Analyzing Social Media's Influence on Political Communication Today

This essay presents an opinion on the role of social media in political communication, arguing that its influence can be excessive. Using examples such as Barack Obama's successful use of social media in his campaigns, the essay explores how politicians utilize these platforms for various purposes, including promoting campaigns and discrediting opponents. It raises concerns about the effectiveness and potential manipulation within political communication through social media, highlighting the spread of misinformation and the impact of computational propaganda through bots and fake profiles. The essay further includes a series of Facebook posts discussing the issues of political communication on social media and potential solutions like public awareness campaigns and meme pages, emphasizing the need for critical evaluation of online information. Concluding with a link to a relevant research paper on fake news and social media's influence in the 2016 elections, the essay underscores the complex and evolving nature of political communication in the digital age. Desklib provides access to similar essays and resources for students.

Running head: POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Opinion Piece
Social media in political communication may be a bit too much.
It might be a little hard to believe but our everyday experiences on twitter and
Facebook are just the tip of the iceberg. The real titanic sinker is what manipulates the global
political atmospheres. Hard to believe right? Let us take a look at the US presidential
elections for an example. Barack Obama, back in 2008 literally reshaped the way social
media can be put to use. He has not left any potential gap in the use of social media. In fact, if
he was running for president for the first time nowadays, surely we would have seen his
snapchat posts go viral as well. As much as it might sound a bit off the world, it is actually a
strategy that is implemented in political public relations on a wide scale. Politicians use social
media for a variety of reasons starting from promoting their campaigns to the public to
throwing mud on their opponents. There are countless studies that has connected social media
with politics on multiple aspects. But the question that I am trying to ask is, how effective is
social media marketing when it comes to political communication? My opinion – it is a bit
too much.
Let me state why. Imagine you are a politician who has gathered quite an amount of
rep across the internet and you are planning to run as a candidate somewhere. At this crucial
moment you meet this political hotshot who plans to definitely win and outsmart any f his
opponents, including you. But he knows that the public is aware of the money laundering
scam he was involved in a couple of years ago as well as the cute flight attendant who was
seen exiting his house a couple of weeks ago. The public needs a new blood like you, but he
wants to win. So wat can he do? Go to Facebook and post something about you that will go
viral soon because his PR techie has used his SEO skills and has inserted the specific
keywords that makes the post appear high on the search rankings. A couple of hours on the
internet before you realise there’s mud on your back and by the time you remove it, half your

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followers have already seen it and by the time you justify its inaccuracy, half of that half has
shifted alliances.
That is how social media works in political communication and even though that is an
opinion in here, out there in the Kalahari of research papers and political communication
studies, a significant sand dune is formed of that aspect of studies that highlight exactly how
social media has permeated the political sphere and using the various communication
techniques has been subliminally shifting the atmosphere.
One small input before it ends. We must not be too hasty to put the entire blame on
people holding accounts on social media as well. Technology has made it possible to generate
advanced algorithmic programmes to do some of this work as well, a rather recent aspect
known as computational propaganda. It highlights the use of computationally advanced bots
and algorithms that survive on social media as fake profiles quietly increasing online follower
count, visibility and managing political sways and opinions. That must be something
interesting to look at, given that recent data suggests that about half the people on twitter are
fake.
Facebook posts
1. So I have recently heard that about the upcoming polls, there is going to be a large scale
embargo on internet access for three days. That is outrageous. First the candidate screws up
his speech by addressing the immigrant issue in the way that he did, and now to stop us from
spreading word about his wrongdoing, he wants to shut us up.
2. These social media posts regarding politics always gets the most number of views and
likes. No wonder given that they are the gatherer of crowds and people are just looking for a

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fight to erupt anywhere. We need to solve the issue of political communication through social
media and we need to do it NOW.
3. Dear Jessie, I understand that you want to solve the issue of social media ‘mediated’
political communication issue. Trust me all who are concerned, do. But how do you approach
it? You simply can’t write “let’s stop using social media for political communication” can
you?
4. Edward, I understand you point completely. No I cannot ask to stop using social media for
political communication altogether, but I can at least start by just not believing everything I
read on the internet can I not? That is what I believe we all should be trying to do in the first
place.
5. I can suggest something better. Why not use the social media to end this debate? We have
countless papers written on it, countless videos published and countless content on websites.
Can we take up the initiative to collate all of them and start a page for general awareness?
6. First of all, I admire the whole topic that is being discussed by @Jesse, @ Edward and
@Stephan. I have deep concern regarding where political atmosphere is going given the
constant mudslinging that is being done on the internet. I think a Facebook page for public
awareness is a good option. But will people even follow this page? I don’t know how much
effective it’s gonna be given that people living in their own elements just like to live in their
own elements.
7. @Marcus, good point you have raised there. What do you guys think of a meme page? Or
do you think that will go a bit too far and might actually be counterproductive?

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8. @Stephanie, I would love to admin a meme page but I personally think making a public
mockery out of this sensitive an issue should be avoided. This might just create a reverse
sentiment where the people will be targeting us rather than the issue. Hasn’t that always been
the case?
9. Yep. Let’s just start by building a community for generating awareness. We might have to
struggle a bit more to produce more authentic content, but I think we can look at publications
for a start. Therefrom we can start highlighting the issue of political communication and
discrepancy regarding that when it comes to social media, with proper sourcing of course,
just to build legitimacy. Any suggestions anyone?
10. Well, there is a good paper that I read. It’s fairly recent, targets the 2016 elections and
talks about fake news and social media has been influential in shifting the political
atmosphere. I will link it down below. I think it can be a good place to start.
https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/jep.31.2.211
It’s even titled ‘Social media and fake news in 2016 elections’.