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Influence of social media on political views

Social media’s influence oncitizen’s democratic beliefs and political ideology and impact on elections

From the beginning the internet has been used as an archive tool for human behavior. Around the globe, social media has provided an outlet and has made it easier than ever in allowing individuals to voice their opinions and beliefs about government; to talk about issues, mobilize around causes, and hold various leaders and lawmakers accountable. This review will attempt to summarize how the spread of beliefs and opinions by others on social media very much influence the those who use social media as a source of getting news as well as if social media is changing the way weview a democracy.

It is just recently that in the year 2011, social media took avital role in the Arab Spring uprisingsin places such as Egypt and Tunisia as it was proclaimed a liberating technology. A considerable amount has changed from that point forward. The 2016 US presidential election conveyed to the fore the dangers ofoutside meddlingand“ fake news” and political polarization. The impact of web-based social networking on legislative issues has never been so significant to observe.

The majority of this brings up a critical issue: what impact does social media have on people’s democratic beliefs, values, and political ideology?

By and large, 20% of social media clients say they’ve adjusted their position on a social or political issue on account of material they saw on social media, and 17% say online based social networking was the underlying factor that assisted in changing their perspectives about a particular political hopeful (Anderson 2016). Among online-based social networking users, Democrats and liberal Democrats specifically are more likely than Republicans to state they have ever changed their perspectives on a social or political issue, or on a specific political candidate, as a result of something they saw via the internet.

The Pew Research Centerconducted a survey asking respondents a time where they can recall social mediahaving an effect of their views on the 2016 presidential election. “ Many of theresponses we received in this survey, conducted this summer, mentioned one ofthe major presidential candidates as the “ political or social issue” theychanged their minds on. Around one-in-five users mentioned either Hillary Clinton, 21% or Donald Trump, 18%, and around one-in-ten referenced Bernie Sanders”. (Kent 2016). In addition toasking whether they had changed their opinion in this way due to what they sawon the internet, social media, the survey also asked respondents to tell sharein their owns words the time when this change occurred.

“ I saw a video on Reddit … that ultimately swayed me from voting independent in this election to voting for Hillary Clinton.”

“ I thought Donald Trump was leaning one way on an issue and a friend posted something that was opposite of what I believe. This caused me to think less of him than I once I did.”

“ Originally, I planned on voting for Hillary Clinton in the election, but then I found out about Bernie Sanders through social media. I decided I would vote for him instead.” (Staff P. S 2016)

It is evident that there is no deficiency of challenges at the intermix of online networking and democracy. “ As of August 2017, 67% of Americans claimed that they get in any event some of their news via social media with two-in-ten doing as such frequently, as indicated by a review from Pew Research Center” (Shearer and Gottfried 2016). Note that this is only a slightly modest increase from the middle of 2016 during the peak of the primaries where 62% of U. S. adults revealed getting news from social media.

Astrong correlation is evident that the use of technological applications suchas Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube and support of civil liberties. People who spend more time self-publicizing on the internet appear to valuefreedom of expression highly but also value the right to privacy; in contrastto those individuals who use social media less often. A cross-sectional surveywas then conducted to determine the connection between online behavior, political attitude, and social media use in 2010. 913 people were surveyed withquestions that pitted concerns about security and safety. In order to see ameasure of these civil liberties Swigger then designed a test to measureindividual’s support for privacy and freedom of expression against concerns ofsecurity and safety. In conclusion of this test, among online socializationscame back with a negative attitude for the right to privacy and to note theresults seem to be spearheaded by respondents 25 and younger. (Swigger 602: 2013)

Thispattern suggests that social media may be altering American’s attitudes andbeliefs about democratic values (Swigger 590: 2013). In contrast to conventionalmedia such as television and newspaper articles where the audience passively paysmuch attention to, web based social media is designed to encourage users tocreate and share content about their lives which formerly would only be sharedin private face-to-face conversation. This change in behavior has led to peoplelivening their lives in the light of the public.

Withregards to the 2009 German election, a study was conducted by the researchinstitute ForschungsgruppeWahlen and an analysis of more than 100, 000messages containing a reference to either a political party or a lawmaker. Theresults demonstrate that Twitter is utilized widely for political pondering andthat the even a small number of party mentions precisely mirrors the race result(Tumasjan 2011). The tweets’ assumption (positive and negative feelings relatedwith a lawmaker) compares similarly to voters’ political preference. In theexamination 104, 003 tweets examined between 13 August and 29 September 2009prior to the German election. Of those tweets analyzed, about 70, 000 of themmentioned the political party and about half of them referenced specificallythe politicians name. Given the large samplessize, a sentiment analysis was used, an automated mechanism to quantify theinformation contained in these messages. To extract such data, they usedLinguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC2007). LIWC2007, a text analysissoftware developed to assess emotional, cognitive, and structural components oftext samples using a psychometrically validated internal dictionary (Tausczik& Pennebaker, 2010). In particular, this product determines the rate whichcertain cognitions and feelings are present in the text.

Thereappears to be two facets to assess in determining if Twitter can fill in as anindicator of a race result. The foremost being the share of attention thepolitical parties gets on social media, specifically Twitter, with the resultsof the 2009 German election. The latter being whether tweets can forecast theideological ties amongst parties and potential political coalitionspost-election. The MAE (mean absolute error) of sixresearch institutes published election polls in the sample period, ranges from1. 1% to 1. 7%. Thus, Twitter comes close in mirroring these accepted results. Itis noteworthy to mention the predictive accuracy when compared to the historicalbackdrop of the IEM, a prediction market whose sole purpose is to predictelection results. The IEM produced a MAE of 1. 37% in U. S. presidentialelections and 2. 12% in non-U. S. elections based on election eve market prices(Berg, Forsythe, Nelson, & Rietz, 2008).

In conclusion, the negligible number oftweets saying a political party can be viewed as a plausible reflection of thevote turnout and its prescient power even approaches conventional election polls(Tumasjan 2011). “ Overall, our results demonstrate that Twittercan be considered a valid indicator of the political landscape off-line” (Tumasjan 2011). On the off chance that there’s one essential truth aboutsocial media’s impact on democracy it’s that it amplifieshuman intent (Toyama 2011) bothgood and bad. At its best, it allows us to express ourselves and take action. At its worst, it allows people to spread misinformation and corrode democracy.

References APA

Anderson, M. (2016, November 07). Social media causes someusers to rethink their views on an issue. Retrieved March 06, 2018, fromhttp://www. pewresearch. org/fact-tank/2016/11/07/social-media-causes-some-users-to-rethink-their-views-on-an-/

Davis, D. W., & Silver, B. D. (2004). Civil Liberties vs. Security: Public Opinion in the Context of the Terrorist Attacks on America. American Journal of PoliticalScience, 48 (1), 28-46. doi: 10. 1111/j. 0092-5853. 2004. 00054. x

Forsythe, R., Rietz, T. A., & Ross, T. W. (1999). Wishes, expectations and actions: a survey on price formation in election stockmarkets. Journal of EconomicBehavior & Organization, 39 (1), 83-110. doi: 10. 1016/s0167-2681(99)00027-x

Kent, D. (2016, November 04). When social media changesminds. Retrieved March 06, 2018, from http://www. pewresearch. org/fact-tank/2016/11/07/social-media-causes-some-users-to-rethink-their-views-on-an-issue/ft_16-11-07_socialpolitics/

Shearer, E., & Gottfried, J. (2017, September 07). NewsUse Across Social Media Platforms 2017. Retrieved March 06, 2018, fromhttp://www. journalism. org/2017/09/07/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2017/

Staff, P. S. (2016, November 08). Your Friends UnhingedPolitical Facebook Rants May Actually Make a Difference in the Election. Retrieved March 07, 2018, from https://psmag. com/news/your-friends-unhinged-political-facebook-rants-may-actually-make-a-difference-in-the-election

Tausczik, Y. R., & Pennebaker, J. W. (2010). The psychological meaning of words: LIWC and computerized textanalysis methods. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 29, 24-54

Toyama, K. (2011). Technology as amplifier in international development. Proceedings ofthe 2011 iConference on – iConference 11 . doi: 10. 1145/1940761. 1940772

Tumasjan, A., Sprenger, T. O., Sandner, P. G., & Welpe, I. M. (2011). Election Forecasts with Twitter – How 140 Characters Reflect thePolitical Landscape. SSRNElectronic Journal . doi: 10. 2139/ssrn. 1833192

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