User:Lindseywilmot16/Social media use in politics

Katie Brick:

I plan to look into the way elections affect our media. Apps like TikTok come with potential harms that can lead people in the wrong direction. With more people now on the web, there is more room for misinformation to spread. With that, social media often has filters and algorithms based on the content the user interacts with. The 2024 election is also coming up, so I think it would be interesting to do some research on that and see some of the ways it has already changed the media. The “Impact on elections” section has been the one that intrigues me the most. I added these in and plan to expand more on these topics. I also plan to add this article: “Elections and the Mass Media” by Stanley Kelley to get more information on mass media and elections.

Persily, Nathaniel; Tucker, Joshua A. (2020-09-03). Social Media and Democracy: The State of the Field, Prospects for Reform. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-108-85877-9.

De Ridder, Jeroen (2021-11-16). "What's so bad about misinformation?". Inquiry: 1–23. doi:10.1080/0020174X.2021.2002187. ISSN 0020-174X.

JSTOR ARTICLE: Kelley, Stanley. “Elections and the Mass Media.” Law and Contemporary Problems, vol. 27, no. 2, 1962, pp. 307–26. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1190550. Accessed 7 Feb. 2024.

I also plan to add more to the advertising section. It is very short, and I want to explore some of the history of political advertising. One part that would be beneficial to the page would be to see how social media has changed the way of political advertisements. This can tie into the elections portion, considering they would overlap.

Dommett, K. (2019). The Rise of Online Political Advertising. Political Insight, 10(4), 12-15. https://doi.org/10.1177/2041905819891366

Abby Hallam editing plan: add about algorithms on a platform not mentioned in article already tik tok: A recent study on TikTok showed how quickly users can be influenced by a small amount of content. When users engaged with transphobic material, the app started recommending more far-right videos. The study looked at around 450 videos on the "for-you page," which is based on TikTok's recommendation system. During the 2016 presidential election, Meta (then Facebook) conducted a study revealing that its algorithms drove a significant increase in extremist content interaction. These algorithms were accountable for 64% of all joins to extremist groups, primarily through features like "Groups You Should Join" and the "Discover" page.


 * Add a positive viewpoint of the role social media has, specifically in this case in different countries, that is not already mentioned. Paraphrase this quote and findings from https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/12/06/social-media-seen-as-mostly-good-for-democracy-across-many-nations-but-u-s-is-a-major-outlier/

“Also, most of those surveyed see social media as an effective tool for accomplishing political goals. Majorities in most countries say it is at least somewhat effective at raising public awareness, changing people’s minds about issues, getting elected officials to pay attention to issues and influencing policy decisions.”


 * Politicians and social media section: Add this source https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2022.955493/full
 * Mentioned/ explain the role politicians play on each individual platform mentioned in this article. When they started on these platforms etc…

Ellie Wolsfeld:

I am planning on discussing how social media influences/ can change the messages that political figures post online and talk about through the media. As well as how social media is transforming political communication. It is no secret that social media has a large impact on how presidential candidates and people working in politics present themselves and the way they talk about certain topics going on in our world today. Former president Donald Trump was continually in the media in negative ways because of getting in arguments with celebrities on twitter and posting things he shouldn't. He ended up getting suspended from Instagram and Twitter because of these things. An article from Harvard discusses how when political figures post things people think to themselves why would they post that? Politicians on social media: Perceptions of risk and reward. Politicians on Social Media: Perceptions of Risk and Reward. (n.d.). https://scholar.harvard.edu/sounman_hong/politicians-social-media-perceptions-risk-and-reward

Newberry, C. (2024, January 10). Social Media and Politics: Rules and Best Practices. Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard. https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-and-politics/

How social media is Transforming Political Communication. Determ. (2023, November 28). https://www.determ.com/blog/how-social-media-is-transforming-political-communication/

I also want to discuss more on statistics and how much political candidates spend on advertising and go into a deeper concept and how political communication has been changing.

Lindsey Wilmot

I am planning to add information to the politicians and social media section of the article. This section is very short and lacks a lot of information. Today, politicians use social media very often for a lot of different reasons. It is a way for them to quickly and efficiently communicate with the general public and their constituents. I think that it's important to include more in depth information about this relationship because it's a huge part of politics.

During the Trump presidency, the former President used Twitter regularly to share his ideas and opinions. Eventually, his account was banned because of his influence of the January 6th attack on the Capitol on twitter. I plan to include information on this specifically.

Dreisbach, T. (2022, July 13). How trump’s “will be wild!” tweet drew rioters to the Capitol on Jan. 6. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/13/1111341161/how-trumps-will-be-wild-tweet-drew-rioters-to-the-capitol-on-jan-6