Social Media In The 2016 Election

524 Words2 Pages

In the presidential election of 2016, one of the factors the candidates running for office used in their campaign was social media. Social media has rose as a new campaign tool. The candidates of the 2016 presidential election, Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump used social media as a means of connecting with voters. In 2016, 44% of U.S. adults reported learning about the 2016 presidential election in the past week from social media.(Pew Research Center) People also reported viewing both Donald, Bernie and Hillary’s posts on social media for new election information and news. It was stated that there were 714 tweets and 389 Facebook posts made by the candidates between the dates of May 11 and May 31, 2016. A study said that candidates …show more content…

The mass media had a large impact on the presidential election of 2016. The mass media coverage was generally very negative for both parties. The mass media was used for publicity and promoting candidates campaigns to the large and general public. In the beginning of the election, televised Republican debates placed Donald Trump front and center on the basis of polls, which assisted in influencing the nomination of Trump. Throughout the election, Donald Trump had a large amount of access to television publicity through channels like CBS and CNN. CNN had nearly wall-to-wall coverage of Trump. Trump’s television coverage was oftentimes used as a way to degrade and make allegations towards his opponent Hillary Clinton. Mass Media also influenced public opinion about candidates through reports on Trump's taxes, the Trump Foundation and other personal qualities of Trump. Some voters and Americans believed the mass media surrounding the 2016 election was biased towards Trump. Trump both benefited and suffered from the effects of mass media. A lot of the mass media coverage surrounding candidate Hillary Clinton coverage was focused on the numerous scandals related to Clinton’s emails and the Clinton Foundation. Besides personal scandals, the candidates both used the mass media coverage to publicly promote their desires and plans as president. They published their beliefs and wants publicly to all of America through the coverage. Mass media was an incredibly fast and huge way to spread information and to promote campaigns during the 2016

Open Document