The media plays a critical role in the democracy, informing the public about the issues and acts as a watchdog against abuses of power. During the election campaigns, the media provides detailed information and analysis about the political parties and their policies, performance, and complete information about the candidate. Media is the important pillar of democracy. In the initial times, print media played a very significant role in politics. Now the whole political landscape has been changed drastically in the last couple of decades. With the growth of the digital world, more people are using social networks as the main medium of communication. It is a fast and effective mode of communication.
Through a quick post of 30-60 seconds on the social platform, politicians can reach billions of the citizens and can offer the summary of their beliefs on any subject for free. They can make announcements of their political campaign. As a citizen, they always want to know about the politician they voted for. Political parties are using social media as an important tool for advertising, and the best thing about the social media is they are free. So all those traditional print media, billboards campaigning and high expenses activities have been turned into an advanced level of campaigning with almost no cost.
Each political party has their own pages through which they post their party agenda and ask for donations. Let’s take a look on some of the leading ways how social media is influencing the today’s political environment.
DIRECT COMMUNICATION WITH POLITICIAN
We can say, one of the positive effects from the social media has on politics is now the citizen can interact with politicians and their concerned elected officials. In past time, if you wanted to meet any politician you would have to attend the live event. This was not possible for all people. But with modern technology, now it is possible where you can interact virtually with your local politicians.
TARGETING THE AUDIENCE BASED ON THE DEMOGRAPHICS
Targeting the audience throughout the advertising industry to make sure their ads and message of the campaign are reaching to the right audience. A politician does this very well. In the age of social media, they are running IT cell to monitor and control the political campaign. For example, if any political leader wants to address the concerns of the women, issues related to the national interest or any specific local issue that is related to some specific audience, now they can tailor their messages. In other words, they can customize the campaign according to the requirements of the voters.
THE POWER OF CONFIRMATION BIAS
An interesting hidden force in social media is confirmation bias. In controversial topics, it plays a very critical role, including politics. If you are on the social platform, the majority of the friends share the same outlook. It simply means all the Facebook feeds, tweets and other content you read tend to express the same point of view, one that you have already held. On social media, this creates an “illusion” like everyone thinks in the same way. People will share post repeatedly to confirm your existing bias. Social media reinforce our opinions.
FAKE NEWS, CONSPIRACIES, AND RUMOURS
This point is so important in today’s scenario. Political campaigns are now influenced by every story, whether it is true or not. It is getting difficult day by day to find out the fake or real news. Social media making this issue very complicating. The constant share of memes, jokes, and rumors on any political candidate is the mixture of truth, satire, lies, and speculation. There are so many websites which post fake news just for entertainment or for click bait. Some of the websites or public platforms are hugely biased for certain political parties.
ON THE GO UPDATES
In pre-internet days, people had to wait for the next newspaper or the next TV show to get the latest information. Social media android application has taken this step further. While you can access the websites for the latest updates on the polls but now people spend more time on Facebook so you can get the latest trending stories or updates shared by your friends.
HOW POLLS ARE AFFECTED ON SOCIAL MEDIA
Political polls are a very important part of any campaign. They are very confusing like you can see multiples polls speculation and they vary so much to each other. Many websites conduct polling. Polls have a big influence on the elections results. This is true if they are flawed. Any political party can spread fake poll results to polarize the votes share.
CONCLUSION:
Although social media is relatively new, we are just starting to see it impacts on society. In a positive sense, social media completely changed the political environment. Far more influential, like people change their opinions at the last moments after watching some poll or comments of the public. As social media grow bigger, its impact on politics will increase over time. It will be interesting to observe how this play out.
