User:Emmablizzard/sandbox

Article Evaluation

Questions to ask yourself when evaluating an article

·       Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?

Most of the content in the document is relevant to the article topic. The article is fairly brief so there information that can be added. Social media evolves so quickly that it could be hard to stay updated on a subject like this.

·       Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?

The article doesn't talk about subcategories that go under the wider branch of social media. For example, I am going to add a subcategory of the use of memes in politics.

·       What else could be improved?

More scholarly sources could be added, as well as some basic formatting to make the page look more visually appealing.

·       Is the article neutral? Are there any claims that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?

the article is fairly neutral as it does not seem to be focusing on the positives or negatives of social media use in politics. This could potentially be a category worth adding.

·       Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?

I think there could be more details in the case studies section. There are only 4 case studies, and the current titles of them could be updated to better represent what the case studies are about.

·       Check a few citations. Do the links work? Does the source support the claims in the article?

All of the citations I checked worked and seemed to support the claims fairly well. Some of them were not accessible without a log in.

·       Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference? Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?

There are a lot of references missing from the information in the article. The references have been reliable, fairly up to date and from scholarly journals. There was one from a random webpage but it didn't look too bad. Because the majority of them are academic, they are largely unbiased.

After evaluating look at Talk Pages

·       What kinds of conversations, if any, are going on behind the scenes about how to represent this topic?

The article I chose did not have any conversations on the talk page.

·       How is the article rated? Is it a part of any WikiProjects?

This article reads like a press release or a news article or is largely based on routine coverage or sensationalism. Please expand this article with properly sourced content to meet Wikipedia's quality standards, event notability guideline, or encyclopedic content policy. (June 2016)

Above is what is said about the article I chose. I hope to add more scholarly information to it to make it better.

·       How does the way Wikipedia discusses this topic differ from the way we've talked about it in class?

We haven't touched much on social media in class, but this article is less critical than ways we've talked about social media in other classes. But I suppose that is a good thing because it keeps it neutral.

Social media use in politics refers to the use of online social media platforms in political processes and activities. Social media platforms encompass websites such as Facebook, YouTube, WeChat, Instagram, QQ, QZone, Weibo, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Baidu Tieba, LinkedIn, LINE, Snapchat, Pinterest, Viber, and VK. Political processes and activities include all activities that pertain to the governance of a country or area. This includes political organization, global politics, political corruption, political parties, and political values. The internet has created channels of communication that play a key role in circulating news, and social media has the power to change not just the message, but the dynamics of political corruption, values, and the dynamics of conflict in politics.[1] Through the use of social media in election processes, global conflict, and extreme politics, diplomacy both in the United States and around the world has become less private and susceptive to the public perception.[1]

Individualized Collective Action on Social Media

Research argued that an individualized collective action has arose from the growing popularity of digital media technologies. Research touched on the changing eras that society has gone through, focusing on globalization and the free-market predilection. The author contended that movements as such ignited the beginning of personalized politics and individualized collective action rather than group collective action. Identity politics that revolve around a specific group that identify collectively in the same way - like women, immigrants, minorities among other visible groups still exist.

However, research argued that these groups have diminished and are being replaced by movements that are more centered on personalized needs of an individual in younger generations. These individuals join larger movements that dominate on digital media technologies. Research touched on a rightward shift in American politics, with the democrats adapting social and economic policies from the Republicans. Research argued this shift caused for young voters to feel as though valuable electoral options did not exist on the left, which lead to an aversion to politics and government. Research credited these young people with much of the emerging form of participatory politics. Research stated that digital media technologies have been adapted and put to use by younger generations for social movements regarding politics and politicians are attempting to acclimate to that.

Social Media as a Public Sphere

Literature has debated as to whether online platforms can be considered a modern form of a public sphere. Previous research found that people tend to avoid political discourse in an online environment due to fear of igniting hostile behaviours. Kruse, Norris and Flinchum (2017) argued that for this very reason, social media cannot be considered a public sphere. This is significant as it is another study that found political discourse does not happen frequently online. On the contrary, the majority of the literature examined agreed that social media has the potential to be a platform for civic participation that could ignite participative democracy among the masses.

Young Peoples' Engagement and Avoiding Tenuous Online Atmospheres

Literature examined reported significant findings on the theory of young people being more likely to respond to political content online. Young people being more active on social media does not play a role in political content shared online. Even though they are more active, American youth reported to have a general distrust of government and politicians. It was also reported that online users across different demographics generally did not take satisfaction in creating tenuous online environments by posting political opinions.

Researchers on the subject sought to understand views on social media and how they might effect political behavior both on and offline in young people. Researchers argued that there has been a large amount of research conducted that demonstrated a positive correlation between the use of social media and offline participation in politics. Said research also identified ways social media networks may create new styles of personalized civic participation. That being said, researchers also stated that there has been growing concern regarding how use of digital technologies could potentially lead to users feeling indifferent towards politics, threatening existing ways of participation. They found that the American public held quite differing outlooks on political opinions being shared on social media networks. Research found some to think political discussion was frustrating, while others found it as one of the only platforms in which they could express their political views. Researchers suggested there was a lack of results as to whether opinions on social media as platforms for political discussions influenced their political participation offline. They examined the “Slacktivism Hypothesis”, which argues that taking part in minor acts of engagement in politics online will lessen desire to take part in more offline action. They claim that even though young people use social media most frequently, their aversion to politics and government might cause them to abstain from posting or sharing their political opinions online. It is stated this also may happen because users want to avoid a tenuous atmosphere online.