Will Social Media Continue to Play an Important Role in the Next Election, or is the Phenomenon Over-Hyped?

                In my opinion, social media will absolutely play an important role in the next election; social media has become the way of today’s world and people today rely on it for everything. I also believe that Barack Obama opened up the door to the idea of using social media during elections; people now see it as an option and want to join in.

                Everyone today uses social media to express their opinions, frustrations, and what they are pleased with; this includes their opinions of upcoming elections. These opinions cause discussion, thought, and even may influence the decisions of others. Further, our readings described something called “citizen 2.0”; people who use social media platforms to learn more about certain elections and have discussions related to the elections (yahoo, 2007). Further, the readings brought out that in the 2008 election, 18% of people had discussions relating to the election on blogs or other social media platforms; 45% watched a video campaign relating to the election. It is pretty clear that people are open to using social media for discussions and research regarding elections and find it useful.

                As with anything in life, not everyone will be on board with using social media to have discussions relating to elections; there will be people who don’t participate, but overall, social media plays a huge role in people’s lives—including the decisions they make regarding elections. Just to prove this, in our readings we read about a recent study from branding agency Digitas, that stated that 88% of people on social media sites are registered voters, and approximately half will use social media to learn about the presidential election; that is a lot of people.

                We can see it even in our provincial elections, people use social media to learn more or even express their opinions. Think of the whole situation with Rob Ford; there are countless YouTube videos, posts on Facebook, and opinions going around every other social network about Rob Ford. This plays a huge role in the election outcome as it shapes people’s opinions of him.

                Even the government uses social media to get information out and participates in campaigns that use social media. It isn’t perfect though, there are issues with using social media, like privacy for example; sites like wikileaks can release information to the public that should not be made available to them. Although this is an issue that the government will have to figure out, it will not decrease the use of social media by governments, only make them look for a solution.

                It’s pretty clear that the trend of the world shows that social media will continue to play an important role in the next election, as well as elections to come. As the video, How Social Media Can Make History brought out, social media is not about crafting a single message for people to consume, it is about bringing people together based on opinions and mutual feelings. This is exactly what we see today; people use social media to express opinions about things like the elections and people either come together on those opinions or oppose them.