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Want to know an equivalent social media site in China?

Thanks to: https://informationstrategyrsm.wordpress.com/2013/10/02/the-great-firewall-of-china/ 

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I came across this video on Facebook a few days ago and found it to be very eye opening. They’ve used trolling to highlight some issues with the selfie culture. Really worth the watch!

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A really great case study into the internet challenges in China. It does go for an hour but well worth the watch!

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The social media of China

Many Westerners think that because the Chinese government have put strong censorship on their internet access that they aren’t social people. It is reported, however, that Chinese people with 513 million internet users are more active on social media than any other nation (Chiu 2012). How is that so when they don’t have access to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, etc…?

Known as the copycat nation, China have taken all the good things ‘Western’ social platforms have to offer, copied it into their own version and used their innovation skills to make it even better (Linkfluence 2016). Take for example WeChat is the Chinese version of WhatsApp but with added features. WhatsApp allows users send and received individual and group messages as well as send files. WeChat does this plus send videos and image, play games, shop and make electronic payments (Keating 2016).

These copycat social media platforms have enabled the Chinese to connect to each other and as one of the largest nations in the world have quickly built up large social networks. Internal Chinese companies like TenCent own a number social media platforms and make enormous profits even though they are unknown to the Western world. In fact it is estimated that local business made upward of 900 billion Euros in 2012 from social media sources business (DLDconference 2013).

Interestingly, Chinese youth tend to use social media for more than just communicating with each, they use it to help explore and identify who they are as a person. With Chinese history showing us that many people in China lived a certain way as dictated to them, it’s easy to see how this new way of living would help them with their identity issues. They’re evolving so much that they have worked out ways to avoid some of the censorship controls placed by their government and move on so quickly that the government doesn’t have time to control the situation (Wines 2009). Check out the article below about the case of the Llama named ‘grass-mud horse’ which went viral in China where the Chinese interpretation of the word means to F*%k your mother, because they could avoid the censorship around offensive behaviour by posting an image of the grass-mud horse, it went viral and now provides a unique case study into the Chinese authoritarian system and how something elude the Governments censorship.

Image:  APC 2017, The Greatwall of China.

There are however many cases where the government has either deleted posts or event accounts for publicising political views to Westerners and giving people a bad view of China, otherwise known as the Great Firewall of China. In fact they have employed approximately 50,000 staff just to monitor and do this job alone! (The Great Firewall of China 2013).

Check out this article about accounts being deleted in WeChat for sharing their political views.

If you’re interested to find out more about the different Chinese Social platforms available, have a look at the top 10 for 2016 here.

References

Chiu, C 2012, Understanding social media in China, McKinsey & Company, viewed 20 January 2017, <http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/understanding-social-media-in-china>.

DLDconference 2013, DLD13 - How Social Media is changing China and Asia, 7 February, viewed 3 August 2016, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rG3z2ucaR6A>.

Keating, L 2016, Whats App vs WeChat vs. Line: The best messaging app to download, Tech Times, viewed 20 January 2017, <http://www.techtimes.com/articles/154614/20160429/whatsapp-vs-wechat-line-best-messaging-app-download.htm>.

Linkfluence 2016, Made in China: The world’s largest social media landscape, viewed 20 January 2016, <http://linkfluence.com/en/2016/02/12/made-in-china-the-worlds-largest-social-media-landscape/>.

The Great Firewall of China 2013, Open Democracy viewed 3 August 2016, <https://www.opendemocracy.net/china-correspondent/great-firewall-of-china>.

Wines, M 2009, A dirty pun tweaks China’s online censors, The New York Times, viewed 20 January 2017, <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/world/asia/12beast.html?_r=0>.

Image

APC 2017, The Greatwall of China, viewed 20 January 2017, <https://www.apc.org/en/node/14821>.

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An awful case of someone’s photos stolen and put on a fake account from a troll purely for the purposes of getting likes. A really interesting article if you have time to read it.

So my worst internet fears came true this week. Someone stole my photos and used them for a MEME.

If you want to learn more about my situation check out this Buzzfeed article.

Don’t forget to like, share and say amen!

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Define yourself. Social media is an opportunity to reflect your own personality and change it whenever you like. Not constrained by your own anxieties and phobias and fears. You can live on the Internet. Do what you want. Inhabit the spaces which you feel comfortable in and express yourself and your identity however you wish. So don’t let Dan decide your bio. Decide your own bios and see social media as a conduit to living your authentic self in your real life

@danisnotonfire during his live show on the 20th of September 2016 (x)

Quotes from Dan (2/?)

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Ever wondered why people feel inclined to cheat in online games? This video helps give some really great insights into the psychology behind it.

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A great video that highlights the behaviour of online gamers and the internet in general!

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Taking social gaming to the next level

Online gaming connects people from all over the world who also have similar interest (gaming), it does not discriminate on age, gender or race with gamers ranging from 10 year old American girls to 50 year old Swedish men all connecting for the same interests (University of Jyvaeskylae 2007). Since 2005, the gaming world has seen exponential growth, tripling in size and is expected to keep growing at this speed for the next 10 years (Donnell 2016).

GData 2017, Online Gaming.

So why are people becoming more interested in the online gaming world? Part of the reason is accessibility, computers and internet access have become more affordable to most societies giving more people the opportunity to connect with other people in the gaming environment (University of Jyvaeskylae 2007). As Zynga have recognised, social media has enabled many users to discover online gaming through their many other connections. The use of social media has helped gaming companies to tap into massive networks without have to establish their own which has also helped increase the number of users (Zynga 2014).

With so many users becoming addicted to online gaming, governance has been introduced to help minimise conflicts between users and create rules for users to abide by to make the playing field as even as possible. Most governance models come in the form of an End User Licence Agreement (EULA) in which the player has to accept the conditions of the games rules and code of conduct in order to participate (Playsixtyfive 2017). Any breach of these terms and the user can be evicted from the game by the governing body. Governing committees are also being formed to help monitor and punish players behaving badly as is seen in EVE Online with their Council of Stellar Management (de Zwart & Humphreys 2014).

Fandom 2017, Cheating.

Interestingly a breach on the EULA cannot only lead to being banned from the game but the user can be accountable under laws in originating country of where the game was created and be punished by physical law. Check out this article featured in the Kotaku online newspaper (a Japan based publication)

Three online gamers aged 17 and 18 were arrested by police and charged with obstruction of business in 2014 in the online game called Sudden Attacks. The users created and distributed a cheating tool as well as using the tool multiple times in the game to give an unfair advantage (Ashcroft 2014).

Whilst there aren’t many cases of online gamers being charged for misconduct online, this goes to show the level in which developers are willing to go to in order to make the environment of the games as even as possible.

References

Ashcroft, B 2014, Gamers hit with criminal charges for cheating online, Kotaku, viewed 14 January 2017, < http://kotaku.com/forget-banning-online-gamers-are-in-legal-trouble-for-1595789066>.

de Zwart, M & Humphreys, S 2014,' The Lawless Frontier of Deep Space: Code as Law in EVE Online', Cultural Studies Review, vol. 20, no. 1, pp. 77-99.

Donnell, P 2016, 5 Shocking Facts About the Growth of Online Gaming, eteknix, viewed 14 January 2017, < http://www.eteknix.com/5-shocking-facts-about-the-growth-of-online-gaming/>.

Playsixtyfive 2017, Governing Online Games, viewed 14 January 2017, < http://www.playsixtyfive.com/brief-information-on-governing-online-games.html>.

Williams, S 2015, Reasons why online games have become so popular, Newswire, viewed 14 January 2017, < https://newswire.net/newsroom/blog-post/00090357-reasons-why-online-games-have-become-so-popular.html>.

University of Jyvaeskylae 2007, How Does Online Gaming Affect Social Interactions?, ScienceDaily, viewed 14 January 2017, <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/09/070915110957.htm>.

Zynga, 2014, viewed 3 August 2016, <www.zynga.com>.

 Images

GData 2017, Online Gaming, viewed 14 January 2017, < https://www.gdata.pt/central-de-imprensa/reportagens/detalhes-de-noticias/article/cybercrime-top-games-for-10-euros>.

Fandom 2017, Cheating, viewed 14 January 2017, <http://halo.wikia.com/wiki/Cheating>.

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Put a picture on it

Did you know that people only remember 10% of what they hear and 20% of what they read? Well when it comes to visuals they remember a massive 80% of what they see (Nishadha 2016). It’s no wonder people like to take photos and videos and post them onto to Social Media for people to see.

HagenHogg 2017, Uploading, Pinterest.

Back in the day, photos were a way to preserve memories of times with close networks, but with the advancements of technology and accessibility to digital cameras and smart phones, imagery has become much more than a way to preserve the past. It’s become a way of communicating to others (Hand 2012).

With platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat publics have become more access able and have the ability to reach wider audiences. On top of that, tagging makes an image searchable, making it easier to find similar images grouped together. So what is tagging? Tagging refers to a beacon and is the means by which data is collected. Tags are used for taxonomy, a way to sort out all the data to help identify trends and to group it in the right categories. As such this means social networks are groups based on interest and the use of a tag in an image will group it with other similar images, therefore connecting people with similar interests and growing their connections (Signal 2017).

But images are not enough for some people, which is why they might turn to videos and video bloggers, YouTube thrives on this type of communication. Users have set up channels to help communicate messages and ideas to others who share similar interests (Lange 2009). For example, vlogger Felix Kjellberg, aka PewDiePie became a YouTube star with over 37 million subscribers by uploading videos of himself playing computer games. It’s reported that he earned $7.4m in 2014 as a result to the success of this videos (Ingham 2015). Check out this one of him playing Pokémon Go which had over 10m views.

The options for uploading images are enormous with so many social media platforms available for users to choose from and in 2014 it was estimated that users were uploading 1.8 billion photos a day to the internet (Edwards 2014) and in 2016 a whopping 434.1 million videos were uploaded to YouTube (Tubular insights 2017). With the way current trends are going, imagery and videos will make up the primary way to communicate to others on social media now and into the future.

 References

Edwards J, 2014, Planet Selfie: We’re now posting a staggering 1.8 billion photos every day, Business Insider, viewed 14 January 2017, < http://www.businessinsider.com.au/were-now-posting-a-staggering-18-billion-photos-to-social-media-every-day-2014-5>.

HagenHogg 2017, Uploading, Pinterest, viewed 14 January 2017, <https://au.pinterest.com/pin/457396905882200536/>.

Hand, M 2012, Ubiquitous Photography, Polity Press, Cambridge.

Ingham, E 2015, The world’s most successful Vloggers, the fees they command and why they are marketers’ best friends, Forbes, viewed 12 January 2017, <http://www.forbes.com/sites/edmundingham/2015/09/25/the-worlds-most-successful-vloggers-the-fees-they-command-and-why-they-are-marketers-best-friends/#5ea5b2992575>.

Lange, P 2009, ‘Videos of Affinity on YouTube’, in P, Snickars & P, Vonderau (eds), The YouTube Reader, National Library of Sweden, Stockholm, pp. 70-88.

Nishadha 2016, 5 amazing visual communication benefits you can’t ignore, Creatly, viewed 12 January 2017, <http://creately.com/blog/diagrams/visual-communication-benefits/>.

Signal 2017, Tag Management 101, viewed 12 January 2017, <http://www.signal.co/au/resources/tag-management-101/>.

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OMG it’s a disaster, let’s tweet about it

There are a number of case studies that show how social media highlights a crisis and in some cases is referred to as citizen journalism. Bianco (2009) notes that citizen usually help to break a story through their social media accounts such as Twitter and Facebook and tag relevant media groups to get the news out there. The media groups then amplify the story and use other person on the ground to send through information of the crisis that is evolving (Capozzi 2013).

Brun (2012) put together a research paper into how social media helped to report the #qldfloods. It was identified that the use of social media played an important part in determining what areas were most impacted by the floods. The means was established through first-hand footage being uploaded as the situation unravelled.

In 2007 a young blogger put out a call for technical help on her blog to help with a conflict in Kenya, thanks to the brilliant minds who responded to Okolloh’s blog request to build a crowd mapping tool so that authorities could determine the location of the social posts in an attempt to bring a crisis under control (Ford 2012), many other similar tools have now been established as a result.  These crowd sourcing tools have helped civilians to report live, up to date information about a crisis that is occurring. Check out some video footage loaded up on YouTube of the damage the earthquake caused.

ABCNews (Australia) 2015, Nepal Earthquake: Drone footage reveals destruction in Gorkha.

Social Media can also help to locate a person who may be missing or may very well be a suspect in a criminal case or to even help raise awareness of a disaster and requests for foreign aid. Many of you will remember the devastating earthquake that hit Nepal in 2015 that impacted over 8 million people living in the impacted region and almost 9,000 lives lost (Montgomery 2016). Social media played a large part in reporting the earthquake and the destruction it left behind. A team of technology experts put together a website ‘Quakemap.org to help source reports of damage in local areas where roads were cut off and phone lines cut, the only access they had to the outside world was through the internet. The below image show the number of people who used the site to request aid (Heanue 2015).

Heanue, S 2015, QuakeMap.

The hashtag #nepalearthquake was use on Twitter to spread images of the damages caused by the earthquake, thus resulting in many people/governments from around the world to provide financial and physical assistance to survivors (Fitzgerald 2015).

Twitter / @kashishds / #NepalEarthquake

In the wake of this disaster, it prompted Mark Zuckerberg to create a safety check tool on social media, where a person in an affected area can mark themselves as safe and will also list other friends in the areas who have either marked themselves safe or not. This tool whilst still relatively new may provide valuable information to rescue crews in the event of any future disasters in trying to locate missing persons (Beckman 2014).

As more and more tools like this become available, the more social media will play an important role in identifying and helping in crisis management.

References

ABCNews (Australia) 2015, Nepal Earthquake: Drone footage reveals destruction in Gorkha, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQr4OQPj8YI&feature=youtu.be>.

Beckman, B 2014, Facebook Safety Check connects those affected by devastating Nepal earthquake, Mashable, viewed 6 January 2017, < http://mashable.com/2015/04/25/facebook-safety-check-nepal-earthquake/#PFdX7hXVyGqI>.

Bruns, A, Burgess, J, Crawford, K & Shaw, F 2012, #qldfloods and @QPSMedia: Crisis Communication on Twitter in the 2011 South East Queensland Floods, Arc Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, pp. 7-10, viewed 3 August 2016, <http://www.cci.edu.au/floodsreport.pdf>.

Capozzi, L 2013, Crisis management in the age of social media, 1st ed.. New York, N.Y. 222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017 : Business Expert Press 2013.

Facebook 2016, SafetyCheck, viewed 6 January 2016, <https://www.facebook.com/about/safetycheck/>.

Fitzgerald, G 2015, How the media struggled in Nepal’s earthquake rescue, The Conversation, viewed 6 January 2016, <http://theconversation.com/how-the-media-struggled-in-nepals-earthquake-rescue-40970>.

Ford, H 2012, 'Crowd Wisdom', Index on Censorship, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 33-39.

Heanue, S 2015, Nepal Earthquake: How open data and social media helped Nepalese to help themselves, ABC news, viewed 6 January 2017, <http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-16/nepal-earthquake-how-open-data-social-media-helped-rebuild/6700410>.

Montgomery, K 2016, Quick facts: What you need to know about the Nepal earthquake, MercyCorps, viewed 6 January 2017, <https://www.mercycorps.org/articles/nepal/quick-facts-what-you-need-know-about-nepal-earthquake>.

Twitter 2016, #NepalEarthquake, viewed 6 January 2017, <https://twitter.com/search?q=%23NepalEarthquake&src=tyah>.

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Trolling for the greater good

CiMcCosker (2016) describes trolling as an aim to ‘embarrass, anger or disrupt’.  But there is also another type of troll who does it for amusement purposes. There are a number of trolls who have built a reputation around poking fun at others. Take James Fridman for example who puts hilariously photo shopped pictures of his victims on twitter. He has built his reputation by taking their spelling and grammar mistakes in their requests literally and recreating the photos in a comical sense.  Victims have now started sending images to him to see how funny he can make them at their own expense (Heckendorn 2016).

Young people are the most exposed to trolling as they are considered the ‘digital natives’ and on average use social media more regularly compared to older generations. This poses a serious problem with school yard bullying now taking place anytime anywhere. Danah Boyd under took some research to determine whether social media amplifies meanness and cruelty in terms of bullying. It was determined whilst in some rare cases this may have been the case, but in most cases assumptions have been made that technology makes ‘bullying more hurtful and damaging’ whilst reports indicate teens experience a higher level of stress when bullied at school (Boyd 2014).

In 2013, 12 year old school girl Rebecca Sedwick jumped to her death after receiving a bullying onslaught from two fellow students. Whilst bullying is not against the law, it was determined the behaviour of the two girls was seen as stalking and harassing both online and in person and as a result led to Rebecca taking extreme measures. The two girls were arrested and faced charges on this basis. This example shows that the lack of education around trolling and cyberbullying for young people can have a drastic effect on someone’s life but was not the sole reason that lead to the death of this young girl. A mixture of physical and cyber abuse occurred (Almasy 2013).

Technology has also provided a greater opportunity for bystanders to intervene against bullies without fear of becoming a victim themselves (Boyd 2014).  In October 2016 a bystander filmed an arrest of a ‘black person’ by a ‘white police office’ as she felt the officer was abusing his authority to racially target the man. Once uploaded to YouTube, the video received over 750,000 views and numerous news sites reporting on it. Check out the video below, it has received more than 5,000 comments, mostly of support for the man who was wrongly arrested (Wang 2016).

Citizen 7101 2016, Edina Police Incident 10/12/2016, YouTube 

All in all social media has its pros and cons when tackling bullying and trolling and I believe with proper education into the impacts it can cause for a person on the receiving end may help reduce the number of incidents that occur.

References

Almasy, S 2013, Sheriff: Taunting post leads to arrests in Rebecca Sedwick bullying death, CNN, viewed 5 January 2017, viewed 5 January 2017, <http://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/15/justice/rebecca-sedwick-bullying-death-arrests/>.

Boyd, D 2014, 'Bullying: Is the Media Amplifying Meanness and Cruelty?', in It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, Yale University Press, New Haven, USA, pp. 128-52.

Heckendorn, K 2016, 19 Hilarious Times People Got Trolled Mercilessly, Diply, viewed 5 January 2017, <http://diply.com/funny-photoshop-troll-james-fridman/1?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fleecy-socks>.

McCosker, A 2014, YouTrolling as provocation: Tube's agonistics publics, Convergence, vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 201-217.

Wang, B 2016, A black pedestrian was stopped by police. A bystander recorded his ‘humiliating’ arrest, Washington Post, viewed 5 January 2017, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/10/18/a-black-pedestrian-was-stopped-by-police-a-bystander-recorded-his-humiliating-arrest/?utm_term=.80219e2b543c>.

Image References

Heckendorn, K 2016, Photo shopped image, Diply, viewed 5 January 2017, <http://diply.com/funny-photoshop-troll-james-fridman/1?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fleecy-socks>.

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Spread the word, they will silence us no more!

Now in the age of digital, social platforms have become a feeding ground for activist group to expand their memberships and spread their messages. Prior to the emergence of social media, activist groups relied on funding from supporters to pay for traditional media to get their message out there. Social media and digital communities have provided these groups with an inexpensive way to get their cause known (Joyce 2010).

Image:  frandeblakker 2010, Don’t worry we’re from the internet

Looking at the hacker group ‘Anonymous Group’ back in 2008 when they began protests against the religious cult ‘Scientology’ you can see how social media created a world movement. Group participants in the United States used Social Media to spread the word through a video call ‘call to action (2008)’ about their plans to protest outside the Scientology Churches around the world in an attempt to prevent the church from being able to silence those speaking out against Scientology. The word quickly spread and ‘Anonymous’ members from all around the world came out in major cities to join the protest. This is just one example of how the digital age has united people from across the globe with similar views (Ramadge 2009). Check out the original video posted by Anonymous below.

ChurchOfScientology, Call to Action 2008 

Now we’ve seen how hactivism works to help spread the word and create a larger movement, let’s take a look at how it can also hinder someone’s cause. The word slactivism evolved in circa 2014 when extensive research showed that charities who promoted their causes online were more likely to be causing financial damage to themselves then if they were to seek funding through traditional channels (Youmans 2012). The reason for this is because those who ‘like’ or sign a partition through campaigns run on social media are usually only voicing their support and believe they have done enough to help the charity without need to assist any further. In fact research has shown that social supporters are the least likely to provide financial assistance to charity groups (DNews 2013).

The recent ’22 push-ups in 22 days challenge that swept across social media trying to raise awareness of veterans suffering from PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder). Whilst it spread over the internet very quickly, it has done little to actually help support our war veterans suffering from PTSD. They reason this challenge failed to help was because there was no cause highlighted in the posts of where donations could be made to support the cause or to reach out to those who are suffering with PTSD to offer assistance (Ross 2016).

DNew, Your ‘Like’ Doesn’t Help Charities, It’s Just Slactivism 2016. 

So where do we go from here? I believe there is a place for charities and activist groups to spread their word on social media but plenty of thought needs to go in how they go about using it to get their messages across.

References

ChurchOfScientology 2008, Call to action, YouTube, viewed 7 January 2017, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrkchXCzY70>.

DNews 2013, Your ‘like’ Doesn’t Help Charities, It’s Just Slactivism, YouTube, viewed 23 January 2016, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efVFiLigmbc&t=90s>.

Joyce, M 2010, Digital Activism Decoded: The New Mechanics of Change, New York International Debate Education Association, P101- 102.

Ramadge, A 2009, Scientology protests start across Australia, news.com.au, viewed 7 January 2016, <http://www.news.com.au/technology/scientology-protests-start-across-australia/news-story/b698d892df907188cffe7f1843294d4e>.

Image

frandeblakker 2010, Don’t worry we’re from the internet, viewed 7 January 2017, <https://frankdebakker.wordpress.com/tag/blog/>.

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The 10 biggest Twitter blunders by UK politicians.

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Backlash is something everyone should consider before hitting the post button. Some great points here on how politicians have used social media and had a good response compared to when they receive bad press. I think the element of humanisation is an important one, helping them to connect to people in the real world.

Social Politics

As America went to the polls to vote for their new President, the rest of the world collective held their breath. Who would be the next ‘Leader of the free world’? And the winner is…social media. For better or worse, more than ever before social media became a vital part of the political process. During the 2008 election, 74% of Americans internet users consulted an online source in some form to obtain their political information (young, 2010 p205). This year the portion of Americans who access their political content on a mobile device rose from 54% in 2013 to 72% (Pew, 2016). We saw Donald Trump embrace Twitter’s ability to instantly push his message to his 16 million followers and also respond in an attempt to turn around any negative media, regardless of the time; news outlets around the world reporting and analysing the President Elect’s twitter activity with the same importance as his policies and Facebook accused of influencing the election.

Back home we have seen politicians take to social media with mixed results. Some politicians have been savvy with their online presence, attempting to connect with their younger voters, with both PM, Malcolm Turnbull and former PM, Kevin Rudd, striving to achieve the connection; while others have missed the boat, forgetting the need to engage followers and stuck with the old centralised world, driving voters to the party website by tweeting out press releases (Jericho, 2012 p276). 

Sometimes, the need for connection can go too far.  In January 2013, amidst the Logan race riots, Queensland MP for Bowman, Andrew Laming, tweeted "Mobs tearing up Logan. Did any of them do a day’s work today, or was it business as usual and welfare on tap?“, sparking backlash from the local community and beyond.

Mr Laming was forced to send out a clarifying tweet in the wake of the backlash. 

Mr Laming again came under scrutiny in 2014 when he attended a constituent’s Australia Day Party and was filmed skolling a beer while doing a handstand. While this particular incident was harmless and he is not the only politician to be filmed skolling a beer, it does pose the question of social media and its place in politics. Should it be used to humanise politicians, making them more relatable and connect them with their constituents or simply as a tool for the party message? I think it needs to be both and just like we need to be careful with our online presence for future employment so to do politicians. 

(youtube, 2014)

Jericho, G 2012, ‘How many votes are there on Twitter?’, in The Rise of the Fifth Estate, Scribe, Victoria, Australia.

http://www.journalism.org/2016/07/07/pathways-to-news/ viewed 4 December 2016

Laming Video, youtube, viewed 4 December 2016

Laming, Twitter, Viewed 4 December 2016

Young, S 2010, 'News, political reporting and the internet’, in How Australia Decides, Cambridge University Press, Victoria, Australia.

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What in the politics does this have to do with social?

It has been noted that Obama once gave the following advice to a group of students, “I want everybody here to be careful about what you post on Facebook, because in the YouTube age whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life. That’s number one.” (Jericho 2012). This quote by Obama highlights the importance of thinking about what you post and the ramifications/opportunities it can have on your life. This goes without saying, that for politics it can help you engage with your followers or it can reflect poorly on your past decisions.

“Success in politics is now highly influenced by the online activities of political institutions” ( Pătruţ 2014). Social Media provides an opportunity for politicians to engage with their follows and drive conversations and debates with a higher level of involvement then traditional forms of communications (Pătruţ 2014). Looking at the recent American Presidential Elections, social media played a massive part of Donald Trump’s campaign and in a recent interview with 60 Minutes, Trump said he really believes that with the number of followers he amassed on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram is the reason he won the election and the power of social media outweighed the cost of traditional forms of media (ABNN 2016).

Trump reached the ever growing millennial population through social media by directing content to them and discussing issues and policies that they could relate to. To reach the same number of people through traditional media, Trump would have needed to spend upwards of US$380 Million (Dealey Media International 2016). Whilst not all supporters actively engaged and displayed their support for Trump, it is believed that his efforts to campaign on social media helped to create ghost supporters who came out on Election Day to vote for him (Perez 2016).

Social analysis showed trends of the Presidential Election Campaign online was heavily swayed towards Trump months before the Election took place but was over shadowed by analysts predicting the polls based on the traditional forms of media that had voters swayed towards Clinton (Perez 2016).

<Source: 4CInsights.com, Election Trends>

The problem Clinton had with using traditional forms of media was that she was discussing reforms and policies about ‘ordinary people’ to people who were far from ‘ordinary’. Social Media has given a voice to ‘ordinary people’ in a way that other forms of media have never been able to accomplish, allowing them to have their weigh in on topics such as politics, culture and academics. If the 2008 Presidential Elections were anything to go by, where 74% of Americans went online to get news, information and join discussions, then it's clear to see that Trumps efforts paid off by not only relating to his followers but by inundating social media feeds with his campaign efforts reaching a larger number of ‘ordinary people’ (Young 2010).

References

ABNN 2016, Donald Trump on 60 Minutes: Social Media Helped Me WIN. #PEOTUS, YouTube, viewed 4 December 2016, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m_ew4dr28I>.

Pătruţ, B 2014, Social Media in Politics Case Studies on the Political Powers of Social Media, Springer International Publishing, p- foreword vii-3.

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