1.0 BACKGROUND. This research study explores the attitudes of Kenyan proletariat voters towards social media political activism and to what extent such strategies can be said to be Communitarian expressions of political association or ethnic mobilization devoid of issue-based politics. Communitarianism is a philosophy emphasizing the connection between an individual and the community. A “community” in this context is understood in the wider sense of interactions between communities of people in a geographical location, or who have a shared history or interest. Does such targeted online campaigns prove group Structuration Theory-a concept where human agency and social structure are in a relationship with each other, and it is the repetition of the acts of individual agents which reproduces the social structure-traditions, institutions, moral codes, and established norms and practices; though these can be reversed or changed when people start to ignore them, replace them, or reproduce them differently . 2.0 AIMS AND OBJECTIVE Social media activism is a rampant phenomenon in political mobilization among Kenya’s pretentiously progressive middle-class voters. The practice itself is relatively new, but it has grown tremendously, particularly in the developing world where campaign strategists have leveraged social relations within group members to consolidate party loyalty and cultivate support from interest groups. This study is based on face –to- face interviews and questionnaires responded to by a segment of middle-class Kenyan voters with a view to assess their attitudes towards communal and political affiliation and to what extent adaptive Structuration group theory promotes diversity or entrenches negative ethnicity. 3.0 INTRODU... ... middle of paper ... ...y confirms the prevalence of adaptive Structuration theory in expressing political choices among Kenya’s social media groups which affirm that to an extent the urban youth feel attached to and bound to identify with certain Communitarian sympathies akin to their ethnic affiliation. It is a democratic gain that the more technologically savvy among the voting youth are utilizing the digital space to maximize political messaging. However, the danger lies in the increasingly ethnic tendencies of emerging social media. The growing minority of digitally engaged citizens ought to influence the bottom line towards a more inclusive and tolerant politics. Key institutions such as the National Cohesion and Integration Commission and the Communications Commission of Kenya must device new regulatory systems to ameliorate the negative impact of negative ethnicity on social media.
In this article Mary Kate Cary opens up with the supreme court decision to not restrict the use of corporate funds in political advertising so that she can make her point that big money ads are not the most effective way for candidates to reach American constituents. She argues that social media is a new way for politicians to connect with citizens. Her five claim are that Americans can now, choose the media they wish to consume, share the media they choose the share, like posts they agree with and dislike posts they do not agree with, connect with others on social media, and donate to candidate campaigns online. With these claims she comes to the conclusion that politicians want to go around mainstream media so that they can connect directly with the voters.
One of the properties that allow social media to be an attractive tool to use by politicians is the ability to attract a massive audience of users. The Pew Research Center suggests that there is a growing number of social media users. A whooping 73% of US adults use the internet (Social Networking Fact Sheet). These...
...ents in his article “Think again: The Internet”. Social media can spread the idea of democracy quickly and provide education to anyone that has access to the Internet. As shown in various examples, it is also a tool to reach millions in a fast manner and can be used as a tool to organize demonstrations or protests, which can be the first step towards democratization. However, social media is still a new technology that needs to be utilized more effectively, otherwise its influence might not be as large as it could be. As it has in the past, civil society plays a large role in changing a country’s political system. Social media has become a big part of civil society and will continue growing, therefore its influence will grow as well. However, it will take a few years or even decades until we get to see its real effects, just because it is still such a new phenomena.
For one thing, social media has different tools that connect us easier and quicker in this new technological era. The most common ones are Twitter and Facebook. Whereas Twitter provides information synchronically and allows people to share their feelings, Facebook is about creating profiles including personal information and connecting with familiar people. Both of these have a great impact on our daily lives, especially in terms of enabling online communication for gathering. Since I attended Gezi protests in Turkey in 2013, I had a chance to observe a protest formed by digital activism. Thus, I chose the book, Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism, by Paolo Gerbaudo which is published by Pluto Press to review. The author is a lecturer in Digital Culture and Society at King’s College London (Gerbaudo, 2012). In the book, he discusses how social media influences the public contribution into political social movements. He gives
When the concept of governance is identified, it is most often associated with states, governments, and large corporations. However, one of the doors that democracy has opened for citizens has led to their ability to influence governance in a method that states, governments, and large corporations are not able to identify with. Concerned citizens and informal project activists have the capacity to motivate and create social change through their use of new media to challenge large issues that are often kept buried by political figures and the state. Furthermore, the mass movement of individuals in society as one whole will change the perspectives of many others, who will also be likely to join in the movement to fight society's problems through tactical media. Tactical media will empower citizens to create social and political change as it provides citizens an opportunity to participate in any kind of movement that they wish, thus, not putting any restrictions on the interests of citizens; this motivates them to become active users of tactical media as they are provided with freedom...
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.
Providing real world examples, such as the corrupt impeachment trial of Philippine President Joseph Estrada, Shirky focuses his attention on the potential for media connections to influence activism through rapid communication lines where he infers social media has become a "coordination tool for nearly all of the world's political movements". His article depicts how the communication landscape is becoming more participatory where greater access to information and more opportunities for free speech means an augmented capacity to initiate international change. His research also includes the interrelated effects of the "topology of social and technological networks" as well as the cultural aspects of such effects. Such a focus on social media in regards to power makes this a highly appropriate source for academic
Malcolm Gladwell’s article "Small Change: Why the Revolution Will not be Tweeted" raises a significant question about the prospective contribution of web-based social networking to the advent of progressive social movement and change. Gladwell’s bold declaration that "the revolution will not be tweeted" is reflective of his view that social media has no useful application in serious activism. Contrasting various elements of the “high-stakes” lunch-counter protests in Greensboro, North Carolina in the 1960’s with the “low-stakes” activism achieved through social media, Gladwell concludes that effective social movements powerful enough to impose change on longstanding societal forces require both “strong ties” among participants and the presence of a hierarchical organizations. In contrast, Gladwell characterizes the social networks as an interwoven web of "weak ties" that is inherently devoid of a hierarchy. Gladwell’s prerequisites for social movement are firmly based in strong body of sociological evidence, but his views regarding the nature of online social networks are laughably lacking in foresight and obstructed by a misleadingly selective body of evidence.
Malcolm Gladwell’s article "Small Change: Why the Revolution Will not be Tweeted" raises a significant question about the prospective contribution of web-based social networking to the advent of progressive social movement and change. Gladwell’s bold declaration that "the revolution will not be tweeted" is reflective of his view that social media has no useful application in serious activism. Contrasting various elements of the “high-stakes” lunch-counter protests in Greensboro, North Carolina in the 1960’s with the “low-stakes” activism achieved through social media, Gladwell concludes that effective social movements powerful enough to impose change on longstanding societal forces require both “strong ties” among participants and the presence of a hierarchical organizations. In contrast, Gladwell characterizes the social networks as an interwoven web of "weak ties" that is inherently devoid of a hierarchy. Gladwell’s prerequisites for social movement are firmly based in strong body of sociological evidence, but his views regarding the nature of online social networks are laughably lacking in foresight and obstructed by a misleadingly selective body of evidence.
Biased opinions thrown everywhere online, from Facebook to Twitter and even to Snapchat. Within the recent election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, there was an intense amount of pressure put on young adults through social media for who they would be voting for. If, per say, a young adult posted a tweet that supported Trump, almost instantly they would receive hate mail or vulgar responses from those who disagreed with him (Sanders, 2016, para. 3). This bias went both ways, and opinions were formed for young voters that had only based their choice off of what was on social media and didn’t actually research what the candidates stood for. A lot of this happened in the 2012 presidential election also, between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, although instead of social networking sites, it was more about news channels. Channels like CNN portrayed biased news towards both candidates. In the article “Across the Great Divide: How Partisanship and Perceptions of Media Bias Influence Changes in Time Spent with Media”, it elaborates more on how CNN effected voters; “Respondents who thought the media were biased against Obama spent less time with conservative media and more with liberal ones, while those who judged the media as hostile to Romney spent little time with liberal and neutral media” (Kaye &
(Turner and Killian 1987) cited in (Diani 1992, p. 4) define social movements as a “collectivity acting with some continuity to promote or resist a change in the society or organisation of which it is part. As a collectivity a movement is a group with indefinite and shifting membership and with leadership whose position is determined more by informal response of adherents than by formal procedures for legitimizing authority”. Turner and Killian regard a social movement as a peculiar kind of collective behavior that is contrasted to regularity and institutional behavior. Additionally, Turner believes that social movements do not necessarily coincide with movement organisations, although these organisations can carry out a large part of the movement tasks and it is often help to control and speak for movements (Diani 1992).
Presently, two hundred million users send upward of 140 million messages per day, 140-character musings studded with misspellings, slang, and abbreviations. Moreover, it includes harsh truths, memes and also lies. But it has become the most important public sphere for a global, inclusive audience. Therefore, social media sphere like twitter that has often been discredited or not valued as real public engagement has actually transformed itself into the most global, inclusive public sphere where the public is able to engage — whether truthfully or not — and to become more aware and reflective. The public informs the state and especially in a situation where the public is as polarized as in the case of the 2016 American elections, social media especially twitter can be a tool by which the public can still engage with each other to be better
The main aim of this report is to analyze the impacts of changes in the media concerning the societal and individual view of politics and politicians. The report also describes significant milestones in mass media since the year 1960 and examines the impact of mass media on how people think politically. The report then considers the effect of technological advancements in mass media and the effect on the results of elections. The use of mass media has increased over the last fifty years in that it is a primary medium through which supporters of various campaigners share their ideas and views concerning politicians and different political parties. Through social media, behaviors and performance of several activists have brought
Safranek, Rita. 2012. The Emerging Role of Social Media in Political and Regime Change. s.l. : Proquest, 2012.
Hashtag activism has become a phenomenon and it’s impacting the governments of various countries in a big way. In the past we 've see Popular hashtags on twitter like #OccupyWallstreet, #Kony2012 and a recent one #JusticeForTrayvon. The #Bringbackourgirls campaign is still being talked about on twitter at the moment. As simple as the hashtag might be, it has generated a lot of buzz. Young Nigerians are more active in using social media tools compared to older Nigerians. “Some of these activities are more likely to be pursued by younger social media users compared with the social media users who are ages 50 or older” (Pew Research, 2012). The older Nigerian users still tend to follow the traditional method of getting their opinions heard by the government. They use social media mainly to interact with family and friends. The younger users are more tech savvy than the older generation. Some Nigerians, mostly the older users of social media questioned the hashtag, saying that sitting at home behind laptops and mobile devices cannot institute any impact on the government or bring the girls back in any way. The older generation still believe in the traditional method of reaching the government by signing petitions and send postcards to the government. In my opinion, This method is old-fashioned. Combining these social media tools like twitter & Facebook with the traditional method is more efficient in