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Twitter is no longer a simple social media software

The speed of social media has exceeded people’s expectations in this era, which has attracted the attention of many people. Software like Twitter is no longer just a platform for citizens’ daily entertainment. This blog will start from the social media software Twitter to discuss how social media has affected politicians in the presidential election? Will technology change humanity?

In recent years, social media is becoming more and more important in the election campaign. Politicians have the opportunity to interact with voters on social media and mobilize voters without the interference of journalists. As a result of this, political candidates are increasingly using social media, (Kruikemeier, 2014). Such technology is not just popular with politicians, compared with the era of traditional media, citizens also get more comprehensive information about politicians from social media. Originally, twitter is a platform for discussion of current global real-time events and hot topics. Unexpectedly, this has also become a stage for politicians. Kruikemeier mentioned in his article, twitter is a platform to discuss the private lives of candidates. Unsurprisingly, political candidates often talk about their emotions, private life and professional activities on Twitter. Such behavior caters to voters discussing preferences on Twitter. It can be concluded that social media is increasingly used as a tool for political candidates to promote themselves (Golbeck, Grimes and Rogers 2010).

Among the many users of Twitter, one user is hard to ignore. Trump did not receive much attention during the early presidential election and did not report a lot of his negative news (Patterson, 2016). Maybe at that time, no one would think he could become president. And his subsequent success, in addition to his wonderful performance in the face of mainstream media, social media also showed terrible power at that time. During the 2016 U.S. election, Trump has posted many inflammatory remarks on Twitter, and his followers on Twitter have supported and defended him online for free (Wells, Shah… and Schmidt, 2016). Barbaro (2015) emphasized, Twitter became Trump's "a tool for propaganda, distraction, scoring, and attack". The turmoil caused by Trump on Twitter has become a popular trend to some extent, this behavior provides journalists with countless clues to find news (Broersma and Graham, 2012). This series of actions on Twitter are related to Trump’s final election as president.

Twitter provides a new platform for citizens to learn about politics, it can also be said to have changed the traditional political pattern to a certain extent. But will this new technology change humanity? Some further investigations on Twitter users found that, there are some interesting differences between female and male discursive strategies when using Twitter. An investigation report stated, the tweets with political content posted during the Brazilian presidential election, it is not difficult to find that male Twitter users are more inclined to use verbal commands when expressing their attitudes towards specific candidates, while female users tend to use declarative forms (Cunha, Magno, and Almeida, 2014). Even expressed on social media, there will be a clear distinction between male and female characteristics. Social media technology cannot erase the characteristics of people's personalities. But maybe social media is quietly changing some other aspects of us, but people haven’t come to remember to discover. Reference: Barbaro, M. (2015). Pithy, mean and powerful: How Donald Trump mastered Twitter for 2016. The New York Times, 5. Broersma, M., & Graham, T. (2012). Social media as beat: Tweets as a news source during the 2010 British and Dutch elections. journalism practice, 6(3), 403-419. Cunha, E., Magno, G., Gonçalves, M. A., Cambraia, C., & Almeida, V. (2014). He votes or she votes? Female and male discursive strategies in Twitter political hashtags. PloS one, 9(1), e87041. Golbeck, J., Grimes, J. M., & Rogers, A. (2010). Twitter use by the US Congress. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61(8), 1612-1621. Kruikemeier, S. (2014). How political candidates use Twitter and the impact on votes. Computers in human behavior, 34, 131-139. Patterson, T. E. (2016). Pre-primary news coverage of the 2016 presidential race: Trump's rise, Sanders' emergence, Clinton's struggle. Wells, C., Shah, D. V., Pevehouse, J. C., Yang, J., Pelled, A., Boehm, F., ... & Schmidt, J. L. (2016). How Trump drove coverage to the nomination: Hybrid media campaigning. Political Communication, 33(4), 669-676.

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The relationship between social media and political participation of citizens

This blog will discuss the relationship between social media and political participation of citizens, whether social media has changed the way citizens participate in media, and whether social media can make more citizens participate in politics and make them more concerned about politics. 

Nearly certain, lots of Twitter users know a thing or two about trump news. The president himself is a loyal twitter user. When such an important political figure frequently appears on social media and publishes a lot of information, people have to pay attention to him to a certain extent. Moreover, trump often makes some political views on twitter. When people talk about him, to some extent, they also discuss the politics related to him. A series of Trump's political performances have broken the line between entertainment and politics (Boydstun and Lawrence, 2020). Originally, social media was not a serious platform. Therefore, publishing news reports in social media, the line between entertainment and politics is becoming less clear.

By coincidence, this kind of entertainment politics is very popular with young people, and then, these digital natives are inadvertently involved in political discussions. Young people top the list when it comes to using social media to get to know the news (Gottfried and Shearer, 2016; Newman et al., 2017). So, when such an important time for election comes, the news media has an important influence on mobilizing citizens and forming voting decisions. The use of news media is increasingly occurring on social media platforms and politicians more often use platforms such as Facebook or twitter to communicate directly with voters (Ohme, 2019). The purpose is obvious, it's about getting the attention of young people. As a result, many digital natives e were affected and began to care about politics. When digital natives first took part in political voting, they will be more influenced by social media. The social media environment in which they grew up may also affect their voting decisions, thereby affecting the foundations of a democratic society (Ohme et al., 2018).

Social media sites provide a new platform for citizens to participate in political activities, social movements and civic life. In addition, social media is an important platform for the establishment of informal and formal social relations, which can improve the participation of citizens and political life. Draw lessons from Lazarfeld’s two-step flow of communication (Eveland, 2004)., Social media provides a simple way to share and discuss political issues, which helps to enhance knowledge and increase the possibility of offline political expression and participation (Boulianne, 2019). However, these are just speculations. Because, most of these studies have proven similar participatory inequalities that already exist offline( Theocharis and Lowe, 2016).

Reference: Boulianne, S. (2019). Revolution in the making? Social media effects across the globe. Information, communication & society, 22(1), 39-54. Boydstun, A. E., & Lawrence, R. G. (2020). When Celebrity and Political Journalism Collide: Reporting Standards, Entertainment, and the Conundrum of Covering Donald Trump’s 2016 Campaign. Perspectives on Politics, 18(1), 128-143. EVELAND, JR, W. P. (2004). The effect of political discussion in producing informed citizens: The roles of information, motivation, and elaboration. Political Communication,, 21(2), 177-193. Gottfried, J., & Shearer, E. (2016). News Use Across Social Medial Platforms 2016. Pew Research Center. Newman, N., Levy, D. A., & Nielsen, R. K. (2015). Reuters Institute digital news report 2015: Tracking the future of news. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Ohme, J., de Vreese, C. H., & Albaek, E. (2018). The uncertain first-time voter: Effects of political media exposure on young citizens’ formation of vote choice in a digital media environment. New Media & Society, 20(9), 3243-3265. Ohme, J. (2019). When digital natives enter the electorate: Political social media use among first-time voters and its effects on campaign participation. Journal of information technology & politics, 16(2), 119-136. Theocharis, Y., & Lowe, W. (2016). Does Facebook increase political participation? Evidence from a field experiment. Information, Communication & Society, 19(10), 1465-1486.

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What role does social media play during covid-19 pandemic?

During the SARS epidemic, worldwide internet used static websites and emails to disseminate information ahout the SARE, it’s useful but too slow. In 2002, people were more used to receive information through traditional media like newspapers or TV shows. Because information (professional information and news reporting) can't be disseminated in time, it’s possible that the lack of awareness and preparation has put medical staff at risk (Chan, Nickson… and Joynt, 2020) and most people don't know how to carry out effective prevention. Medical staff infection and public panic have become a great challenge to control the epidemic in that period. 

Eighteen years later, covid-19 have swept the globe in2020. Social media has become one of the main ways to spread information and it may be beneficial for epidemic prevention and control. Will faster information and more comprehensive reporting save humanity? In other words, human beings will be more confident in the face of covid-19?

The impact of social media is mixed. Social media provides a window for medical experts to quickly convey real information, but it also provides opportunities for some people using social media to guide public opinion, spreading false information. the spread of misinformation on social media provides a challenge with higher difficulty coefficient (Malecki, Keating and Safdar, 2020). 

However, the spread of fake news does great harm to people and make the simple things complicated. for instance, first outbreak in the United States on January 21st. two months later, The United States has become the country most affected by the epidemic on March 7th, As of April 28, The United States has more than one million confirmed cases, far more than any other country in the world. In the meantime, President trump announced‘The risk to Americans is still low and the new coronavirus is a fraud of the Democratic Party’. And then a month later, Trump, desperate to divert public attention, tweeted the new crown as "China virus". Whether it's public media or social media, the president of the United States plays the role of a clown. Trump is just a representative of many negative examples.

Although there is clear evidence that wearing masks is very effective in reducing the spread of covid-19, it is strange that not everyone accepts this fact. The reason is that, in the United States, wearing masks has become a political issue, deliberate rendering and dissemination have made the truth unacceptable. In other countries, however, wearing masks is an acceptable policy (Malecki, Keating and Safdar, 2020).

In addition, some social media are devoting their efforts to do something beneficial to the prevention and control of the epidemic. The survey results show that journalists, media outlets, and political accounts have been expended during COVID-19 in twitter. However, epidemiologists, public health officials and medical professionals occupy a very small part in Twitter and these professionals are called COVID-19 elites (Gallagher, Doroshenko … and Welles, 2020). They are trying to take advantage of the natural crowdsourcing potential of social media to increase efforts to promote public health more equitably. These experts join social media can be effective spread real information and destroy rumors. 

Social media spreads information faster, and everyone can make their own voice, but how to distinguish the true from the false has become an important problem, especially when some elites are playing clowns, many people are hurt by such information dissemination.

Reference：

Chan, A. K., Nickson, C. P., Rudolph, J. W., Lee, A., & Joynt, G. M. (2020). Social media for rapid knowledge dissemination: early experience from the COVID‐19 pandemic. Malecki, K., Keating, J. A., & Safdar, N. (2020). Crisis communication and public perception of COVID-19 risk in the era of social media. Clinical Infectious Diseases. Gallagher, R. J., Doroshenko, L., Shugars, S., Lazer, D., & Welles, B. F. (2020). Sustained Online Amplification of COVID-19 Elites in the United States. arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.07255.

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political talk on social media

Informal political discussion in the daily life of a democratic society is necessary. It shapes the citizens' view of the world (Conover & Searing, 2005; Mansbridge, 1999). Social media is changing the way people participate in politics and it’s different from traditional media. Compared with traditional media, social media not just about receiving political news, people can have timely online discussions on social media. This phenomenon is very good for the development of social media, but what will be the impact on national politics? 

Rossini offers an idea , many politically irresponsible statements on social media are harmful and damaging to democracy. On social media platforms, people can express their opinions freely. Many people's expressions and opinions are full of fun, but some people's opinions are rude, impolite and offensive. From the investigation and research findings, when users register with real information like facebook, their expression will be relatively reasonable because it’s connected to their real world. But in anonymous space (e.g., news sites, YouTube, blogs), the incidence of incivility is much higher than facebook (Halpern and Gibbs, 2013; Rowe, 2015). People are more concerned about whether their speech needs to pay a price. If they don't need to take it, they can say a lot of irresponsible words without any worries. It is worth noting that rudely talking about politics on the Internet has certain hidden dangers for democracy. (Rossini, 2020) Perhaps all social media users should use their real names especially when social media user participating in political discussions.

There's another category of people that often appear on social media, they have their own opinions on many events. Some people express their views on entertainment news or sports news, and many people agree with it. People call them internet celebrity. However, when some people are active in social media news and political information, this has to be alerted. Because these opinion leaders in social media have the potential to be influential in shaping the political attitudes and behaviors of their online peers (Weeks, Ardèvol-Abreu and Gil de Zúñiga, 2017). When these social media opinion leaders spread their values and beliefs with violence, injustice, and democratic sabotage, it will have a very negative impact on some users, which may make them think and discuss politics in a wrong or negative way. Therefore, opinion leaders who have been active in social media for a long time deserve more supervision.

As social media continues to integrate into people's lives, it’s necessary to better understand how people use social media to participate in politics. In the network environment, how does personal political influence form is also essential. As more people discuss, share, consume and produce political information, finally, these behaviors have an important impact on political participation, the cognition of opinion leadership, the attempt of political persuasion and the final democratic process (Weeks, Ardèvol-Abreu and Gil de Zúñiga, 2017). At the same time, social media is a platform for discussion in a relatively free atmosphere, but it should not be a violent, impolite vent window.

References:

Conover, P. J., & Searing, D. D. (2005). Studying ‘everyday political talk’in the deliberative system. Acta politica, 40(3), 269-283.

Halpern, D., & Gibbs, J. (2013). Social media as a catalyst for online deliberation? Exploring the affordances of Facebook and YouTube for political expression. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(3), 1159-1168.

Mansbridge, J. (1999). Everyday talk in the deliberative system. In S. Macedo (Ed.), Deliberative politics: Essays on democracy and disagreement (pp. 1–211). Oxford University Press. Rossini, P. (2019). Disentangling uncivil and intolerant discourse in online political talk. Rowe, I. (2015). Civility 2.0: A comparative analysis of incivility in online political discussion. Information, communication & society, 18(2), 121-138. Weeks, B. E., Ardèvol-Abreu, A., & Gil de Zúñiga, H. (2017). Online influence? Social media use, opinion leadership, and political persuasion. International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 29(2), 214-239.

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When a president falls in love with social media

A famous person is ridiculed and sarcastic in news reports, and many authoritative media call him a “clown”. These news reports about trump, some are entertainment news, some are political news, some are positive reports, some are negative reports. Given the results of the vote, maybe a lot of coverage of him was one of the key factors in his victory. As for the positive reports or negative reports, they have played a role in helping.These news reports about trump, some are entertainment news, some are political news, some are positive reports, some are negative reports. Given the results of the vote, maybe a lot of coverage of him was one of the key factors in his victory. As for the positive reports or negative reports, they have played a role in helping. 

One question, how did he get such high media exposure?

One of the answers is that Trump and his team are proficient in the mixed activities of traditional media and digital media. It will help him gain a favorable position in the constituency (Wells, Shah, Pevehouse, Yang … and Schmidt, 2016) Through social media, Trump spent so little money in the first three months of his campaign, but he was easily and firmly at the top of the Republican primary. He relied on a successful twitter strategy to succeed. There is no doubt that social media played a very important role in that period. In United States, the trump campaign has brought together extraordinary forces from companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Google and twitter. The purpose is obvious, expanding his influence in the election campaign. At the same time, companies such as Microsoft, Facebook, Google and twitter are also actively seeking political business to generate revenue (Kreiss and McGregor, 2018).

He only had 4.4 million twitter followers in October 2015 and he can be "mentioned" 6.3 million times in two months. Trump's success in twitter is largely due to his media team and he has often used the talent and expertise of companies like Facebook, twitter and Google (Kreiss and McGregor, 2018). The result of this is that he was been talked about endlessly on twitter.

However, after 2016 US presidential election, more attention has been paid to the issue of fake news. Coincidentally, what the president often does and excels at is making and spreading fake news. According to a survey: 1)62 percent of us adults get news on social media (Gottfried and Shearer, 2016); 2) The most popular fake news story was more popular than the mainstream news stories (Silverman, 2016). The combination of these evidences, some commentators believe that Trump was elected president in part because of the wide spread of these fake news (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017).

Four years later during COVID-19 spread period, Trump and his team in social media is still active. However, Fake news can't help him win the presidential election again, meanwhile Trump's strange remarks in the media did not solve the problem of the epidemic. A national survey shows the attitude of the American people to the epidemic (Jamieson and Albarracín, 2020): 1) The CDC exaggerated the danger posed by the virus to hurt President Trump (19% saying probably or definitely true); 2) the US government created the virus (10%); and 3) the Chinese government created the virus (23%). By inference, social media (e.g., Facebook) and traditional media (e.g., Fox News) coverage had an impact on people's beliefs (Romer and Jamieson, 2020). These beliefs are negative from all angles. Trump's speech on these media platforms did not bring positive effects to the epidemic prevention and control. Sadly, the spread of these fake news leads to the uncontrollable epidemic situation and puts more lives in danger.