Talk:Social media and political communication in the United States

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 28 August 2019 and 4 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Maxack37. Peer reviewers: Brusso7, Adamng926, Mervitan.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:39, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Suggestions
Good work on an interesting topic. Just a few suggestions to make...
 * You would benefit from using a header to start your article. Your first section would be good, just remove the section label. Maybe start with the second sentence.
 * Not that I doubt "social media has fundamentally changed the way political communication takes place", but that (thesis) statement (material) is a little too biased to be encyclopedic.
 * You need citations in your last paragraph.
 * You don't need to say "dollars" after writing (for example) $2000.
 * What's up with 2008 and 2012 elections? Every Day Use? Scandals?
 * A "see also" section would be wise. Particularly Barack Obama on social media.
 * Your sources should just be what you're citing. The References section should be enough.

Jsmerf (talk) 19:17, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Good Job!
I really like where you're going with this article. I tagged it as needing additional resources. That's mainly because I need to get this out of the list of unpatrolled pages, and there's a citation needed notice for something. Aside from a few details, though, this is a really good article. Nice job. Compassionate727 (talk) 13:26, 7 May 2015 (UTC)

Thoughts and Suggestion
Overall, great article! I really enjoyed the timeline from start-to-present of how social media and the internet as a whole has had an influence on major US elections. I also think the article does a fairly good job on remaining unbiased (nonpartisan) in the sense that it does not favor results of Republican or Democratic campaigns. However, it does take an opinionated stance on the impact that social media has had in elections (I agree with the prior comment here). I'd suggest simply presenting the facts and allowing the audience to come to that conclusion on their own. Both sides (pros and cons of using social media for campaigning) are represented fairly well. The pros being it is easy to reach millions of people and fundraise small donations (current term being "grassroots") and the cons being the scandals that arise as well as the negative comments from opposition. The links are relevant and lead to pertinent information regarding the article, however, the 5th source needs a full citation and it has not been addressed. Again, good work! Maxack37 (talk) 04:40, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Possible Edits
Hello. I plan on making some edits to this article, including: changing the language to be purely factual and not biased, adding a section regarding international politics as to give context and perspective, and adding a bit of relevant information where it is needed. Maxack37 (talk) 03:05, 2 October 2019 (UTC)

Hello. I would like to add an entire section for the 2016 elections. I would also like to make various edits in the language as stated in the suggestion above. Additionally, I want to add a little bit more to the Facebook section of this page. User:Ethanmckelroy — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ethanmckelroy (talk • contribs) 00:17, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

Edits that I have Done
The only thing available in this section is a link to another Wikipedia page. I would like to add a paragraph or 2 going over the detail and statistics of the use of social media in this election. My main source of information will be coming from an unbiased source containing several statistics. (https://www.journalism.org/2016/07/18/candidates-differ-in-their-use-of-social-media-to-connect-with-the-public/) This section is simply providing information about the use mainly Twitter in the 2016 election. I also added a little bit of information to the Facebook section. This section already had a lot of useful information, but a brief overview of what Facebook was was necessary to help readers understand the information already there. Throughout the page there were a few spots where the language was not 100% unbiased. I changed some of these spots, and I will continue to go back and look for these spots. The scandal part of the page seems a little bit random, so I plan on adding more information to this section to help it flow with the rest of the page better. Ethanmckelroy —Preceding undated comment added 00:20, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Small edit about the affect of constant political content in social media users' feeds
Hi! I added one sentence about how social media users feel about constantly seeing political content on their feed. Here's the source: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/19/55-of-u-s-social-media-users-say-they-are-worn-out-by-political-posts-and-discussions/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lindseyjli3 (talk • contribs) 04:28, 23 September 2020 (UTC)

Some ideas and some sources
Hi! I'm thinking of expanding more on the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, specifically a section on the significance of social media during COVID-19 and quarantine.

Here are some sources I'm thinking of referencing:
 * https://www.pbs.org/weta/washingtonweek/web-video/what-role-will-social-media-play-2020-election
 * https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/the-past-decade-and-future-of-political-media-the-ascendance-of-social-media/
 * https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1369118X.2011.592648 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lindseyjli3 (talk • contribs) 05:14, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Grammar/Sentence Structure, Influence on Elections
Hello! I have read over the article as well as the talk page suggestions and I believe that this page could benefit from a few grammatical fixes. I will be making some grammatical edits as well as structuring edits throughout the first section of the page, Influence on Elections.

Kpitfie (talk) 16:53, 2 February 2021 (UTC)

Article Evaluation
Upon a quick first skim of the article, there are some sections that appear choppy and awkward; lack of cohesive flow, especially seen with the excessive use of commas. There are sections that are phrased incorrectly such as, "Facebook attracted political figures to use social media by to promote their ideals."

The article is pretty neutral, because it gives evidence from several time periods and elections, not solely focusing on recent events. This further legitimizes the existence of social media's presence in political campaigns; proves that it's not new. Does not elaborate on whether or not social media is good, useful, beneficial, important, etc. Simply elaborates on the broad presence of social media platforms.

Upon checking several citations, the links appear to work; they're also relevant to the topic and POV.

Upon reading through the Talk page, it seems like the original article was very much biased, but collaboration from multiple other editors seemed to fix this issue. Members left extremely insightful suggestions, including direct quotes from the original article to fix and remove bias. I was also surprised to see how many editors are actually quite polite and informative. This proves there's an entire Wiki community I was unaware of.

Article Evaluation
Upon reading this article, it seems, for the most part, neutral. Using examples from each election was helpful for comparison of how social media has grown over the past four elections. Using limitations and constructions also helped provide knowledge about social media and political communications.

Personally, I thought the grammar was acceptable. I want to add more about the 2008 election.

My one question is what a "false sense of group consensus" is. I saw it in quotes but didn't see a definition of what it actually means.

Rated Start-Class, Low Importance

WikiProject: Internet Culture, Media, Politics/American, Sociology Mwences (talk) 04:46, 8 September 2021 (UTC)

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