The Social Media Battle for President of the United States
In 2015, Kanye took to the VMA stage to announce his desire to run for president of the United States in 2020. In 2016, social media outlets started rumours that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was planning on running for president, based on his change of habits over the last few weeks. Throughout the past election, social media threw Michelle Obama into the mix to be a candidate in the next election. The main link between all of these potential candidates is how much social media has impacted the way they have been connected to the next election.
Social media will be a particularly huge influence in the next election for a couple reasons. First, Millennials and Generation X are becoming the larger and more impactful group in society in terms of voting, and these demographics have grown with technology and social media. Their voices as well as even those running will be directly influenced by what we share on social media. Social media was very influential leading up to the election in 2016, where Twitter was a huge news source for anything election related.
Based on the way social media is influencing the election, it is going to make the elections more of a popularity contest than an election based on solid campaigns. This is frustrating because when this happens, it does not allow for issues to be properly discussed in order for change to happen. People like Donald Trump win elections because they influence voters through the way they express their opinions, even though they may not be great opinions. His social media posts deterred the actual context of his ideas in order to create negative opinions of those he ran against rather than creating a positive view on his own campaign platform. This obviously worked for those who were only following based on what the candidates said, and not doing their own research about the campaigns. These empty promises influence the way the entirety of the country is run.
Voters have to be mindful of the information that is shared on social media because their filter bubbles impact the way they receive the information. It is important to stay woke about the issues that will ultimately impact your life. There is more to these individuals’ campaigns than what may appear in a tweet.
