The Power of Social Media in Politics
The power of social media
The power of social media is really big. It made it easier for us to get news from all over the world within minutes. People no longer wait for the corporate news stations to cover the news nor do they trust journalists as much as they trust unfiltered normal citizens.
Getting the news from social media can give you the chance to participate as well by giving your opinion or interacting with other people and seeing different points of view on an event, which is a positive thing compared to just being an observer when you get the news from your tv.
We’ve come to a point in our lives where social media dictates the majority of our choices. From what we buy and where we travel to who we vote for. Social media has a huge influence on who the next world leader will be. We’ve seen that in the 2016 US elections, where a famous celebrity became the world leader, thanks to the power of attention.
Influencers moving into the political arena
Attention is the new currency, and he who can attract it and retain it, has a lot of power. Social media has made it possible for anyone to attract attention and gain power. Another one example in the political arena is Fidias. A Cypriot youtuber who became an independent MEP to the European Parliament. All of this thanks to social media.
Fidias was using Tik-Tok in particular, to gather voters, and as we saw, politics have moved to social platforms. People got tired watching the same career politicians, and acted. As mentioned, if you know how to attract and retain attention, sky’s the limit. People place more faith to people that feel closer to them, rather than officials. They got tired, and saw no results, so they shifted to younger faces, who have the courage and energy not only to bring positive change, but to educate people on boring subjects such as politics.
Education through social media
Fidias now is educating youngsters on what the European Parliament is and what it does. Something that schools failed to do, something that media corporations failed to do, and something that politicians failed to do.
Schools are not really ideal for education, although we go there for that. Academic education has nothing to do with the real world. Not only that, but they make subjects boring. Influencers are tapping into the education system, and offer courses to people that want to learn different things, and they’re doing good because they know how to make a boring subject interesting and fun to learn.
The amount of information that you can find on social media is so big, that even Aristotle could not ever imagine. We have experts in various fields, teaching normal people about their craft in an easy, fast and fun way.
Now back to politics. We’ve seen that career politicians not only are being left behind by younger faces, they do not even answer the questions that the young population has. Influencers are doing that, and that’s why may of them now are targeting the political arena as their next step. They speak in a boring way, and in a way that no one can really understand if they answer a question or not. They should be able to talk in a way that even a 9-year old can understand.
Last Thoughts
Bottom line is, we’re going to see a lot of new faces in the political arena. We’re going to see new politicians that did not pursue politics as a career, but know how to attract and retain attention. People who know how to use social media and people who know to make boring subjects interesting, and all of these big changes, thanks to social media.
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