Social Media and Politics

Social Media and Politics

Social media is a crucial tool of communication today, and it is perceived as a means that of communicating with a mass audience in a manner that grants it the name an agenda-setting tool in a democratic society. The powerfulness of social media has been witnessed on various accounts, but the most compelling moments are when social media is used to push political agendas. It then poses the question concerning the safety, falsity, and truth in the messages that the mass audience consumes on social media platforms, and at the same time, the impact they have on the opinion of the targeted audience. American politics has always been a significant event that pulls not only the attention and support of the American citizens, but also the worldwide audience who participate either passively or actively. In turn, this sets the agenda of this essay paper, which will discuss the role that social media has played in promoting hostility between people of differing opinions, particularly associated with politics.

The selected articles for analysis in this essay are “Inside the Russian effort to target Sanders supporters — and help elect Trump” by Michael Kranish, “The Bernie Bros have turned dangerous in their terrifying witch hunts” by Kevin D. Williamson, and “A conservative gun rights activist was tailed off campus by a swarm of mocking protesters” by Hannah Knowles.

The one key thing that is evident in the selected articles is the growing animosity between the Democrats and Republicans and how the media has played a key role in creating division between opposing ideas among Americans. It is clear that the three news stories revolve around antagonisms in politics and how the key actors have taken on social media to influence the mindsets of the targeted audience. In the previous American election that ended up with Hillary Clinton losing the presidency seat to Donald Trump, it was always argued that Russia played a key role in the loss encountered by Clinton. It is interesting to acknowledge the fact that the influence of American politics extends beyond the country’s borders. Kranish explained that many of the Twitter accounts that were used to show support to Bernie Sanders were traced to Russia, and their role was to help Americans antagonize former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (web). In turn, this corrupted the thoughts of many Clinton’s supporters who either did not vote or gave their votes to Donald Trump.

The same issue is captured on the influence of media in promoting political ideologies, especially those aimed at creating opposition. Nonetheless, promoting political ideologies have often been characterized by harassing the opposition, and sometimes even the supporters of the opposing parties. Williamson noted that David Klion, a Democrat, used his Twitter platform to threaten fellow Democrats against supporting the opposition for the consequence would be getting blacklisted, and it is this that created a platform for a revolution inspired by Sanders (Web). Just like Michael Kranish in his article highlighted it, it is evident here that political activists are taking to social media as the most effective way of rallying people to support their political ideologies. It then indicates that social media is a platform that has encouraged the use of the right to speech, but that also allows people to misuse their privilege in pushing for agenda mainly through the fear concept. It thus goes back to the targeted audience and how they respond to the message that they are continuously consuming and that alters that which they believe in regarding the ideas that they support.

The pattern of using social media and media in general as an agenda-setting tool is no longer limited only to the big names in politics. Instead, it has also created a platform of the next politicians who emulate those in position to promote unlimited free speech to campaign for their ideas. One of the common names associated with this is Kaitlin Bennet, dubbed the gun girl. Bennet mainly built her followers through the social media platforms, and this has been mostly with her controversial support of the Conservatives (web). However, unlike the previous cases, most of her ideas were met with opposition, especially in her real-life visits to different universities around the country. Therefore, this highlights the fact that social media is an effective tool in campaigning for ideologies and this is mainly because many people rely on social media as their source of information regarding current events that affect their lives.

In conclusion, politics continue to affect the way people interact with each other and ideas at their disposal. Social media has become the new medium of communication because of its capacity to influence the mass audience and their political ideas. The selected articles capture the idea that social media can be used in various circumstances and with various people to create opposition while antagonizing others, and this is supported by its feature of encouraging anonymity. It is thus upon the consumers of information to be aware of how they interact with the information that they consume because it can be a powerful weapon in the hands of the extremists and their agenda-setting perspective.