Running head: HOW SOCIAL MEDIA HAVE CHANGED POLITICS 1

How Social Media Have Changed Politics

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HOW SOCIAL MEDIA HAVE CHANGED POLITICS 2

How Social Media Have Changed Politics

Introduction

Social media refers to all websites and online social networking that enable the user to

share information with the people using the same platforms (Duggan et al.2014). There are

various well-known social networks platforms include, including Facebook, twitter, WeChat,

Instagram, and WhatsApp, among other websites. The users can connect by requesting

friendship or following each other on the platforms. They share various information, which

includes their personal experience and the issues around them. Through social media, people

from different nations have connected and enhanced their relationship. Nationally, groups are

created by people with the same interest to enable them to share their everyday issues. The social

media is incorporated in making advertisement for businesses and creating awareness to the

public. Due to many followers, for instance, Facebook, with over 2.4 billion users, can be used to

share vital information intended to reach a large number of people. Other media sharing websites

such as YouTube and Pinterest are used in sharing videos, audio, and images that have different

contents and targeting specific groups. There is no limitation on social media usage. One is free

to post issues of concern as far as are not violating the media regulations.

Social Media and Politics

Social media, especially the social network, have attracted politicians. Due to a large

number of users, they can pass their communication to a large group of people. Through social

networks, a politician can run their campaign by creating a post showing their political interest
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and development agendas aimed at developing the community. Political followers can view the

profiles of different political leaders and see their plans hence make the right political stand.

The politician can create a closed group with their followers where they can discuss their private

political matters. The groups help in having confidential plans and programs without exposing

them to the general public. In some cases, the intimate groups are used to make political plans

and winning strategies, which should be a political secret. The political readers have one on one

communication with their followers which enhances their relationships. A political leader with

good relationships has a high chance of achieving his/her political goals. However, different

internal issues influence the outcomes of the group. For instance, some members may expose the

discussions held in the closed group with supporting evidence from photos of the conversation.

The sharing of information out of the group is referred to as political betrayal, and it results in

exposure of a political plan to other political opponents (Bennette, 2012).

Social media have a wide range of followers, from the young to the older generation. The

political information target a particular demographic group. Social media such as Facebook have

filters to select the targeted group. For instance, young adults under the age of 35 have more

political influence that older adults over 60 years. Therefore, politicians target young adults

during their campaigns. Also, politicians can be able to tailor the information to fit the selected

group. This enables effective communication between the politicians and the audience hence

convincing the followers to vote for them (Duggan, 2013).

Political followers on social media can give their direct feedback to politicians. The

feedback enables the political aspirants to respond to the follower's queries hence creating

transparency and more trust to the followers. However, not all politicians control their media
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channels. They hire staff to manage their social platforms; thus, in most cases, no direct response

is obtained from the politicians. The information received from the politicians' social platforms

may be tailored to impress the public but not delivering right and truthful information. The staffs

controlling the social media accounts for the politician are also responsible For analyzing the

follower's comments and feedback. The team makes sure that only positive comments remain in

the feedback thread. Negative remarks and complaints are scrubbed to maintain an excellent

reputation for politicians, which is unethical.

Political followers Contribution through Social Media

The followers of a particular politician also help in disbursing the information from the

political or the political party by sharing through social networks. Also, the political parties

create websites that contain part information, including their political agendas and members. The

sites enable the followers to access the details of politicians and the party details, including their

offices, address, and party. The supporters of politicians can recommend them by sharing the

essential values of politicians through social networks. Also, they use social platforms to

discourage the public from supporting some politicians by giving out the reasons why politicians

are not fit to be leaders. The ideas shared may be true or false allegations to lower the reputation

of a particular leader (Baulianne, 2015). The social platforms have freedom of expression; hence,

sometimes people give misleading information about their political leaders.

There are good political leaders with financial constraints and cannot fund their political

campaigns. Through social media, political supporters are also able to contribute funds to

support such leaders. Facebook has money-raising platforms where a charitable organization can

use to raise funds (Castillo et al.2014). Political parties may also use social platforms to raise
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funds from followers. The funds are used in doing campaigns and creating publicity for the

politicians. This increases the chances of gaining political power. Online campaigns are done

through paid ads on social media such as Facebook and Instagram, thus supporting the political

campaign. Compliments from political followers contribute significantly to the reputation of a

leader. The leaders with more positive compliments tend to be trusted and have many followers.

Through social media, politician’s supporters compliment on their leader; hence, more people

tend to gain trust in the leader. However, the compliment may not be genuine but to create a fake

reputation of the leader. Most praises are for political gain but not transparency of leaders.

Social Media Polls

Social media platforms such as twitter and Facebook are used in taking political polls.

Other than conducting field research about the political status of a nation, the research centers

opt to use social media, especially Twitter, to do the surveys. The surveys take a short period and

require fewer resources compared to field research. Due to the high number of social media

users, the polls gather a large amount of information which could not be reached through field

surveys. However, the social media political polls may be misleading. Many social media users

have more than one social media account, and this may lead to double voting hence interfering

with the results of the poll. Also, politicians with an ill intention of interfering with political

surveys may hire people to create pseudo accounts and vote towards them several times. The

results of social media polls may not give the actual picture .of the political status of a nation

(O'Connor, 2010).

Before vying for any political position, most politicians seek public opinions through

social platforms. Politicians do not start their campaigns before weighing the public opinion and
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the quality of leaders that the public wants. The knowledge enables them to adjust their political

campaigns to meet the public need. They also find out the impacts of their policy statements on

their political rating. In some cases, the survey enables them to play psychological games with

the voters only to gain a political position. When the public gives out their opinions and the type

of leadership they need, the politicians camouflage themselves to fit in those qualities. Therefore,

identifying the right leader becomes a challenge for the public.

The social media platforms have become the power for many. Through social networks

such as Facebook and twitter, people have united and make conclusive decisions together. For

instance, in the United States, deferent groups have come together to petition the government

official who is not effectively implementing the development of agendas and misuse the public

funds. Through the power of Americans via social media, the government officials and leaders

take their responsibilities seriously to avoid being removed from office by the power of people.

The power of social media can be used to leverage the public against corrupt leaders and

lobbyists (Shirky 2011).

Current Changes in Political Campaigns through Social Media

The use of social media in political campaigns has risen since 2008, the year that took the

major part of the political campaign. Doris Gaber, in her book. “Mass media and American

Politics.” gave an outline of the 2008 Obama political campaign, the book provides informative

statistics about the achievement of former United States president, Barrack Obama. He had over

2 (two) millions, Facebook followers while his opponent, while McCain hade 6000 friends

(Graber). The high number of Obama's friends contributed significantly to his campaign, even

though not all Facebook friends are political followers. The large number helps in sharing
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personal and political information; the private life of a politician also helps in attracting more

followers. Politicians with an attractive lifestyle tend to be adored by many people hence

offering political support. Having a large number of followers enabled Barrack Obama to reach

the young generation in his political campaigns. According to research by Matthew James

Kushin & Masahiro Yamamoto, in their publication “Mass Media and The Society.” Obama

targeted young adults under the age of 30 years. The research found that young adult at that age

is frequent users of social media. Also, the study found that young adult tends to get ore of their

political information from social media compared to other sources of information. From another

research conducted by the Harvard Institute of Politics in the year 2011 (Harvard Institute of

Politics). The report concluded that about 27% of young adults find social media such as

Facebook and twitter relevant than other types of advocacy. The two research shows that Barrack

Obama win was a result of focusing on the young adults in his 2008 campaign (Harvard Institute

of Politics).

Facebook is currently incorporated in other purposes other than carrying out political

campaigns. According to an American Facebook page, “U.S. Politics on Facebook,” which

focuses on the current uses of Facebook by politicians. The former U.S president, Barrack

Obama, conducted a live meeting via Facebook to demonstrate the current role that social

networks play in modern society and the new era of politics. In June 2009, Justin Amash, the

Republican state rep, started posting every vote from Michigan House of Representative floor

and later posted his votes with an explanation. According to an article published in June 2010, on

mashable.com (Devoted social media site).Amash had positive feedback, according to him, he

received many comments from many people who appreciated his moves of posting his votes live

on Facebook. Amash said that the action made him gain credibility with the voters.
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The social media gap between the Democratic and Republican parties is also diminishing.

Although Obama and the Democrats won the social media encounter in 2008 elections, the

republicans caught up after two years (Preston). The Republican political online strategist,

Patrick Ruffini, said that the activist on both sides experiences a significant leveling out.

Therefore, according to him, the notion that Obama had the most considerable influence over

social media was not valid. Most Americans trust the news from social media compared to the

news from other sources. The report stated that about 61% of adults interviewed agreed that

social media give broad exposure to the political status of the country compared to other media

such as television and newspapers. Some media services such as television are sometimes limited

to the type of news they would give to the audience. The social media do not have limitation and

every person is allowed to post the political views. Also, in social media, political talk about

each other, exposing themselves to the public, which could be regulated on television shows.

Therefore, the audience gets first-hand information about the political status of the country.

However, the report stated that about 56% percent of the internet user is not able to differentiate

between the correct and false information presented on the internet. Therefore, they prefer using

social media to get political information (Preston). Through social media, the users can be able to

find the recommendation of information from their trusted friend about the types of information

published. This will enable the users to have reliable information and make a decision from well-

analyzed content other than speculating about the transparency of the information (Cogburn &

Espinoza-Vasquez, 2011).
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Problems of Social Media Use in Political Campaigns

As social media provides new platforms for political campaigns, it is also associated with

some issues. According to an article published by the “U.S Today” in 2011, it takes only a few

written characters to distract a political campaign. The rate at which social media information

spreads can be destructive. The rise of social media, such as Facebook and twitter, has

accelerated. The speed at which information is transferred from one point to the other;

information published in social media can turn to be national news in a short period. Political

issues with a negative impact on the citizen also spread to a nation at an accelerated speed hence

causing a distraction to the citizens. Leaders with an ill intention of spreading hatred among

citizens also use social media to convince their followers about the value of the information they

post on social media. Political blunders caught on camera are also spread over social media

hence creating a bad reputation for some leaders.

Social media politics may also be misleading; in some instances, some leaders hire

people to operate with pseudo accounts. These accounts are used to post information that may be

deceptive to the public, especially from the opposition. Many people are not able to differentiate

the right information from the leaders hence tend to believe everything they find relating to their

leaders on social platforms. Sometimes, social media reads false news about their leaders and

tend to believe it, hence, changing in their political stand. Through social media, some political

leaders face embarrassment from Facebook users, especially from the opposition.

The rise in political blogs has also created an impact on social media campaigns.

Bloggers tend to use political issues to make their publications attract more readers. Also, some

critical political problems are used in publishing ads to have more views. The bloggers and the
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advertisers create false information about political leaders hence damaging their political

campaigns. This is because differentiation of the editorial information and the advertorial

information is a challenge to many internet users. The blogger also makes sure that the news

spread at a high rate by targeting the most visited sites and social media platforms. The issue is

uncontrollable because social media do not regulate the message a specific post send to the

viewers as far as it meets the Facebook standard (Bennette,2012).

Exposure to the political status of a country may be risky to the countries security. The

social media connect the whole world hence no limitation of the people who view the political

posts. The country's political status is very critical to national security. Exposing the political

situation of a state is risky because the audience with ill intentions can be able to analyze the

country's weaknesses. They can easily plan attacks by following political meetings organized

through social media. Also, it’s easier to follow the movement of leaders from one place to

another because their movement details are exposed to social media.

The polls conducted through social media may results in conflict after the outcome of an

election. For instance, when two aspiring Leaders A and B have a difference of a million votes in

favor of leader A from the polls, and the outcome of the election later state that politician B is the

winner with a million votes, conflict may arise because politician A will believe that the polls

were conducted unfairly. It will be difficult for him/her to think that he lost by a large number of

votes but during the polls, he led by a large number of votes,

Future Use of Social Media in Political Campaigns

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As technology is advancing, there will be more efficient ways of conducting campaigns

using social media. Facebook and Twitter were used during the 2008 campaigns. However,

twitter was rarely used. Today twitter is one of the embraced social media, with over 321 million

users from the January 2019 report (Trice, Social media pervades presidential politics). As

technology is advancing, more changes are expected in the social media platforms which will

enable the politicians to run campaigns smoothly. Also, more security measures are expected to

be added in social media to enhance personal privacy and country privacy.

Future campaigns are expected to be more productive, not only by the use of the social

media platform but having the proper strategies of conducting the campaigns. Facebook and

Twitter profiles will not be enough but more support will be necessary from the followers. Many

people have seen the value of using social media as a tool for campaigns. Therefore, politicians

will expect more competition since social media will be a common platform for all aspirant

leaders. The tactics and skills of using social media as a tool of a political campaign will

determine the effectiveness of social media in political strategies. (Trice, Social media pervades

presidential politics)

Conclusion

From the above discussion, it is evident that social media have played an essential role in

politics and will keep on transforming political campaigns. Politicians will have better ways of

reaching the voters within a short period and with minimal resources. The voters will also be

able to regulate the leaders' political behaviors by forming social groups and petition the corrupt

leader’s hence promoting integrity among leaders. The political leaders should make use of

social media in the right way by focusing on their objective of interacting with voters. This will
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mitigate the conflicts that arise due to incitements from leaders. When every person uses social

media in the right way, it will promote political development and peace in every nation.
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