User:Hopioli/sandbox

Immigration in Social Media
Where people once consumed news and information in longform, social media, specifically Twitter, has become a main source of information to the people that have access (Shearer and Matsa 2018). Twitter has now allowed individuals - even the President of the United States - to convey information immediately, to a large audience, all in 280 characters or fewer. This platform has become a popular tool for sharing current events, especially because of its forward and clear communication, where other social media platforms, such as Instagram, tend to be more visual and aim to please specific aesthetics (Waterloo, Baumgartner, Jochen, Valkenburg 2017).

With the President’s online presence and the continuous discussion of immigration on Twitter, this topic has become relevant to today’s society. What people think of immigration is heavily affected by this relevance because of the frequent exposure (Fung, Fu, Chan, and more 2016). It is known that immigration views are reflected in social media posts, and that opinions are formed from these influential posts. However, general immigration ideologies are inconsistent. This inconsistency derives from the American public’s confusion. Many people have shown through surveys that their stance on immigration is based off of whatever is most popular or represents them in a positive fashion (Strauss 2012).

On Twitter, viral and non-viral posts reflect the rejection of immigrants. Posts claim the people coming into America are stealing American’s jobs and bring crime. Some trending tweets that negatively reflect immigrants are posted from Donald Trump. The president has a following base of 66.8 million followers. Every time he posts information about political topics such as immigration, millions of people are being influenced by Tweets such as “Many of the people in DACA, no longer very young, are far from ‘angels'. Some are very tough, hardened criminals…”. The high number of followers is a common indicator of credibility (Westerman, Spence, Heide 2012). This, along with such a powerful political position, has the ability to shift a person’s original beliefs on both immigration policy and immigrants

Just as there are Tweets that are against immigration to the United States, there are Tweets that accept immigrants. These posts call for immigration reform, with policies that humanize immigrants again: “...torn families apart, undermined trust in law enforcement,...and have not made this country any safer. We will protect our immigrant neighbors.”. The shifting views on immigration to the United States expressed on Twitter is the main reason for the confusion previously mentioned. A person is likely to join whichever side has the largest recognition online (Freberg, Graham, Mcgaughey, and Freberg 2011). Twitter posts have the power to influence the public’s view on immigration. Immigration policies are partially based off society's view on immigrants, therefore Twitter is extremely relevant in the ongoing debate over immigration to the United States.