A number of research studies have been conducted on the influence of social media ( (facebook, twitter, etc.) to young people’s political activeness nowadays. Many theories have been used to examine this issue and to explain the observed phenomenon. This means different aspects of examination from the previous studies on mainstream media (newspaper, broadcast, etc.) discourse to study the effects of social media on what kinds of political issues young people are thinking of. This study will try to examine how does social media’s coverage of political issues affect the political participation among young people between age 18 to 25, and especially how do the speeches of opinion leaders on social media affect people’s opinion and activeness on politics? A mixed methodology of survey research and content analysis will be applied to analyze the major context of this research. By redefining social media and participation, Effing et al pointed out that with the growth of social media, “politicians and government could create opportunities for political participation: enabling, engaging and empowering followers for various benefits.” (p. 30）Nevertheless, their field study showed a results contradicting their prediction, which indicated that “use of social media does not always result in a more effecitve political campaign” (p. 32）. Based on this result, they set agenda for future studies: further exploration on how social media can be implemented to increase political participation, and what are the design principles of social media strategy to increase political participation. The reflection of these two questions can be incorporated into discussion of my research as my research proposal raises the questions of agenda setting and framing strategies, as an implementation of social media to increase political
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
Over the past decade, there has been a considerable debate about the effect of social media on individuals and societies. In fact, social media has become inseparable part of our life. It is not a new thing and has various forms. It emerged in the late seventies and the early eighties with the emergence of USENET, Bulletin Board System, AOL. In around 1994, private internet service providers came with new technology revolution in the major cities of the USA. This gave a golden chance to the millions of people to come online and gave them the access to the internet. This era was the dawn of the social media. This gave birth to various online social sites like classmate.com, P2P, Napster, Sixdegree, Friendster, Myspace, LinkendIn, etc. There
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...
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.
Though social media has many positives, it serves to be helpful for low risk activism but may be unfavorable for high risk activism.
Social media has changed the way that people interact with one another for the rest of time. People can use social media to share their lives, opinions, and more importantly their political views. Some of the most popular social media platforms are Facebook, where one can post their own thoughts along with pictures and video, Twitter, where one posts short messages, Instagram, where one posts pictures along with captions, Tumblr, where one can post a variety of different media, and Snapchat, where one can share videos and picture with their friends for a short amount of time. Now that people are able to share whatever they would like on the internet, some have used this as a way to spread political initiatives through these platforms. Social
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
José Marichal presents a clear understanding of Facebook's impact on political processes which also consist of an understanding on how Facebook's architecture of disclosure shapes the construction of individuals political identities by drawing users further into their preselected social networks. Based on multiple disciplines and a total of 250 ethnographic analysis Facebook political groups, he explains how Facebook's emphasizes on social connection impacts key dimensions of political participation such as, mobilization, deliberation, and attitude formation. In this essay I will present the comparisons argued by Marichal, showing the relationship between both the narrative and Facebook and the narrative and politics. I will also explain the correlation between Marichal argument and Benson's.
The study will ask individuals questions about the economic and political aspects of society, as well as society in general. They will be asked whether they gained this perception through their parents, friends, television, or social media. For those who were influenced by social media, they would be asked how often that they use social media. They would also be asked if they perceive these attributes of society, as well as society in general, to be either positive or negative. They would also be asked how strongly do they perceive society to be this way, how long they have had this perception, and what could be done to change it. Most importantly, the individuals will be asked how much of their perception of society can be attributed towards social media. It will help sociologists and the people of society to get a better understanding of where young people get much of their behaviors and attitudes towards certain things. It will also help them to understand, why young people think the way that they do about these specific things. Overseers of these young people can see if the perception of these young people is something that needs to be changed, or they can see if these young people have possibly caught on to something worth looking
Today’s society has become a tech savvy world. Many people in society depend on social media. There are many different types of social media like Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Instagram, but recently Twitter has been the most productive social media site. With Twitter you can express yourself, share opinions with others, and follow any Twitter account user. Twitter was invented in 2006, and now has over 500 million registered Twitter users around the world. Today, Twitter is the most popular social media site that allows you to stay in the loop. Through youth engagement in politics, communicating, and campaigning, politicians use Twitter to their advantage. Politicians can benefit from the use of Twitter if it is used effectively.
Since Lawless and Fox’s study is the first of its kind, there is no way to measure whether young people have ever been interested in politics. Thus, there is no foolproof way to compare current young people to young people in the past. According to a study done by the Pew Research Center, about 10% of Americans are “political bystanders” (Gao), meaning that they are not registered to vote and do not participate in politics in any way. 38% of these individuals are under 30 years old. This pattern is not completely unusual. As individuals age, there is increased political interest. This change is most likely because political legislation tends to affect older individuals more. For most young people, politics feels like a distant, irrelevant system. Therefore, if a large number of young Americans aren’t even voting, it is fairly unsurprising that they also don’t want to run for political office. However, there is a silver lining. In their survey, Lawless and Fox asked young Americans to rank the importance of keeping up with news and current events. 71% of young people considered “keeping up with current events” (Lawless and Fox 37) important. This statistic is reassuring, as maintaining an understanding of the news typically spurs interest on particularly controversial topics. This interest could incite passion for a topic or a
Many studies have analyzed the impact that Facebook exerts on political involvement. One study was conducted on the Congressional midterm election day of 2010, when over sixty million users on Facebook received a special message encouraging them to vote. These users observed messages at the top of their news feed pointing to the nearest poll places, offering a place to select “I Voted,” and displaying a list of their friends who had already voted. Two smaller groups, with roughly six-hundred thousand people each, were the control groups. One group was given voter-encouragement messages without reference to the behavior of Facebook friends. The other did not receive any voting-related messages. The researchers also analyzed the voting behavior of 6.3 million subjects using records available to the public. The study found that “the Facebook social message increased turnout directly by about 60,000 voters and indirectly through social media contagion by another 280,000 voters, for a total of 340,000 additional votes” (Bond et al, 5). Therefore, online political messages do contribute to a visible difference in voting behavior. Facebook, as a specific source of entertainment, can be used to positively impact voter
From the words of United States President Barack Obama "Call your members of Congress. Write them an email. Tweet it using the hashtag #My2K." (Coffee). Social media has played an increasing and larger part in today's government. Social media has the power to influence elections and connect the people to the policy makers in new ways.
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
Social media can impact a life of an individual at many levels. On social media, each individual has the power to be influential and important. There is a freedom of expression on soci...