In Nicholas Carr’s article “How Social Media Is Ruining Politics”, Carr writes about the effects that social media has on politics. In his article, Carr focuses more on the negative effect that social media has when it comes to politics. Some points that he makes about social media include specific examples like the recent presidential campaigns, how other technological advances over the years have effected politics, and the effectiveness that social media has on politics A great example of social media being used for politics is with the recent presidential campaigns. Social media began being used in presidential campaigns by President Barack Obama. Obama’s campaign in 2008 was considered the “Facebook election” since he used the social media platform Facebook to connect with the public. Now, mostly all presidential candidates use at least one social media …show more content…
platform with their campaign. A great example in the 2016 presidential campaigns is Donald Trump. Trump understands how to use social media to his advantage. One way to use social media to get responses is to be very controversial. On the platform Twitter, Trump called one of Clinton’s aides “the wife of perv sleazebag Anthony Wiener” (Carr 2016). Some of the other candidates are slower to understand how to use social media. One example of this is Clinton’s posts which can be described as bland and her posts on the platform Facebook are the same as posts on other platforms. Trump is taking risks and not being very political but is getting much more responses. Clinton has decided to take it safe by being very political in her posts on social media and she tries not to cause controversy. Another point Carr discussed in his article was the way technological advances throughout the years have affected politics.
The first example that was discussed was the radio. Before the radio, the people of America got information pertaining to politics via newspaper. The information they got was always written down. When the radio was invented, they people could hear the politicians giving speeches and could hear the emotion in their voice. With the addition of being able to hear the emotion, the people would be more inclined to back what the speaker is saying more than if they were to just read it on a newspaper. The next invention that changed politics was the television. With the television, people were able to see the politicians as if they were near them. Now the people can see the politicians and their appearance. With social media, the politicians’ personality is what’s being looked at. Instead of the normal politician personality, their personalities have to stand out or grab attention. Also, social media is short so the speeches that politicians say have to be shortened and have be
interesting. A third point that Carr talks about is how effective social media really is in politics. Carr states that social media is “more encompassing and controlling, more totalizing, than earlier media” (Carr 2016). He talks about how sometimes the internet takes on a mob mentality. In certain cases, when a person has a large influence over many people on the internet, those people will just choose to do the same things that they do. A reason why social media is used us because of how it is simple and fast. Political speeches are mostly not as effective when under those constraints. These simplified speeches lose the depth that the longer speeches seem to have. Now that the speeches are simply and short, people are able to share them faster. Carr’s examples of social media being used in presidential campaigns and technology affecting politics shows that people are trying to integrate politics into social media. However, his example of the efficiency of social media in politics shows that politics are becoming less intricate. I support Carr’s opinion that, in today’s society, social media does not work well with politics and with more time, social media will become an efficient platform for politics.
The purpose of this article is to persuade the reader that social media is the new alternative to mainstream big money ads for politicians. Cary’s intended audience is politicians, political campaign managers and politically engaged citizens. The tone of this article is informative but slightly opinionated. While Cary does back up her claims with notable quotes and statistics the main support for her argument is her professional opinion. Cary was formerly the
In the current time, it seems like one cannot go a day without using at least one social media website. This might be especially true among groups of teenagers and young adults. Social media became a vital part of daily life that feeds people with several types of information constantly. Political news is a type of information that can reach the people through the means of social media. Since presidents are constantly seeking new strategies to increase their communication with the public in order to spread their political message, they utilize the different social media websites. Hence, social media became a platform to spread political message. It is not surprising that now the majority of political officials and candidates have social media accounts more than ever before, such as a Twitter account.
The researchers present findings that indicate that a politician’s popularity in the voting booth may be related to the frequency with which the candidate is talked about on social media. The researchers goes on to discuss how further research may conclude that social media has a bigger impact on voting outcomes than traditional forms of media, and how that could potentially shape the future of voting.
Television can be viewed as the medium between the public and candidate. It is the source that allows the public to know what is going on with the candidate and vice versa. As Frank Stanton, president of the Columbia Broadcasting System put it, “The sky is the limit.” Before television, candidates would travel the country, meeting voters and gaining supporters. But they were not always able to meet everyone, which hindered their process of achieving support for their campaign. With the invention of television, direct contact between the candidates and the public has been restored.
Social media and networking are two of the greatest ways to influence the views and beliefs of a society. Being that it is a prime communication center for millions of people worldwide, the power of social media is incredible. In January of 2011,...
At one point, society started to see that instead of just watching the news, people were starting to rely on social media for the source of what is actually going on in the world. It felt more real and personal to interact with a social website on a device instead of having the information said to them by a news anchor. This was starting to become very apparent so slowly we started to see the political side of things integrate itself in to common social media outlets such as youtube and twitter ,so you can see how Facebook and Twitter are gearing towards more advertising for
Specifically, American presidential candidates’ actions on social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Myspace, has evolved over time in order to have direct contact with potential voters. Despite being…, the 2004 presidential campaign is the commencement of digital media and some forms of social media (). However, because of the text-based nature of the Internet, the lack of videos and images was not conducive to reaching a wide audience or attracting potential supporters. The subsequent presidential campaign of 2008 truly established the foundation for personal and immediate communication between candidates and the people through social media, including the use of images, infographics, and videos. In fact, during the 2008 presidential campaign, “16 of the 19 candidates linked on their campaign websites to an official Myspace account” (Pew Research Center 2016, 34), the most popular form of social media at the time.
Today in the modern 20th century more now than ever technology is huge part of our everyday lives. Especially with the young generation with social media; I myself am guilty. We are constantly checking Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. In Sherry Turkle’s essay her title says it all, “How Computers Change the Way We Think.” Social media plays a huge part on how we think, especially now with the presidential candidates. The media portrays them to be good and that they mean to do well to our country, but at the end they just want fame and money. Turkle brings up important points like privacy, identity thief and simulation software’s, which all affects the way we think when technology comes in place.
The changes in social media implied that many people got in touch with the political candidates either directly or indirectly. The people watched their potential leaders of the nation and were able to question them (Mutz 2001).
40 percent of registered US voters didn't vote in the 2016 election. This is in large part because of the fake news in social media that altered people's opinions of social media (heavy.com). This altered a major event in US history and fake news will continue to impact fake news until someone does something about it. It has been powered by social media and fake news websites on the internet. Fake news has also has led to blow ups in the recent future which have almost cost people their lives.
The purpose of this essay is to develop a further understanding of the impacts of social media in regards to the political debate. By looking at the topic of social media and the use rhetoric in response to politics in the 21st century, a deeper understanding of the issue can be established. Social media has become a primary source for the discussion of politics by the average citizen; whether through the sharing of articles, “memes”, advertisements or personal expository statements. As a result, large sums of information and ideas are spread rapidly to a wide variety of subjects. However, much of this information may not be accurate and could be misinterpreted. Consequently potentially misinformed citizens may not be able to make a properly
The 2016 election was considered to be the first true and official social mediation election; once information is posted the voters and news consumers due the work of sharing and getting the message heard, regardless if the message is good or bad. Clearing the perspective a bit more, Facebook has close to 1.6 billion monthly active users, Twitter has around 385 million monthly active users, thats an increase on Facebook up to 60% and up from 185 million on Twitter from 2012. Election candidates use a free network now to reach over a billion people at any given moment. Social media is now considered a strategy, which is greatly due to Donald Trump’s use of social media showing other candidates that social media can be a direct line to their voters and particularly the younger voters. Two thirds of
Annie S. Hwang in her article Social Media and the Future of U.S. Presidential Campaigning writes "With its growing popularity, social media are positioned to become the smarter and cheaper alternative to traditional media advertising," and “Through one person’s social media account, a campaign can now connect to 500 friends and more.” These are basically the reasons behind being an important communication tool and that is what makes it important for the leaders who are in search for such a tool. A journal was published in 2012 “A 61-Million-Person Experiment in Social Influence and Political Mobilization," that mentioned about the study and its findings of how the messages on Facebook newsfeed can indeed have effects on voters. It stated Voter mobilization efforts are effective at increasing turnout, particularly those conducted face-to-face and those that appeal to social pressure and social identity.
It is notoriously accepted that there is no single precise definition of political communication since ‘political’ and ‘communication’ themselves have varieties of definition. In order to critically discuss the changes that the Internet has brought to political communication, this essay is going to define political communication as purposeful communications about politics (McNair, 2011: 4). As McNair (2011:6) and Norris (2010) state that political communication involves the interactive process between political organizations, media and citizens. Moreover, media is a crucial element that links political organizations and citizens in various ways. The downward communication from political organizations to citizens, horizontal communication between parties, public organizations, pressure groups, terrorist organizations and governments and upward communication from citizen to political organizations all require media to disseminate the information. Media comprises print, broadcasting and online channels. With the development of information technology and Internet, online channels are becoming increasingly significant for political communication. This essay particularly focuses on changes that Internet has brought to political communication. Firstly, some positive impacts that Internet has brought to political communication will be explained. Secondly, this essay is going to demonstrate several negative effects on political communication that coincide with the expansion use of Internet by politician. Specific examples of how politicians use Internet in political communication will be utilized to analyze these changes.
The influence of the internet on political campaigns has been an interesting topic of study since the rise of the internet in the mid 1990s, (Anstead an Chadwick, 2008). Farrell, Kolodny, and Medvic, state that “...the campaign process has passed through three main stages of development...” (Farrell, et all, 2001:12). First, it was campaigns driven by newspaper, then television, and now by the rise of the digital media and technologies political campaigns have taken a whole on a direction. The noticeable internet campaign was the Howard Dean 2004, which showed that there was a new and more efficient way to campaigning by using the technological resources available. From here, political campaigns have transformed considerably, Obama ‘08 for example. The main features of post modern campaigns fall under these three h...