For my final paper I am interested
in examining social media’s effect on politics. As a political science
undergraduate student in the late mid to late 2000’s, I experienced first hand
the growing role of social media in the political sphere, and it’s enormous
impact. I would argue that a large part of then candidate Obama’s success in
2008 was due to the brilliant social media presence his team created,
successfully mobilizing millions of young people. Further, in Iran during the
Green revolution and during the Arab spring in Egypt we saw more examples of
how social media could be used as a tool to mobilize people for political
purposes in different ways. One measure of success in the recent presidential
debates has been how many times a candidate’s name has been tweeted during the
debate further proving the importance of social media as it relates to the
political process. As a History teacher I find it to be extremely important to incorporate the most relevant media into my instruction. This will help prepare my students for the world, and will hopefully increase their awareness as it pertains to the issues. I think a paper such as this will allow me to further my own understanding of social media's impact on politics, thus allowing me to better teach and inform my students.
Annotated Bibliography:
Jonathan A. Obar, Paul Zube, & Clifford Lampe. (2012).
Advocacy 2.0: An Analysis of How Advocacy Groups in the United States Perceive
and Use Social Media as Tools for Facilitating Civic Engagement and Collective
Action. Journal of Information Policy, 2,
1–25. http://doi.org/10.5325/jinfopoli.2.2012.0001
In this article the authors ask
whether or not social media can promote civic engagement and collective action
in the United States. Their research looks at over 50 diverse advocacy groups
throughout the country and finds a revealing trend. All of the groups report
using social media to engage with participants on a daily basis. Further, all
of the organizations agreed that social media enabled them to accomplish their
goals for a diverse number of initiatives. The authors argue that more research
needs to be done when determining social media’s effect on real political and ideological
change.
Carlisle, J. E., & Patton, R. C.. (2013). Is Social Media
Changing How We Understand Political Engagement? An Analysis of Facebook and
the 2008 Presidential Election.Political Research Quarterly, 66(4),
883–895. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23612065
This article creates a concept of
political engagement and then examines political activity of Facebook users
during both the 2008 primary and general elections in the United States. They
create a model to help understand offline political engament and the factors
influencing people to engage politically on Facebook. Socio/economic factors, as well as political interest also
play into their analysis.
Zeitzoff, T.. (2011). Using Social Media to Measure Conflict
Dynamics: An Application to the 2008-2009 Gaza Conflict. The
Journal of Conflict Resolution, 55(6),
938–969. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23208011
In this article the author examines
social media’s ability to measure the dynamics of the Gaza conflict between
Hamas and Israel from 2008-2009. He creates and utilizes a model of measuring
the intensity of the conflict on an hourly basis as reported through Twitter
posts. The author also creates a template for researches to employ social media
as a tool to capture the micro dynamics of a political conflict.
Lynch, M.. (2011). After Egypt: The Limits and Promise of
Online Challenges to the Authoritarian Arab State. Perspectives
on Politics, 9(2),
301–310. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/41479654
Here the author examines social
media’s impact on the uprisings that occurred throughout the Arab world in
2010. He asserts that social media’s effect on contentious politics will need
to be thought about differently moving forward by discussing it’s achievements
and failures. Further, he discusses the changing information environment over
the past ten years and how it has led to increased individual competencies, and
the ability to organize on a large scale, as well as the transmission of
information in regions where it is usually suppressed.
Allan, D., & Brown, C.. (2010). The Mavi
Marmara At The Frontlines Of Web 2.0.Journal of
Palestine Studies, 40 (1),
63–77. http://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2010.xl.1.063
This article’s is centered on the
Gaza flotilla raid of 2010 and Israel’s attempt to utilize social media to
change public perception over the outcomes. Israel employed YouTube to post a
wide array of videos and images to bolster their position as the justified
actor in the situation. The authors argue that this was an ineffective use of
social media to win hearts and minds, and overall was a disaster for the
Israeli government. They go further to critique claims that Web 2.0 in general
has leveled the playing field in information wars such as the one between
Israel and Palestine.
The old saying, "History is written by the victor." is appropriate here. Previously those in power could either by bribery or violence, change the narrative. There was always some person who had something to lose and could be silenced. With social media, once I post it, it's too late.
ReplyDeleteWith social media, one it gets out there, it's nearly impossible to pull it back without calling attention to it. If we look at all the 'twitter' scandals, it often when people delete their posts is when others take notice.
We see the power of the media in our everyday lives. Five years ago, even a year ago, would we be questioning the ability of the police to treat all citizen's fairly? Yes there have unfortunately been generations of people fighting for their rights against the police. However the Police have been able to claim self-defense or even deny events happened at all.
With social medial, they can no longer write history to suit their own narrative. We can see what they do, how they do it and what the outcome of their actions are. We see injustice.
While we still have a way to go, without social media, we would still be out of touch with the realities that so many of our fellow citizens face every day.
Evan,
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting how involved social media has become in local elections. You can see candidates campaigning and people getting into political debates on a regular basis. It has become in a way free advertising for candidates. When President Obama did this is was in a way a kind of grass roots movement. Now it seems to have become the norm. Should be interesting to research for sure.