How is social media being used during election campaigns?

How is social media being used during election campaigns?

The 2012 United States Election saw huge youth voter participation. Unexpectedly, it actually increased from 2008, whereas pundits had expected the surge of optimism in 2008 to not be seen again. Barack Obama is widely seen as technologically savvy, thus airing a sense of legitimacy to social media campaign's stirrings of voter motivation and engagement. This also applied on a wider scale to the Democratic Party and their many State and Federal legislative elections. 

Political campaigns encouraged sharing of their stories to motivate friends. Many gaffes and particular statements were seized upon by either presidential campaign to discredit the other, such as Romney's "We Built This" campaign. The Barack Obama Tumblr was a interesting demonstration of this, capitalizing on popular trends like GIFs and Memes. The Mitt Romney campaign also had a Tumblr but it was significantly less popular. 

The election saw Voter intimidation accusations in US. Several states had passed Voter ID laws in the run-up to the election that were seen as being of particular disadvantage to minorities who would likelier vote Democratic then Republican. Some of these laws were found unconstitutional. But even where the laws weren't in place some pollsters and billboards informed voters they were. Voters were encouraged in social media campaigns to know their rights and not be intimated by alleged voter ID laws. It was also made important to know that anyone in line could get to vote even after the deadline closed.

News coverage now devotes a notable amount of time to social media perspectives on politicians and political issues. Often they may try and spin certain reactions as predictive of how the whole nation felt about something one way or the other. Many critics of Fox News have said they significantly over-exaggerated social disapproval for Obama and expected a Romney landslide victory.  

Kevin Collier for Mashable, and writers at other outlets, have expressed interest in the fact that since the election Mitt Romney's Facebook page has been rapidly losing "likes" and Barack Obama's has been rapidly gaining them, thus showing perhaps people go with what they think most other people believe in. Mashable has also pondered how much of the Democrats’ sweeping victory this election was due to Facebook and Tumblr fuelled momentum. Studies have shown that friends posting about voting on Facebook have increased young voters to become motivated to vote themselves, and young voters lean strongly democratic and especially favourable to Obama. The Obama campaign had major coverage and discussion on Tumblr which could have influenced people’s opinions significantly. It looks however that until more of American society actively discusses their politics social media cannot be a truly reliable predictor of election outcomes: most Americans are either apathetic about politics or do not participate in social media.

Sree Sreenivasan writing for CNET highlights the rapid changes in the social media landscape that have occured since the 2008 election. Tumblrs are made around memes and highlight gaffes. Twitter is now very prominent, whereas in 2008 it was still new and not widely understood.  Facebook did not have the “Like” button, subscribing people to updates on topics they were interested in. These all have huge reach and influence among the modern electorate.

References
 Fernando Alfonso III , Mashable, http://mashable.com/2012/11/08/obama-tumblr-election-day/

Kevin Collier , Mashable,  http://mashable.com/2012/11/10/mitt-romney-is-losing-847-facebook-friends-per-hour/

Alex Fitzpatrick, Mashable, http://mashable.com/2012/11/07/social-media-election/

Rebecca J. Rosen, Mashable, http://mashable.com/2012/11/08/facebook-democrats-upper-hand/

Sree Sreenivasan, CNET, http://news.cnet.com/8301-33619_3-57545951-275/8-social-media-changes-since-the-2008-elections/

 

 

 

What impact are social media having on political protest and activism around the world?

What impact are social media having on political protest and activism around the world?

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I believe Social Media has the potential to help further democracy in totalitarian states. Twitter is famous for having been used extensively in Iranian political protests some years ago. Youtube can spread videos of statements by politicians and gaffes that mainstream TV may not cover. It can also hold unlimited recordings of political events. On the other hand, everyone with an internet connection getting to voice an opinion can have negative effects on social discourse and engagement. In America, there is a rampant amount of political conspiracy blogs and fringe activists who work to cloud up issues and get attention. There is less of a barrier to getting an opinion out there, less financial and cooperative establishment necessary. This can be seen to have had both negative and positive results. 

According to Malcolm Gladwell, writing for the New Yorker, Social Media may not establish "strong-tie connections". He makes a convincing argument in my view. However I think he misses how information and resources can be spread more easily by activists, who may not necessarily have in real life as easy a meeting place as a church on Sunday. (Gladwell, 2010) It must be considered that totalitarian regimes in some foreign countries are less open to freedom of speech in the public then America ever was even at its darkest heights of racism: African-Americans may have faced great hostility towards their protests from society, but their government did not violently target them.

Paul Mason, writing about topics of revolution and social media for The Guardian, makes further good points, obliquely: Social Media can help bring worldwide attention and support to an issue, which could motivate pressure from their governments onto others. The ability to gain a mass audience is something that upheavals of earlier eras would find much less immediate.  (Mason, 2012) Gladwell addresses this as something that ultimately won’t help change anything for the people revolting, who need to change their environment from the outside in. I think external pressure can be a huge motivator, however.

Hoaxes can spread like wildfire on the internet. Fake stories and photoshopped images can easily go viral and never be truly corrected to everyone who saw them as corrections don't get as much attention. It is pertinent that anyone who relies on Internet journalism for their political updates checks their sources and verifies the legitimacy of what they are presented with as best they can.

The niche ways in which social media are being used for political revolutions can put a strain on services not intended for such a purpose. There was some anger over Google Reader losing its sharing functionality in the launch of Google+, it had been used as way of sharing resources that was not obvious to the authorities, but Google+ would be. Twitter, still in its infancy at the time, crashed often at heights of activity often around the time Iranian protestors began relying on it.

I think Social Media is ultimately having a positive effect on political protests and activism in the modern world, but it should not be overstated and relied upon. Caution should be taken when investing a great deal of your energy. Look at the Stop Kony campaign: an extremely viral video, it received some criticism based on the group who made it not being a responsible enough entity for getting involved in the situation, and the video was aiming more at gaining attention then working with existing efforts to solve the problem. Kony has become forgotten about in mainstream circles: Something to keep in mind if you depend on it for your activist efforts.

Bibliography

Gladwell, Malcolm (2010) “Small Change: Why the Revolution will not be Tweeted”, The New Yorker 4th October, pp. 42-49. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell

Mason, Paul (2012) Global unrest: how the revolution went viral. The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/03/how-the-revolution-went-viral

In what way do social media afect how you communicate with your friends?

Social Media may help keep me alerted to various social events among my friends, but it means I have to sort through some information I do not need on a regular basis. Managing to cut out what information you don't need is an important trick to learn.

I have lots of old childhood and secondary school friends on Facebook. I feel eventually I will have to remove most of them, to make it managable and relevant. The ones I have remained close to, however, make it nice to interact with and stay in touch with them.

I do not frequently upload photos, but my family likes seeing them when I do.

I have made many loose friends of shared interests on Tumblr, from all around the world. I do not know them personally, but I have gotten to know and enjoy their diverse personalities and interests. In truth although I don't know them personally I feel emotionally closer to them then many of my facebook friends.

I can share what music I listen to automatically or what I watch on Netflix, the latter I make more use of.

I use Social Media a lot in my life.

I use Tumblr the most, I find the most interesting people to me on there. I use Facebook for keeping in touch with more people I know in real life, but most of what's on there is a waste of time. Social Media is more important to me for making penpals then being close to real life friends.

On Tumblr I mainly share other people's posts: typically humourous pictures, interesting links or jokes. I sometimes share to Facebook but I don't think my friends get what I'm on about.

I tend to sign up for any new service out of boredom and leave it after a while, but I regret missing out on some people who stick with one and don't move on to others.

Social Media has become pretty important, it can be used to register for governmental services now.

Facebook is filled with.....spam and nonsense to me. Nakes it frustrating to use.

Twitter is big news for journalism, though I find headlines like Presidential Debate Most-Tweeted Event in U.S. Political History kind of silly. It's less then a decade old!

Social Media feels like something much bigger then I have a handle on, but I do participate in it.

First post

Hello world. My name is Anthony O' Brien and I'm an Erasmus student doing Digital Cultures at Cardiff Met.