Essay On Social Media In Politics

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SOCIAL MEDIA IN POLITICS

Social media can provide as a manipulative tool in the political realm, because that is not its primary function. It pretty much allows free speech, and is valued too much and makes too much money to be shut down over political content. This concept is formulated by media theorist Asa Briggs as the “conservative dilemma” (Briggs and Burke, 2009, p.68). Sourcing new media as the root of this dilemma, it invites public access to dialogue or congregation with transmission through various media methods, such as flyers or social media; a governmental body that is used to controlling political narrative finds itself in a position where it must answer for any inconsistencies between their perspective of events and the public’s perspective of events (Shirky, 2011, p.36-37). To combat this, a …show more content…

Popular YouTuber Friendlyjordies is a skit comedian that has over 141,000 subscribers on YouTube, 196,000 on Facebook, 29,000 on Instagram and 8,000 on Twitter. He was sponsored by the Australian Labour Party to create videos that promoted Labour and slurred the Liberal National Party. Friendlyjordies’s target audience is teenagers and younger SINKs and DINKs, and having him and his production team make funny content with a clear political message allowed Labour to campaign to a demographic that may not be interested in politics.

Opening this channel of communication on social media often leads to opinion through conversation. A study by Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld (1957) found that opinions are not formed solely through mass media, but it follows a two-step process. Firstly, opinions are spread through media channels, but then secondly, they rebound onto peers, colleagues and relatives. It is through this social networking that political opinions are shaped, as can be seen from comments, shares and likes from the Friendlyjordies

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