Ten years ago, we did not have social networks like Facebook or Twitter, or internet for that matter. As each year passes, social media is becoming more and more prevalent. New users sign up on a daily basis to see what the buzz is about. It is natural to think social media is just for teens, but the growing number of adult users make it incredibly diverse. Worldwide, people use these sites to connect with friends, meet new people, or even to get their name known. This mass usage attracts the attention of many organizations and campaigns. Presidential candidates are using this to their utmost advantage to save money and time compared to conventional methods. Although social networks are a great tool for political candidates to get their point …show more content…
More than half of U.S. citizens use social networks frequently. Users can browse and see what is going on in society, but during the election things got a little out of hand. During this year’s election, I saw many posts from each side of the ballot arguing why their side was better. These debates are seen by practically everyone and are shown on everyone’s newsfeed. When these debates get heated, meaning the opposing sides “bash” each other, it can lead to frustration. People, who are very defensive of what they believe in, get mad and strike back, but for some people, they just get annoyed by all the commotion. This frustration can lead to political polarization because opposing sides may post a status or tweet, which twist words or take comments out of context making the other side look bad. This can eventually sway voters to vote in a manner that may not line up with the campaigns stance. I do not agree with this tactic at all. I saw this during the election, where debates turned into arguments and people switched their views based on what they saw. These “debates” should be monitored in a way that they do not detour people from voting a certain way. “Candidates bypass traditional news media to send unfiltered messages to the public.” (as cited in Price, 2012, p.870) “Unfiltered”, means no one can say “hey, you shouldn’t say that.” There definitely needs to be a change to this, overall it gives very strong negative reactions by voters to political comments. On the other hand, people on Facebook are friends with people who are friends, family, or acquaintances who post things they agree with on their side. “On Facebook, you’re seeing news put up by friends who are reinforcing your own views.”(as cited in Price, 2012, p.871) This means you see things your friends agree with but what if you don’t agree with them? Could this lead you to believe in what your
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.
There is no question that the 21st century is experiencing increasingly high levels of political polarization but how did American politics become so polarized? Have Americans’ values and beliefs changed and therefore, they are taking more extreme positions? No. Rather, the answer lays on the emergence of a more partisan news media that has contributed greatly to political polarization and has caused Americans to support more partisan policies and candidates. Partisan news media revolves around careful selection of news and it utilizes “shrinking Presidential sound bites” and news leaks to fuel the political polarization in American politics today.
Lastly, as mentioned before, social polarization has increased as identities and partisanship have come into alignment. This type of partisanship is highly influenced by social psychology and in group bias. Specifically, as people become more aligned, people are more likely to be active on behalf of the party as well as react more strongly to perceived threats or challenges (Mason 2014).
Group polarization tends to exacerbate inter-group competition by driving any two groups who initially disagree farther apart in their respective views. In turn, a competitive situation in which one side must lose in order for the other to win (and political situations are nearly always competitive), will codify the differences between groups - leading to further extremism by those seeking power within the group - and thus, to further group polarization. In the above example, the two main combatants, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich, were virtually forced to take uncompromising, disparate views because of the very nature of authority within their respective political groups. Group polarization refers to the tendency of groups to gravitate to the extreme of whatever opinion the group shares (Baron & Graziano, 1991, p.498-99).
That can cause the opposing party to see the information and automatically resent it and shut it out thus becoming more polarized. Another article named “Divided We Now Stand” by Susan Page states information that explains social media and how it makes Americans more polarized. Page states” A majority on both sides say politics are more divided because both parties have changed: Democrats becoming more liberal and Republicans more conservative.” This statement that Page made is due to social media which she talks about in the article. Social media does have an effect on a person’s political view because people often are
Polarization really shows in this example because Pew Research also did a study on how parties feel about each other. More than half of people in each party view the other party as unfavorable and 9 out of 10 view the other party unfavorably to some extent. (Bump, 2016) Technology in recent times has boomed more than anything else, everything we do is somehow associated with technology. From going to the gym to talking with friends, there is always a screen in front of you with he ability to produce an unlimited number of images. In the study Impact of Customizability Technology on Political Polarization: “found that the customizability increased political polarization indirectly, via its effect on political selective
Questions/Expectations: The overarching question: does social media facilitate or attenuate polarization? The investigators identify and test two competing expectations about polarization. Expectation 1: individuals are more likely
Filter bubbles, which Pariser describes as a “centrifugal force pulling us apart,” contribute to the existing polarization and exclusion of certain groups. By selectively filtering and withholding the information, Facebook does not shape an objective circulation of information and prevents a single discourse. In a democracy, people must be willing to trust others and tolerate those with whom they disagree, yet Facebook disrupts such engagement. As Putnam points out, democracy fails because of a decline in social capital including a lack of cooperation and bonding experiences. Despite the growing participation, Facebook leads to a loss of people-to-people
Handlers and public relations professionals manage a candidates image for a good reason. Allowing a politician to send out unfiltered tweets or facebook posts has embarassed candidates in certain situations. Politicians and campaign do nothing without first knowing how their policy statement or moves will play among the electorate, and twitter and facebook both allow them to gauge how the public is responding to an issue or controversy. Politicians can then adjust their campaigns accordingly in real time without the use of high priced consultants or expensive polling. Twitter and facebook have energized younger voters, which has had a impact on elections.
The development of new technologies has profoundly altered the patterns of communication and interaction among persons at the micro and macro levels. The preponderance of people turns to the internet to procure information in addition to discussing issues and share opinions on the most pressing issues. The inception of social media facilitated the interaction and communication amongst users and their friends, colleagues, and families in addition to enabling users to distribute knowledge, opinions, ideas, and experiences (Stieglitz et al.). Social media has profoundly altered the landscape of political communication, a topic that has become quite a popular yet controversial topic in the current dialogue pertaining to modern political campaigns (Yamamoto
Facebook is slowly replacing the industry leading news stations like CNN, NBC and Fox News or in other words "the middleman" by directly connecting the public with the writer without the editor and publisher. Although that may have downsides most people seem to prefer it simply because it is not filtered on what a particular company wants to produce and gives less power to the major media companies that tend to sway people in a particular direction. To come up with a solution to the downside of Facebook comes many great ideas like creating an algorithm to spot unreliable news articles, or create a community that identifies misinformation for the benefit of everyone else, or creating a human team of journalist and policymakers that judges whether an article is factual. Although these theories have potential to be successful it is ultimately up to the viewer of the article to determine whether or not they want to research and confirm the information on the topic presented to them. Social media platforms have changed the way modern America perceives news forever with preferences to each profile and the ability to explore other types of information by entering a few keywords in a search bar is a method only a couple decades old and we should try to prevent from limiting this type of
In recent years, social media has changed the way individuals spend their time and money. Billions of people wake up each morning, and grab their device to see what they may have missed since they checked it last. More and more people are joining social media, because it is an easy way to stay connected. This also goes for presidential candidates who are trying to reach more voters. In 2008 this trend started with Facebook, with more than a hundred million active members and growing into the billions by the 2012 election stated by Carlisle & Patton (2013).
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.
Social media has become a major epidemic in today’s society. According to millions of people have signed up on social media websites, allowing their basic information to be shared with the world wide web. Two of the biggest social media websites today are Facebook and Twitter. The new generation tends to use Twitter over Facebook, the older generation prefer Facebook over Twitter. Though Facebook and Twitter serve the same purpose and have many similarities, they both differ in many ways.