Social Media's Evolution in US Politics: From Obama 2008 to Trump 2016

Introduction

Social media has changed the course of action of quite a number of things. One important and noteworthy thing is the face of US Politics. The social media that is used in this regard has evolved to a great degree over time. One can experience many different social media trends which have been in practice over the course of years in the US politics affecting the preference and mindset of people to a huge extent.

Social Media and the US Politics

The politics in the US has been a big point of discussion over the years. The politician, political parties, institution and people related to it have altered and made the necessary changes to them with respect to portray themselves as the ideal candidate in every regard. This has transformed and evolved in the last few years (Howard et al., 2019). The old as well modern means of communication and information are being used in this regard to offer and influence the people of the US to make the right choice. It all started with the emergence of the Internet in the 1990s. During that phase, not a lot of people had access to the internet making it just a means to retrieve information by people. All this further changed with the birth of social media and the various social media platform that helped in connecting with one another and forming one's opinion in many regards. In the early phase of social media, the platform was used to share the brochure and basic information about the politician and the parties with the people of the country in the US.

Social media is the right place for people to seek out to people who have the same or similar opinion as them and think with the vision. People look out to share their feeling and thoughts regarding different matter and topic which are used by parties to assess the emotions and feelings of the public so that necessary actions can be taken in order to make the situation in favour of them. Use of Facebook and Twitter on such a huge level in year by year Presidential election of the country is the right example to suggest and depict how much influence it has on the mind of people and the necessary initiatives taken by the political party to manage this (Lee et al., 2018). This was further developed with the help of modernization and changes in social media and its usage by people. The modern update and the latest information with regard to the different political topic and the impact it can have on their lives helped them form the opinion about the matters in a quick span of time. This made it easy for people to reach out to their politicians and conversing with others of the same opinion or the same topic highlighting the true picture of US politics.

One can witness the impact or rise of social media in the face of the US politics in the year 2008 when Democratic Presidential candidate Barack Obama made the use of social media which had strong digital grass-roots mobilization. This was one of the first moves in which social media was used so extensively in the promotion and communication by any political leader in US politics. One of the major social media platform used in this regard was Twitter. "Twitterverse" was the perfect way through which all the major political talks and matters were disseminated on different grounds to post-mortem the political scenario of the country. Along with that use of Facebook was done extensively as it is the biggest social media platform and holds the largest base of people which could help in influencing them. This had such a huge impact on the promotion and advertising of the US politician that people started using this as one of their prime way of advertising in the coming years (Peck, 2015). Huge growth was seen on how people perceived their political news which escalated to 37% in 2008 which was a huge number as compared to 9% in the previous years. This was further solidified in the years to come where social media was used to popularize the activities and deed done to mainstream their activity and create a positive image in the minds of the people.

This was further enhanced in the coming time when people started social media more extensively looking at the information and news available on it and forming their opinion based on it entirely. People have started transforming from the traditional method to the modern method such as social media and news application which can be accessed on the go. The social media feed is full of information and talks about US politics making people get in touch with the situation of the nation. All this was highlighted and more aggressive during the political period making people come across this feature on a more regular basis. The politics of the US saw that people relied more and more on the online platform for their daily dose of the US politics news raising the number to around 43% in 2017 (Bessi & Ferrara, 2016). In fact, this even made a lot of news channel rely on the social media platform to supply them with their source of the political news in the country. A huge contribution to such rise of social media can be contributed to the way people and politicians are using Twitter as a means to share their opinion and gain the information in relation to this. It is used wisely to share and create content which makes it easy to distribute it to the respective people. It is also directly or indirectly used by politicians in the US for self-promotion creating a good image of themselves making it a good way to influence a large number of people without doing much.

Majority of the politicians were on all the major social media platform such as Twitter, Instagram and YouTube and many were planning to move to other platforms as well where they could reach out to the public in a better way. The popularity and validation of social media can be seen how politician even use social media to announce their move and action on social media (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). In fact, Barack Obama even invited online donation through the means of social media for his campaign which showed how effective and a huge role it played in his presidency campaign allowing one to look at the impact that social media had on the lives of the politicians and political parties in the US elections.

The social media with regard to the current age and time is the most common and extensively used medium by politicians. They use it not only to maintain their profile but even connect with the public. This is all done to cultivate the political persona that they hold helping them stand a better chance to win all the elections. In addition to this, politicians used the better medium to converse with one another and promote and congratulate each other to show the commodore that exists between them (Williams, 2017). One can see the example of this in the way the President of the US, Donald Trump has conversed with other leaders both in and outside the country creating a public image of him on the basis of his interaction on Twitter. This was the biggest impact that social media had with respect to the major topic of discussion and control the type of information that was flowing over the social media platforms. Use of Facebook and the information derived from it is said to be of use by a lot of political parties in their election campaign and design changing the course of the entire campaign of 2016 highlighting how the data and information shared on social media was used in such a deep way.

The input put by parties and various agencies in this regard is high as one made use of social media not only during but also before and after the campaigns in the US elections (Gerodimos & Justinussen, 2015). Social media really helps the political party to create a connection with their audience and people allowing them to highlight their achievement and good work. This is used to influence people on a large basis and create a positive image which is further carried down the road. The impact of this can also be seen in the amount of vote cast and the sharing of the opinion of people about the parties and their candidates making people debate and discuss these on such big platforms. Donald Trump wins in the 2016 election can be majorly contributed to the hard work and efforts put in by him and his team on the social media front. A lot of his supporters were available online and stayed with him throughout the campaign. This made them influence and attract the right thinking and mindset which helped in shaping the mindset of others in the association (Boulianne, 2015). This made him a huge topic of discussion among all highlighting his popularity and the things done by him which makes him a suitable candidate for the President of the country. A lot of many such examples can be seen time and again in the US Politics which shows how social media is used for more than just connecting with people. In fact, it is used for more influencing people making them work in the favour of others.

Conclusion

Social media has evolved with time and so has the US politics. It has come a long way from the old traditional method to the new and improved social media platforms which help in connecting with the public who has the final say in things. From the time Barack Obama made use of social media for his presidency candidate role in 2008 the US politics has seen different phases of social media. This made more and more politicians joined the bandwagon and be available on the majority of the social media platform. This helped them reached out to the target audience and forms a good image of oneself helping to influence the decision of others. This was further used by Donald Trump to create a positive image of his which made him win the 2016 election. All these are evidence enough to prove that social media that is used by the US politics has evolved to a great degree with time.

References

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