Social media,the new public sphere?

In the XVIII and XVIIII century information flow was slow people used to spread the word between each other and on a scale of big population information used to take weeks to spread, therefore a lot of people did not know much about some subjects like politics. Nowadays, social media has changed the way we interfere with politics in the world by giving the opportunity for everyone to access all information and knowledge needed using a simple click. It has changed mainly the control of information and to which consumers this information can be given, the quality of information and how it is spread between people.

POSITIVE IMPACT

▸ The control of information in the world regarding politics in the past was limited between journals and television that weren’t accessible for everyone, today with social media everyone can have access to this information by just a simple click on any of their social media account(Facebook, twitter, Instagram …)According to Papacharissi (2010):

«a sphere of connection and not isolation, as it serves primarily to connect the personal to the political, and the self to the polity and society».So for hem social media is a way for people to interfer in the society and a platform for the politician to express him self in front of million of people and to read their opinion.

Social media played a huge role in Egypt during the Arab spring ,facebook was used to organize events in the street to gather people numbers reached 50k in some cases ,people saying yes I want to participate in that event to protest against my government ,twitter was used to share opinions under certain hashtags one of them the famous ‘Arab spring’ word in Arabic ,in Libya videos of children and parents falling under government fire using heavy machinery and air force of their army force on social media fueled the anger of the US citizens and Europeans citizen mainly who asked their government to interfere to protect them even some American gave money out of their own salary to help them rebuild and huge campaign on social media was raised to help the Libyans people. After this huge campaign members of the UN helped the rebellion reach its goals using military forces.

Social media also had a huge role in countries like the US ,during the presidential election in the US in 2016 president Donald trump expressed that ‘I doubt I would be here if it weren’t for social media , to be honest’ after his elections he stated that social media is a platform for hem to express his believes and ideas to keep people interested and to avoid fake media that treated hem unfairly according to hem. President Donald Trump is well known for his activities on social media specially on twitter he has no problem tweeting anything that could help hem get closer to his people by sharing his beliefs ,under his posts on social media you can notice a huge debate between his supporters and the supporters of other parties including well known public figures trying to convince each other, one of his most known tweets is about North Korea after being elected when he stated that we could destroy north Korea If the security of our country is on the line ,and when north Korean leader Kim Jong Un accused trump of being lunatic and stated that his nuclear button is always on his desk , trump replayed by saying that his button actually works. Some people described president trump interaction of childish and it is not the way to solve the problem including many public figures including ex NBA playing Denis Rodman, while some people used social media to defend the president by saying that North Korean leader is ‘insane’ and expressed their trust in the capabilities of trump. The spread of information nowadays is actually a lot easier with social media, sharing opinions under hashtags on twitter,

Facebook activities even Instagram alongside other social media platforms are helping the world to get a little bit closer.

Negative impact

One limitation of this fast flow of info is that people now can choose what they want to see so they won’t be reading much of their opposite view in politics so participants are now more isolated and stuck in the ideas and beliefs of their political party that they follow. This leads to polarization of public opinion into ideological bubbles and to Confirmation bias where Partisan affiliation leads people to look for things they already believe in .Polarization and confirmation bias are perfect opportunity for false information to spread because they are all biased info written by people who got the same beliefs and restricted entry will not allow other opinion to be shared to know the information are valid or not, during the Arab spring groups for each political party members were created in some countries on Facebook and members of other parties cannot join therefore the isolation of this members created more tension between them which helped fuel the war instead of trying to find solutions. Some journalist does not believe in the social media can affect politics in a big way “Social media would make it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact” (Gladwell 2010, 49).Which basicly means that activist (an individual who expresses their ideas by getting involved and taking action (Urban dictionary)) cannot make impact on the actual political landscape because they are just expressing their opinions on social media without actual work on the ground. Another problem is that people engage in different social struggles without challenging the whole society which can lead to pluralistic problems and without unity we will face threat on the US participatory democracy and egalitarian society.

In the XVIII and XVIIII century information flow was slow people used to spread the word between each other and on a scale of big population information used to take weeks to spread, therefore a lot of people did not know much about some subjects like politics. Nowadays, social media has changed the way we interfere with politics in the world by giving the opportunity for everyone to access all information and knowledge needed using a simple click. It has changed mainly the control of information and to which consumers this information can be given, the quality of information and how it is spread between people.

POSITIVE IMPACT

▸ The control of information in the world regarding politics in the past was limited between journals and television that weren’t accessible for everyone, today with social media everyone can have access to this information by just a simple click on any of their social media account(Facebook, twitter, Instagram …)According to Papacharissi (2010):

«a sphere of connection and not isolation, as it serves primarily to connect the personal to the political, and the self to the polity and society».So for hem social media is a way for people to interfer in the society and a platform for the politician to express him self in front of million of people and to read their opinion.

Social media played a huge role in Egypt during the Arab spring ,facebook was used to organize events in the street to gather people numbers reached 50k in some cases ,people saying yes I want to participate in that event to protest against my government ,twitter was used to share opinions under certain hashtags one of them the famous ‘Arab spring’ word in Arabic ,in Libya videos of children and parents falling under government fire using heavy machinery and air force of their army force on social media fueled the anger of the US citizens and Europeans citizen mainly who asked their government to interfere to protect them even some American gave money out of their own salary to help them rebuild and huge campaign on social media was raised to help the Libyans people. After this huge campaign members of the UN helped the rebellion reach its goals using military forces.

Social media also had a huge role in countries like the US ,during the presidential election in the US in 2016 president Donald trump expressed that ‘I doubt I would be here if it weren’t for social media , to be honest’ after his elections he stated that social media is a platform for hem to express his believes and ideas to keep people interested and to avoid fake media that treated hem unfairly according to hem. President Donald Trump is well known for his activities on social media specially on twitter he has no problem tweeting anything that could help hem get closer to his people by sharing his beliefs ,under his posts on social media you can notice a huge debate between his supporters and the supporters of other parties including well known public figures trying to convince each other, one of his most known tweets is about North Korea after being elected when he stated that we could destroy north Korea If the security of our country is on the line ,and when north Korean leader Kim Jong Un accused trump of being lunatic and stated that his nuclear button is always on his desk , trump replayed by saying that his button actually works. Some people described president trump interaction of childish and it is not the way to solve the problem including many public figures including ex NBA playing Denis Rodman, while some people used social media to defend the president by saying that North Korean leader is ‘insane’ and expressed their trust in the capabilities of trump. The spread of information nowadays is actually a lot easier with social media, sharing opinions under hashtags on twitter,

Facebook activities even Instagram alongside other social media platforms are helping the world to get a little bit closer.

Negative impact

One limitation of this fast flow of info is that people now can choose what they want to see so they won’t be reading much of their opposite view in politics so participants are now more isolated and stuck in the ideas and beliefs of their political party that they follow. This leads to polarization of public opinion into ideological bubbles and to Confirmation bias where Partisan affiliation leads people to look for things they already believe in .Polarization and confirmation bias are perfect opportunity for false information to spread because they are all biased info written by people who got the same beliefs and restricted entry will not allow other opinion to be shared to know the information are valid or not, during the Arab spring groups for each political party members were created in some countries on Facebook and members of other parties cannot join therefore the isolation of this members created more tension between them which helped fuel the war instead of trying to find solutions. Some journalist does not believe in the social media can affect politics in a big way “Social media would make it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact” (Gladwell 2010, 49).Which basicly means that activist (an individual who expresses their ideas by getting involved and taking action (Urban dictionary)) cannot make impact on the actual political landscape because they are just expressing their opinions on social media without actual work on the ground. Another problem is that people engage in different social struggles without challenging the whole society which can lead to pluralistic problems and without unity we will face threat on the US participatory democracy and egalitarian society.