Social Media and Politics Learning objectives Learning objectives include an understanding of the fo

Social Media and Politics Learning objectives Learning objectives include an understanding of the fo

Social Media andPolitics
Learning objectivesLearning objectivesinclude an understanding of the following:• The role of social media in democracy• The role of social media in advancingpolitical reforms• How social media create polarization
IntroductionSocial Media arenow a central component of democracy. The media are increasingly associatedwith political organizing, elections campaigns, accountability, and generally amore engaged citizenry. Social media are a dominant platform through whicheveryday citizens can share, organize, and communicate their ideas. Peopleregularly use the media to acquire information about leaders and public policyrelated areas like the environment, education, health and so on. Many public offices now have websites thatinclude social media functions in their communication with the public.Collectively, social media provide a public sphere where individuals caninteract with likeminded people on political issues and provide criticism andsupport for leaders. However, while social media platforms make many issuesaccessible to increasingly large groups, the media have the potential to createpolarization. Specifically, many blogs are quite subjective while some forms ofmedia promote hatred and intolerance. Additionally, it is also difficult toexamine the extent to which social media really alters public opinion as moreresearch is needed. Lastly, questionsremain on how much time users are prepared to devote their time on the socialmedia for political problems.
Social Media andElectionsPopular socialnetworks have transformed the use of the internet as a political tool fordemocratic transitions. Barack Obama’s historic in 2008 win was attributed to anew media strategy inspired by popular networks such as MySpace and Facebook.The campaign’s website My.BarackObama.com, allows supporters to join localgroups, create events, sign up for updates and set up personal fund-raisingpages. The campaign was spearheaded by Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook.The social networks helped Obama raise more than two million donations of lessthan $200 each (Stelter, 2008). This success was based on huge investments onsocial media. The campaign spent $3 million on online advertising that targetedpotential voters and online tools providing details of voting locations(Stelter, 2008).
Similarly, socialmedia was extensively used in Canada’s 2011 elections. The elections weredubbed the “social media elections†or “election 2.0.†Harris (2011) observedthat the social media served as “a one-stop shopping for parodies, speechremixes, gotcha moments, unconventional ads, and attacks so fiery, they riskscorching your computer monitor.†Two “votemob” videos simultaneously held spots in the Top 10 on YouTube. Asatirical video juxtaposing a Harper speech with an address by Star Wars’ evilEmperor Palpatine drew more than 114,000. The University of Guelph’s “votemob” videos were viewed more than 33,000 times (Harris, 2011). Critics ofthe Harper Government also took to other forms of amateur production to expresstheir disapproval of Conservative policies, from fake TWitteraccounts(@làytonsmustache, @ThePMSaidSo) to digitally produced comics (Reilly,2011). Out of the above, amateur video garnered significant attention from bothviewers and critics alike.
Social Media andCitizen ParticipationIn recent years,social media forums have been used as avenues for encouraging civilparticipation in public policies.Lawrence Lessig, a professor at the Harvard Law School illustrates howsocial media could be used to ‘fix’ the U.S. Congress and to organize aconvention to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution (Taske & Plude,2011). Lessig’s site www.fixcongressfirst.org contains a digital strategic planand www.callaconvention.com allows individuals to find and support an event intheir area or plan an event of their own. An additional sitehttp://convention.ideascale.com allows individuals to submit ideas forconstitutional amendments browse recent ideas and vote on them. As users submittheir ideas, the online community discusses and votes for them, and the bestideas move to the top.
Social media arealso used to initiate conversations. The usage of social media in recentprotests and calls for reform in Egypt and Libya were instrumental in garneringinternational attention. One illustration of the prevalence of social media isillustrated by a book co-edited by an Egyptian-British activist Nadia Idle andAlex Nunns. The book titled Tweets from Tahrir consists of Tweets from the 18days of uprising in Egypt located in Tahrir Square in Cairo. At the launch ofthe book in Cairo, Idle, noted that what had happened on Twitter was “soincredible and inspiring” that they were compelled to document how peopleusing the microblogging site had been reporting about the revolution (Cambie,2012). Tweets from Tahrir demonstrates how storytelling is changing becausevoices of main characters now become integral parts of a story and authors inmany ways facilitate story telling process.
In Syria, whereinternational media has been barred, much of the exposure of the protests hastaken place through social media. A cursory look at YouTube provides manyvideos reflecting violence against civilians in the country. In this way socialmedia is being used to uncover repressive actions by governments on civilians. Similarly,the viral film “Kony 2012†created by Invisible Children Inc. Short film tocreate awareness on Joseph Kony, a war criminal from Uganda who has beenaccused of recruiting children for war and other war crimes reveals of over 89million hits on YouTube.Social media havebecome powerful tools for political activists around the world, giving people away to coordinate protests and quickly spread word of setbacks, victories orother developments in campaigns. “Smart mobs†of activists, brought to demonstrationsby text messages, have also led to political change in the Phillipines andUkraine (Zuckerman, 2007). In 2001, SMSmessages about political corruption helped turn the tide against PresidentJoseph Estrada in the Phillipines, and led to SMS-organized street protests andEstrada’s eventual ouster. SMS messages in Ukraine were instrumental inmobilizing tens of thousands of young demonstrators in the streets of Kiev inlate 2004 to protest election fraud and demand a revote. To stop virally spreadingmessages, governments have ordered SMS networks shut downs e.g. in Ethiopian,Cambodia, Albania, and Iran. Twitter also blocked in Iran and China. Do youthink governments should have the power to regulate social media in such cases?Social media have alsoaided in creating transparency and accountability in public offices.Whistlestop, for example, allows individuals to track candidates’ performanceand to mobilize friends in support of candidates through social media. Can you think of similar organizations?
As seen above,social media have contributed to some democratic advancement. However, socialmedia have also been linked to group polarization. Sunstein, 2001 argues thatthe internet could be seen as a “breeding†ground for extremism. This emergeswhen like minded people deliberate without hearing contrary views. Examples ofthis occurrence include hate groups. Such groups use social networks to makequick contract with like minded individuals and to organize events.
Required ReadingsCass Sunstein.(2001). The Daily We. Is the Internet really a blessing for democracy? BostonReview. http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.php
Harris, M. (2011).Election 2.0: Web gains momentum. Average Canadians driving the campaign onYouTube.http://www2.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=937d08f1-2d95-4489-b6a7-83e38c141fec
Reilly, I. (2011).“Amusing Ourselves to Death?” Social Media, Political Satire, and the2011 Election. Canadian Journal of Communication 36, pp. 503-511
Additional ReadingsCambié Silvia.(2012). Lessons from the frontline. Communication World, pp. 28-32.
Stelter, B. 2008.The Facebooker who befriended Obama. The New York Times.
Taske, C. &Plude, F. 2011. Experiencing social media across generations. MediaDevelopment, pp. 38-41
Zuckerman, E.(2007). Mobile phones and social activism. Why cell phones may be the mostimportant technical innovation of the decade.http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/hardware/page7216.cfm?rss=1