Gabriela Palomino

T. S.

English 1102-HON08

April 10, 2018

Social Media’s Effects On Politics

With the ever-expanding use of technology all over the globe, social media has become

the preferred platform for people to become an active participant in the political world. Before

social media was established, the population would look to televised news and newspapers for

updates and information regarding their government. Although this media allowed the public to

become informed, it lacked a way for them to respond back. With social media platforms such as

Twitter and Facebook, the public can now gather information and have the opportunity to speak

up and interact with said information. Not only are these platforms interactive, they are

accessible to everyone, regardless of their socioeconomic standing. Albeit that these impacts of

social media on politics are evident, there are also significant points that state that social media

has initiated issues such as “fake news”, bias confirmation, and the scandalization of politics.

Researchers from Monmouth University, MacArthur Research Network, and NPR will delve into

how social media has pushed for politics to become more participatory as well as determine the

things to be cognisant of when using social media to explore politics.

Every mass media platform’s goal is to spread information throughout the population.

When there is a bolded and capitalized headline on a newspaper, its purpose is to catch the

reader’s attention as well as have them establish discourse with their peers about the information.

The power to spread information rapidly and widely is a very key component of successful

political campaigns and social movements. Clay Shirky, Yale University alumni and professor of
New Media at New York University, utilizes real-life examples in which texting and social

media platforms have become a catalyst of political change. One example being the

overthrowing of the Communist Party in Moldova in 2009 when “massive protests coordinated

in part by text message, Facebook, and Twitter broke out after an obviously fraudulent election”

(Shirky 29). Shirky explains this phenomenon by stating that these platforms allow

communication to become more participatory by ensuring greater access to information, more

opportunities to engage in public speech, and a greater ability to take collective action. Shirky

concludes that “these increased freedoms can help loosely coordinated publics demand change”

(29).

Professors of political science at the University of Chicago, Cathy Cohen and Matthew

Luttig, state that the reason why social media is more accessible is due to the fact that apps like

Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram can be easily and freely downloaded on a phone, tablet, or

laptop. Their research with the MacArthur Research Network on Youth and Political

Participation (YPP), a network of scholars from across the country focused on youth engagement

in participatory politics, showed that “young people from socioeconomically disadvantaged

households are more likely to get their political information from new online media sources than

young people from households with more abundant resources” (Cohen and Luttig). This

determines that social media aids in making politics more participatory and does not marginalize

those with fewer socioeconomic sources.

Although it holds true that social media has the power to spread information like wildfire,

due to its accessibility, and guide successful political action, the information that is being passed

on to the masses by the masses can be misled. This spreading of misinformation has been coined

as “fake news” and is defined as a “type of yellow journalism or propaganda that consists of
deliberate misinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional print and broadcast news media or

online social media” that uses “sensationalist, dishonest, or outright fabricated headlines to

increase readership, online sharing, and Internet click revenue” (“Fake News”). Monmouth

University Polling Institute sponsored and conducted a poll from March 2nd to the 5th of 2018

that asked questions such as “Do you think some traditional major news sources like TV and

newspapers ever report fake news stories, or not?” and “How much are social media sites like

Facebook and YouTube responsible for the spread of fake news – are they mostly responsible,

are they partly responsible but other media sources are more responsible, or are they not at all

responsible?” (“‘Fake News’ Threat to Media”). These questions were asked by phone to a

national random selection of 803 English speaking adults, ages 18 and older, with the purpose of

determining how cognisant a portion of the American population is of “fake news”. According to

the poll results, nearly 9-in-10 Americans believe that “outside groups are trying to plant fake

news stories on social media sites like Facebook and YouTube” and that 86% of the public

believe that “online news websites also report fake news, which is up slightly from 80% in

March 2017” (“‘Fake News’ Threat to Media”). With these results, Monmouth University was

able to extrapolate that the majority of the public believes that social media is “just one cog that

keeps the fake news wheel turning” and that they are not doing enough to stop this spreading of

misinformation.

While the interviews for the poll by Monmouth University were conducted before the

recent stories of Cambridge Analytica’s data mining of Facebook user profiles, it is important to

note the distrust that this event has brought upon people when using social media outlets to

gather information about political issues and discussing them. Kevin Granville, senior staff editor

of The New York Times, explains this event by stating that “Cambridge Analytica, a political
data firm hired by President Trump’s 2016 election campaign, gained access to private

information on more than 50 million Facebook users. The firm offered tools that could identify

the personalities of American voters and influence their behavior” (“Facebook and Cambridge

Analytica”). The distrust that the public now has on using Facebook as a forum for politics has

reflected on Facebook’s stock which has “plunged about 16% since March 16th” (Deagon).

Likewise, reporter and key member of NPR’s election unit, Sam Sanders, states that

Facebook’s News Feed, which is how most users see content through the app and site, is “more

likely to prominently display content based on a user's previous interests” and “it conforms to his

or her political ideology” (“Did Social Media Ruin”). This reinforces the sense of polarization in

the political atmosphere by creating an echo chamber which is a “metaphorical description of a

situation in which beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a

closed system” as described by Wikipedia. Along with influencing and strengthening their users

behaviors, Sanders also points out the fact that Facebook allows the spreading of scandalized

news which in turn makes political campaigns less about policy and more about everything else.

Sanders acquired information from Talkwalker, a social media analytics company, to prove that

platforms like Facebook are scandalizing the news by stating that “the top three political themes

across social media platforms during the past year were Trump's comments about women,

Clinton's ongoing email scandal, and Trump's refusal to release his tax returns” (“Did Social

Media Ruin”).

Social media platforms have revolutionized how the public interacts with politics and

alike most things, these platforms are beneficial if the public is educated on how to use it

properly. The things to be cognisant of when using platforms such as Facebook or Twitter is the

phenomenon of “fake news” and echo chambers. Being educated in these two phenomenon allow
publics to become involved in the political world through platforms that are accessible, free, and

full of opportunities to demand change without the worry of sharing incorrect information or

becoming polarized.
 Works Cited

Cohen, Cathy J., and Matthew D. Luttig. “How Social Media Helps Young People - Especially

Minorities and the Poor - Get Politically Engaged.” The Washington Post, WP Company,

9 Sept. 2016,

www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/09/09/how-social-media-helps-y

oung-people-especially-minorities-and-the-poor-get-politically-engaged/?noredirect=on&

utm_term=.412b1ce6629a.

Deagon, Brian. “Facebook Stock Hit by Cambridge Analytica Data Scandal.” Investor's Business

Daily, Investor's Business Daily, 9 Apr. 2018,

www.investors.com/news/technology/facebook-data-scandal-risks-to-stock/.

“Echo Chamber (Media).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Feb. 2018,

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_chamber_(media).

“'Fake News' Threat to Media; Editorial Decisions, Outside Actors at Fault | Monmouth

University Polling Institute | Monmouth University.” Monmouth University Polling

Institute, 2 Apr. 2018,

www.monmouth.edu/polling-institute/reports/monmouthpoll_us_040218.

“Fake News.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news#Definition.

Granville, Kevin. “Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: What You Need to Know as Fallout

Widens.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 19 Mar. 2018,

www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/technology/facebook-cambridge-analytica-explained.html

Sanders, Sam. “Did Social Media Ruin Election 2016?” NPR, NPR, 8 Nov. 2016,

www.npr.org/2016/11/08/500686320/did-social-media-ruin-election-2016.

Shirky, Clay. “The Political Power of Social Media: Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political
Change.” Foreign Affairs, vol. 90, no. 1, 2011, pp. 28–41. JSTOR, JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/25800379.