Social Media & Politics

This week's blog will be taking a break from artists using social media and instead we will be focusing on...politics! This week we have been learning about the influence of social media on today's politics, or more specifically, the presidential election. Ever since the 2008 presidential election, social media has become a large tool in political campaigns. Barack Obama focused his campaign on social media interaction and outreach, and was able to successfully gain a wide following on his social networking accounts, which I believe helped share his values and goals to harder to reach audiences.

Fast forward to today, where every single presidential candidate is immensely involved in using social media in their political campaigns. Today's generation are avid users and consumers of social networking websites, and in order to gain supporters, these candidates are using grassroots campaigning methods through social media by posting videos, writing statuses, posting pictures, creating hashtags (#feelthebern) and more. By using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even Snapchat, these candidates are allowing their supporters to become more involved in their campaign by reaching out on a more intimate level with their followers. For example, the candidates will hold Q & A sessions on Twitter, or even reply directly to supporters on Facebook or Instagram.

I have personally felt as though I have become dramatically more involved in this presidential election through the use of social media. I have followed presidential candidates that I am a supporter of, I share videos and news articles related to the election, I will share my own personal political views on my social media accounts, and I encourage others to become involved in politics online. By having the presidential candidates using social media constantly during their campaigns, I feel more motivated to also use these social networking websites to share my political concerns and opinions in order to feel as though I am an active participant in this presidential election.

I believe that with continued social media use in political campaigns, candidates will have a more effective outreach to the younger generation of voters, and there will be an increase in voting and political debate through sharing ideas and opinions through these social networking websites.

That's enough talk about politics for now, I look forward to returning my focus on artists in next weeks blog post! See you then!