Social Media

Social Media and Politics

Learning objectives

Learning objectives include an understanding of the following:

· The role of social media in democracy

· The role of social media in advancing political reforms

· How social media create polarization

Introduction

Social Media are now a central component of democracy. The media are increasingly associated with political organizing, elections campaigns, accountability, and generally a more engaged citizenry. Social media are a dominant platform through which everyday citizens can share, organize, and communicate their ideas. People regularly use the media to acquire information about leaders and public policy related areas like the environment, education, health and so on. Many public offices now have websites that include social media functions in their communication with the public. Collectively, social media provide a public sphere where individuals can interact with likeminded people on political issues and provide criticism and support for leaders. However, while social media platforms make many issues accessible to increasingly large groups, the media have the potential to create polarization. Specifically, many blogs are quite subjective while some forms of media promote hatred and intolerance. Additionally, it is also difficult to examine the extent to which social media really alters public opinion as more research is needed. Lastly, questions remain on how much time users are prepared to devote their time on the social media for political problems.

Social Media and Elections

Popular social networks have transformed the use of the internet as a political tool for democratic transitions. Barack Obama’s historic in 2008 win was attributed to a new media strategy inspired by popular networks such as MySpace and Facebook. The campaign’s website My.BarackObama.com, allows supporters to join local groups, create events, sign up for updates and set up personal fund-raising pages. The campaign was spearheaded by Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook. The social networks helped Obama raise more than two million donations of less than $200 each (Stelter, 2008). This success was based on huge investments on social media. The campaign spent $3 million on online advertising that targeted potential voters and online tools providing details of voting locations (Stelter, 2008).

Similarly, social media was extensively used in Canada’s 2011 elections. The elections were dubbed the “social media elections” or “election 2.0.” Harris (2011) observed that the social media served as “a one-stop shopping for parodies, speech remixes, gotcha moments, unconventional ads, and attacks so fiery, they risk scorching your computer monitor.” Two “vote mob” videos simultaneously held spots in the Top 10 on YouTube. A satirical video juxtaposing a Harper speech with an address by Star Wars’ evil Emperor Palpatine drew more than 114,000. The University of Guelph’s “vote mob” videos were viewed more than 33,000 times (Harris, 2011). Critics of the Harper Government also took to other forms of amateur production to express their disapproval of Conservative policies, from fake TWitter accounts(@làytonsmustache, @ThePMSaidSo) to digitally produced comics (Reilly, 2011). Out of the above, amateur video garnered significant attention from both viewers and critics alike.

Social Media and Citizen Participation

In recent years, social media forums have been used as avenues for encouraging civil participation in public policies. Lawrence Lessig, a professor at the Harvard Law School illustrates how social media could be used to ‘fix’ the U.S. Congress and to organize a convention to propose amendments to the U.S. Constitution (Taske & Plude, 2011). Lessig’s site www.fixcongressfirst.org contains a digital strategic plan and www.callaconvention.com allows individuals to find and support an event in their area or plan an event of their own. An additional site http://convention.ideascale.com allows individuals to submit ideas for constitutional amendments browse recent ideas and vote on them. As users submit their ideas, the online community discusses and votes for them, and the best ideas move to the top.

Social media are also used to initiate conversations. The usage of social media in recent protests and calls for reform in Egypt and Libya were instrumental in garnering international attention. One illustration of the prevalence of social media is illustrated by a book co-edited by an Egyptian-British activist Nadia Idle and Alex Nunns. The book titled Tweets from Tahrir consists of Tweets from the 18 days of uprising in Egypt located in Tahrir Square in Cairo. At the launch of the book in Cairo, Idle, noted that what had happened on Twitter was “so incredible and inspiring” that they were compelled to document how people using the microblogging site had been reporting about the revolution (Cambie, 2012). Tweets from Tahrir demonstrates how storytelling is changing because voices of main characters now become integral parts of a story and authors in many ways facilitate story telling process.

In Syria, where international media has been barred, much of the exposure of the protests has taken place through social media. A cursory look at YouTube provides many videos reflecting violence against civilians in the country. In this way social media is being used to uncover repressive actions by governments on civilians. Similarly, the viral film “Kony 2012” created by Invisible Children Inc. Short film to create awareness on Joseph Kony, a war criminal from Uganda who has been accused of recruiting children for war and other war crimes reveals of over 89 million hits on YouTube.

Social media have become powerful tools for political activists around the world, giving people a way to coordinate protests and quickly spread word of setbacks, victories or other developments in campaigns. “Smart mobs” of activists, brought to demonstrations by text messages, have also led to political change in the Phillipines and Ukraine (Zuckerman, 2007). In 2001, SMS messages about political corruption helped turn the tide against President Joseph Estrada in the Phillipines, and led to SMS-organized street protests and Estrada’s eventual ouster. SMS messages in Ukraine were instrumental in mobilizing tens of thousands of young demonstrators in the streets of Kiev in late 2004 to protest election fraud and demand a revote. To stop virally spreading messages, governments have ordered SMS networks shut downs e.g. in Ethiopian, Cambodia, Albania, and Iran. Twitter also blocked in Iran and China. Do you think governments should have the power to regulate social media in such cases?

Social media have also aided in creating transparency and accountability in public offices. Whistlestop, for example, allows individuals to track candidates’ performance and 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, social media have also been linked to group polarization. Sunstein, 2001 argues that the internet could be seen as a “breeding” ground for extremism. This emerges when like minded people deliberate without hearing contrary views. Examples of this occurrence include hate groups. Such groups use social networks to make quick contract with like minded individuals and to organize events.

Required Readings

Cass Sunstein. (2001). The Daily We. Is the Internet really a blessing for democracy? Boston Review. http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.php

Harris, M. (2011). Election 2.0: Web gains momentum. Average Canadians driving the campaign on YouTube.

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 the 2011 Election. Canadian Journal of Communication 36, pp. 503-511

Additional Readings

Cambié Silvia. (2012). Lessons from the frontline. Communication World, pp. 28-32.

Stelter, B. 2008. The Facebooker who befriended Obama. The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/technology/07hughes.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2

Taske, C. & Plude, F. 2011. Experiencing social media across generations. Media Development, pp. 38-41

Zuckerman, E. (2007). Mobile phones and social activism. Why cell phones may be the most important technical innovation of the decade. http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/hardware/page7216.cfm?rss=1