Historically, politicians have usually aimed to stay out of the public spotlight, and for a long time were able to do so because of the limited communications technology available. But, as we know, this dynamic has completely changed. With the advent of the mass media, the internet, and social media came an increased interest on the part of politicians to use media to speak to the public. An early example of this were President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fireside chats. During these 28 chats that take place between 1933 and 1944, the President would address the entire nation, and anyone with a radio was able to listen in. This was a significant development in the ability of politicians to communicate with their constituents. However, because radio technology was so new, it was rather expensive and it was difficult to produce quality broadcasts. For these reasons, the President was really the only politician in the United States capable of taking advantage of the new technology. In total, Roosevelt made 28 broadcasts that lasted anywhere from 10-50 minutes in length, over an eleven-year period. When we compare Roosevelt’s fireside chats to the now incessant tweets, Facebook posts, Instagram uploads, and even snapchat stories produced daily by politicians at all different levels of government, it is only natural to wonder how this tremendous shift in communications technology used by politicians has affected our political system and our society.
Throughout lesson 9, we learned about the potential effects of media on our thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs. For example, we learned about agenda setting which occurs when media outlets chose to cover particular stories while omitting others, thereby setting the public’s agenda (Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts 2012). While agenda setting by media outlets is an important topic, I will focus here on the potential effects, both positive and negative, of social media usage aimed specifically at communicating a political message to the public by government officials. I believe this to be an important topic because, in many regards, any individual, politicians included, with a popular social media account has essentially become their own media outlet. Like large media outlets, these individuals chose what to post, and they decide how they want to frame the information they are presenting.
A survey between 2010 and 2014 by the Pew research center found that between the 2010 and 2014 midterm elections there was a 10% increase in the number of registered voters following political figures, organizations, and/or candidates (Anderson 2015). Also, the researchers at Pew found that when registered voters were asked why they were following political figures, 41% said “Finding out about political news before other people do” was a major reason, 35% said “feeling more connected to political candidates or groups” was a major reason, and 26% said “getting more reliable information than what is available from traditional news organizations” was a major reason (Anderson 2015). It is critical to note that these were supplied responses that those surveyed had to rank as either a major reason, minor reason, or not a reason. Keeping the limitations of these results in mind, it is still interesting to consider that 41% and 26% of surveyed voters respectively felt that either getting the news as quickly as possible was beneficial or that individual politicians provided more reliable news than organized news agencies.
Keeping the results of the Pew survey in mind, I will now discuss a recent article that addressed the impact of regulatory policies aimed at government social media use. Bertot et al. begin by discussing the potential benefits of government social media use. They list three fundamental upsides to government organizations and figures use of social media which are, democratic participation and engagement, Co-production, and Crowdsourcing (Bertot at al. 2012). These are all important and valid points. Social media indeed has the potential to increase democratic participation given how easy it is for voters to follow along and participate in politics. Co-production would also be beneficial, as government and citizens could co-produce solutions to problems. And crowdsourcing also has the potential to be a positive sociopolitical force. However, government use of social media also presents a number of potential problems. The main issues identified in this article were privacy, security, accuracy, and archiving (Bertot at al. 2012). These four potential problem areas are important to acknowledge, and a failure to recognize their importance could have resulted in bad outcomes for our political system and our society. To close their article, the authors provide a long list of questions they believe need to be addressed by regulators. This list highlights the fact that technological innovation has greatly outpaced our regulatory abilities.
Overall, it seems as though politicians and voting citizens alike are using social media respectively to broadcast and consume political news without considering the potential drawbacks. This is concerning, given how widespread social media use has become and how challenging it is to decipher the validity of the many political options and ideas we currently encounter on social media.
References
Anderson, Monica. “More Americans are using social media to connect with politicians.” Pew Research Center, 19 May 2015, www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/05/19/more-americans-are-using-social-media-to-connect-with-politicians/.
Bertot, John Carlo, et al. “The impact of polices on government social media usage: Issues, challenges, and recommendations.” Government Information Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 1, 2012, pp. 30–40., doi:10.1016/j.giq.2011.04.004.
Schneider, F. W., Gruman, J. A., & Coutts, L. M. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understand and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc.