In Politics, Social Media Wins the Popular Vote

The evolution of the web creates an environment for people to critique, challenge and support politics.

Politics has become a game on social media. (Image Source: Wokandapix Pixabay)

The progress the Internet has made since Tim Berners-Lee delivered its proposal to CERN in 1989 has been monumental. In this digital age, society has reached record highs with the number of individuals being consumed by technology and digital products. According to We Are Social’s Digital Global Overview of 2017:

• More than half the world uses a smartphone
• There are 2.8 billion global social media users around the world
• Active social media users have grown by 21% to 482 million unique users

and many more facts and statistics you wouldn’t believe! If you want to read the general overview of the full report, click here.

The growth and evolution of social media means more individuals are using popular websites such as Facebook and Twitter to voice their opinion. This can be especially true in terms of politics. Social network websites are now considered to be part of media impact, particularly for the 18–24 year old demographic. The 18–24 year old demographic are the first generation of voters who are also participating in what is referred to as the ‘social media election’. News companies have even suggested that Facebook was a deciding factor of the outcome of the 2017 General Election.

Twitter and Facebook have become instrumental in organizing campaigns. They allow like-minded voters and activists to easily share news and information such as campaign events with each other.

— Tom Murse, ThoughtCo

Is It All Positive?

It has been argued that social media has ruined democracy. Misinformation is a major problem in terms of the dissemination of news on social media. Web 2.0 has allowed users to share their opinion, but also provide companies and organisations with a platform to circulate propaganda. Propaganda is often misconstrued as political fact, through headlines and misleading statements. This has an impact on people questioning the morality of the link between the Internet and politics.

Social Media compels in everyday life (Image Source: LoboStudioHamburg Pixabay)

Pippa Norris claims that media impact can be categorised into three types:

• Agenda-setting
• Persuasion
• Mobilisation

Academics have suggested that democracy has been made a mockery of through the agenda-setting of social media websites, which micro-targets users based on their behaviour online. Potentially, social media has limited voters based on a systematic process that influences impressionable social media users.

To Conclude

Social media has become ubiquitous in modern-day society. It would be hard to avoid social media, which is why it has become such an essential tool and why political parties ensure they have a presence online to cater to many audiences. However, social media has become so clever it adapts to your behaviour and interests. This potentially creates a bias in terms of the representation of news that appears on news feeds, and whether citizen journalists are influencing opinion based on subjective journalism.

To learn more about this subject, check out the video below:

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