User:Jorge Guerrero E/Social media use in politics

'''I will be working on the article "Social media use in politics". The objective of what I want to contribute is to add this sections that describes the use of social media in political advertising and the topic of Cambridge Analytica which both can be added in the section "Background" of the article.'''

Political Advertising on Social Media
Social media has transformed the way that politicians conduct their campaigns, as they have moved their platform to social media sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Social media offers different options for the politician to engage with voters. It allows them to send a precise message to the electorate in a faster way with the ability to reach a major audience who makes the message go viral. It is a tool that provides a unique way to interact that makes the electorate feel that they are receiving a deeper and more personalized experience, something that is not common with TV ads.

On social media, politicians can instantly advertise their promises, future policies, future leadership, and future members of cabinet with the goal of persuading voters to vote for them or donate to their party. Social media is very attractive to advertise campaigns because it has the ability to reach to individuals who normally do not follow politics or watch the news. Social media can be accessed through a computer, tablet, smartphone and smartwatch.

In the United States the budget for political advertisement increased from 1.7% in the 2012 election to 14.4% in 2016.

Among the different social media sites that exist, the most popular site is Facebook which differentiates from Twitter and Instagram by allowing users’ to establish a page that differs from parody profiles by providing a special format on the profile page. Facebook also allows politicians and campaigners to make their profile pages appear more prominently on users search boxes, resulting in a higher searchability also Facebook does not have a limit in characters typed. In the 2010 and 2012 elections of the United Stares the rate of politicians using Facebook as an advertisement tool increased as all members of the senate had a Facebook page.

Cambridge Analytica
See also Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal.

In 2013 a research study was conducted at the University of Cambridge by psychology professor Aleksandr Kogan in which students were required to downloaded an app called "this is your digital life". The app was described as a personality test to evaluate the psychological profile of the user. This app was given access to users’ personal information on their Facebook account, such as their profile page, friend list, and liked posts. The information collected from this app was shared to Cambridge Analytica that was able to utilize the data of approximately 200,000 users, with the majority of these users not consenting to this.

The information collected by Cambridge Analytica allowed them to create a database that helped different political campaigns around the globe such as in the United States and the United Kingdom. With this, they were able to influence voters’ decisions through personalized news and political advertisements.

Creating a database with online tracking is not only for users that have a Facebook profile. Webpage with the Facebook logo on it are connected to Facebook, this allowing to track any user that uses the webpage. Other form of tracking that is commonly utilized are the usage of tracking cookies.

Feedback: Jorge: You have shown great initiative in developing your wikipedia entry! You may improve your article by adding a caption to your photo! Overall, excellent work. -Professor Robinson

The section that you have added is a good topic because not many people have talked advertising for political campaigning on Wikipedia, I suggest adding specfic social media platforms that are used for political advertising. From Joker12346