Media and Politics

Social media has quickly rose to become one of the public’s most prevalent means of getting news on political campaigns. Seeing political images, comments, and stories is an inescapable component of being on a social media site. Politicians are constantly trying to get their message out, especially when campaigning. Social media makes doing this quite easy for them. They can engage with potential voters more often in addition to reaching a wider audience.

According to the article “Cell Phones, Social Media, and Campaign 2014,” one of the reasons for this rise in social media’s influence on political campaigns is the drastic increase in the use of smart phones. A large number of registered voters are getting their political information primarily through the use of smartphones. This is not at all surprising as phones play such a major role in daily life and provide us with the information we need quickly and as often as we choose to see it. One of the most positive aspects about the access our smartphones give us to political coverage is that we are able to get information that is relevant to us as opposed to the days where traditional print media and tv or radio news coverage was the primary place to find political news. Having to sift through newspapers or watch an hour of news that you might not particularly be interested in does not foster engagement in the way that social media does.

The article, “Crossing the Campaign Divide: Dean Changes the election game” illustrates how social media can have such an extreme impact on a candidate’s position in politics. His incorporation of SNTs to his campaign was a significant boost in his fundraising ability as well as his increased popularity at the time. Although he did not win the election, he was able to garner support and visibility through a combination of a “war room” and “networked” campaign.

What I do find troubling about the use of social media in political campaigns is that it does encourage a level of bias. It is so simple to look at information that merely confirms our beliefs that we may miss a lot of pertinent information from perspectives outside of our own.

 

 

1 comments

  1. Bias has always been present in the area of political campaigns but maybe social media is making it more apparent to the average person. Good writeup!

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