The Voice of an Individual Lost in a Sea of Noise
By Albert Hermo
Public discourse through social media, the “Fifth Estate”, is continually the key factor in deciding global and national affairs. Social media has become so intertwined with everyday life that society has become a Mediapolis where technology impinges on everything from social status to work and even politics. In the Fourth Age where information is key and speed even more so; journalism and the media often need to respond to events as they occur. This often results in miscommunication and fake news, all of which are heavily affected by social media. But how did social media become so intertwined with politics? And in what ways does social media affect the voices of the masses.
All of this began back in 1935, NBC launched a TV show called America’s Town Meeting of the Air. Broadcast live in front of an Audience of 1500, the live-action Q&A gave an “unprecedented sense of a national public sphere”. This idea of introducing live comments from ordinary people provided unprecedented popularity as the audience engaged with political figures. It provided them with a sense of identity and voice where many could express their opinions and watch how the politicians responded towards them.
Over the following years, programs such as these gained widespread attention due to their radical changes to the participatory form of media. Audiences were no longer passive recipients of television’s account of society, they had become active participants in public communication. Media producers no longer operated in an exclusive professionalised enclave, audiences were now able to intervene in public stories with “a degree of effectiveness that would have been unthinkable 10 or 20 years ago.’’
Following this growing trend and the advancement of Social Networking Sites (SNS), televised broadcasting began displaying live twitter posts during news broadcasts. According to Fiona Martin an MP for the liberal party, online media plays a vital role at ABC, allowing users “to conquer the ephemerality and time-boundedness of broadcast”. This growing media power gave the online community a voice as broadcasters shared their traditional control with them.
But just who was representing the public? Was it actually someone who represented the people, or someone who was entertaining and thus popular? Research from Carruthers and Ballsun-Stanton pointed out that “Twitter’s power lies in the power of network amplification: the power of a single user is magnified by the power of their network plus their network’s network”. This meant retweeted content mostly came from a popular voice and not a representative one, a dangerous notion considering how viral Twitter has become.
One recent example of when a popular voice has influenced the masses through social media is the presidential election of 2016 between Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump. In an interview with ABC, Trump attributed his victory to his many online supporters on Facebook and Twitter. Given Donald Trump’s substantial following, it could be argued that he was a relative voice for the community due to the rate at which he was retweeted. But just why was this person so popular on social media?
One reason for why Donald Trump had such a large following was how his tweets promoted incivility through his constant remarks and attacks against other parties and individuals. Trump’s tweets were overwhelmingly negative in connotation with a large amount of them being outright insults. In fact, according to a study by Tsur, Ognyanova, & Lazer it was due to these types of offensive tweets that Trump had been retweeted an astonishing 2,201 times on average in 2016. An example of this was his Tweet in April of 2016:
Trump’s tweets often insulted and undermined his opponents standing through the use of crude nicknames such as “Crooked Hilary” and “Lyin’ Ted Cruz”. These nicknames were used as a ploy to deteriorate their public image as well as constantly remind the public of their wrongdoings and thus create doubt. In fact according to BBC, Trump’s use of social media to undermine Hillary Clinton’s standing with her history of political secrets created the image that Hillary was the ultimate insider, which greatly deterred many voters.
David Robinson a statistical analyst for Stack Flow, analysed the presidents Twitter account and highlighted Trumps correlation to Tweets and entertainment. It was due to this factor that Trump was able to garner the support from a mobile supporter base and reach a global scale, that allowed him to unseat other party groups and gain the most following from online users and the media who coveted high entertainment. While there are many who support the now-president Donald Trump, many of his retweets were attributed to outrage and discontent from the public. While Trump was not a voice for these individuals, under the platform’s system, his voice was broadcast far and wide and appeared as a popular opinion.
In fact according to Olivia Solon a senior technology reporter for the Guardian US, people across the political spectrum are being fed a steady media diet from popular voices of what they want to hear. It’s not just Trump followers who are being fed information but others who follow high profile figures. These figures needn’t just be politicians, but celebrities and the like. In fact, according to Dr Robinson:
“I think celebrities have a long history of exceeding expectations in American elections, because they’re charismatic and relatable. The most notable example is Ronald Reagan, who was famous for his folksy charm, as well as Arnold Schwarzenegger. These suggest American voters are less interested in voting for qualified career politicians and are at least as likely to support someone entertaining.”
Originally, social media’s integration with politics was supposed to allow this unprecedented sense of national sphere where users could discuss daily politics with political figures. However, through the grievances of Media Ecology, many SNS sites such as Twitter have fallen into decay where popularity and thus importance is linked to how entertaining a post is and how well broadcasted it is. This has created the illusion of public figures/voices that represent the community when in reality these people post to entertain or for their own personal motives. One example of this was Donald Trump who used his outspoken language to become a dominant voice that shaped the political landscape in the 2016 election.
This consolidation of social media following has drowned and silenced individuals with their own voices, beliefs. A sea of noise has been created of which only the voices of a few are heard, this in turn inadvertently forces individuals to listen to these figures and instead of creating their own opinions adopt theirs.
