citizens’ engagement to raise and spread political thoughts and concerns where electoral campaigns and elections have a primary role.
- Personal communication through social media platforms brings political parties into warfare.
- The rival parties engage in warfare based on the information provided.
- Support Paragraph 3
- Criticism
- Engaging with people through social media results in instant feedback and criticism on policies and views (Bode, 221).
- This results in people talking and criticizing others.
- For instance, statistics reveal that in the election period, most of the online users are usually urged to participate in the voting process by the politicians, and thus the others that are not active participants may develop quarrels.
- Also, if not handled properly, it can cause many conflicts as well. Politicians and political candidates must be extremely cautioned as to what they post on social media and what their stance on certain topics are as it is posted publicly and can be viewed by anyone.
- One example where social media has backfired on political candidates is when Stuart MacLennan, Scottish Labor Party representative, tweeted offensive remarks as he referred to elderly constituents as “coffin dodgers” and joked about slavery.
- As a result, the party asked MacLennan to step down, which made him resign from the race.
- With this example, it is clear and evident that when political candidates use social media, they should always be extra cautious as to what they put on the Internet as it can still backfire.
- Support Paragraph 4
- Social media sites fail to provide truthful information about a person.
- Most of the people on social media provide false information in all aspects of their life (Robertson et al. 109).
- The politician can use such information to manipulate public opinion through paying the trolls to promote false information, stories, and claims, as well as create fancy within the public mind, such as degrading their competitors.
- Similarly, it tends to be challenging to engage in political warfare with an image placed on social media.
- It is challenging for politicians to eliminate maligned images as well as possibly require a lot of time.
Conclusion
Social Media has become the principal avenue for disseminating opinion and misinformation worldwide because it grants individuals the option to believe what they want merely. Essentially, social media can be criticized for exacerbating an existing problem, serving the role of facilitator. Social Media didn’t create America’s increasing cultural, political, and social polarization, but is serving as the conduit for its growth.
References
Bode, Leticia. “Political news in the news feed: Learning politics from social media.” Mass communication and society 19.1 (2016): 24-48.
Robertson, Craig T., et al. “The democratic role of social media in political debates: The use of Twitter in the first televised US presidential debate of 2016.” Journal of Information Technology & Politics 16.2 (2019): 105-118.
Bode, Leticia, et al. “Participation in Contentious Politics: Rethinking the Roles of News, Social Media, and Conversation Amid Divisiveness.” Journal of Information Technology & Politics 15.3 (2018): 215-229.
Enikolopov, Ruben, Maria Petrova, and Konstantin Sonin. “Social media and corruption.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 10.1 (2018): 150-74.