Social Media Synthesis Essay

President Obama not only was the first African American to be elected, but was also the first presidential candidate to effectively use social media as a major campaign strategy. In many ways the election of Barack Obama mimicked that of John F. Kennedy, both having changed politics forever. For John F. Kennedy it was the television and for Obama it was the internet. Barack Obama’s strategy of using the internet as a campaigning tool was a key to his victory in the election. He used the internet to organize his supporters. He had many more friends and followers on his Facebook and Twitter than his opponent John McCain did. The social media landscape looks a lot different now. There has been an increasing number of social media tools now than there were

a larger sense, I don’t think the media sent the agenda for a campaign he said.

For much of the 2000 campaign for the Presidency, Vice President Al Gore has been seen the candidate who will win this year’s Presidential Election. The polls show Gore as leading, political analysts have been saying “Gore all the way,” and most of the general public seem to be in agreement that Gore will succeed President Bill Clinton. But recently, the past two Presidential debates have seemed to abolish the idea that Vice President Al Gore will easily be elected President over Texas Governor George W. Bush.

“It’s estimated that the average American spends about 37 minutes on social media each day. That’s a full day each month spent cultivating relationships in front of a screen. Cumulatively, Americans spend 115 billion minutes each month on Facebook. Just Americans. Just Facebook,” (Jantz, Psychologytoday.com). This means that each month Americans alone spend a long time on Facebook, and that is not including other social media platforms either. Which then means, that the average American spends about two thousand one hundred and eighty seven centuries on Facebook, and that Americans spend all this time in front of a screen building a different identity instead of interacting with other human beings face to face and getting to know each other.

Throughout American history, it is clear to point out the United States have elected presidents to stand as the countries’ leader since the birth of the young nation. In most cases, the election is seen as a race between two parties even though there are others on the ballot. The vast majority usually did not know much about the other candidates until the turn of the century. Then, when media and information became easier to access it turned these elections into social media wars putting candidates at each other’s throats. The best example of this is the current election and their unruly debates, but when these debates came about they were not as cutthroat as they are now. Media throughout the years has forever altered the way in which these debates have gone about and how the presidential candidates are perceived. Media has tarnished the way politics and debates are run today from how they began.

Especially with an upcoming election, how does it affect our vote? On social media so far “16 percent of registered voters followed candidates for office… [that number is] up 10 percent since 2010” If 16% of the voters can see a candidate going through their everyday life and sharing updates from their perspective that voter is bound to see see the candidate as a more likable person. Not only that but it gives a undecided voters a better chance of getting information more information about individual candidates or asking questions to them directly. Others would insist that a digital campaign can’t make a candidate appear more likable because “The degree of cohesion amongst members of the community... influence the nature of these relationships.” Meaning that personally knowing someone is the only way to make them likable, therefore since voters rarely meet or know the candidate a digital campaign is futile. To a contrary in The Dragonfly Effect they review President Obama’s social media campaign and how “The campaign didn’t simply create a Facebook fan page and a YouTube account and expect things to take off: they created an energy of involvement, of participation, and a sense of purpose in their supporters,”(Aaker and Smith) Obama could make connections through giving a people a feeling of community between them and the

While there has been a lot of negative feedback from the results of the election, both campaigns should see social media platforms, particularly Twitter, as a catalyst for future change. The use of social media during the 2016 election has granted several candidates, not just the major party candidates, plenty of media exposure to a differentiated group of voters. Additionally, social media grants candidates more time to directly communicate with voters on issues that they are particularly passionate about. Furthermore, candidates have the opportunity to use feedback from social media sites to predict future winners of the popular vote well before the election. The millennial demographic has not held back with their opinions on issues and the results of the election; therefore, candidates and their campaign teams should take social media and the information it provides into serious consideration when partaking in such large-scale

Media has played a big part in elections for a long time. Im going to be talking about how the presidential election of 2008 was affected by it. The 2008 election was a great opportunity to test how much the media could influence the election. The controversy of having an African American was too much for the American people to handle so of course it was going to be picked up by the media.

Richard Elliot Neustadt, a profound political scientist and advisor to many presidents, has often argued over the years that presidential power is probably best understood as the power to persuade. Over the years, the presidency has evolved from what our Founder’s had to endure and has now turned into an obsession with news media. The President of the United States is the most powerful being in our country with the ability to control what Americans can and cannot know for better or worse. The presidency and news media have a more complicated relationship than what others might say. There are times where the president is more than willing to cooperate with the news, but there is also an equal amount of time where the presidency and the press are at odds. In our country’s lifetime of presidents, there have been numerous attempts and successions to control the flow of information by using the media in a strategic manner such as being able to

The 2008 presidential election was the beginning of a new era in politics4. While media such as television and newspapers focused on Obama’s race and birthplace, the now elect president was focusing his resources on the internet. Particularly social media, such as Facebook. His efforts were worthwhile, seeing how he overcame all obstacles and won the election. It proved social media’s, and the internet’s, true reach and power, as well as how intelligent Obama was in arguably being one of the first few politicians to tap into its true potential. His application of rhetoric in this new platform was ingenious, and it convinced the American people that he was a capable, modern man; an appeal that many established but older candidates lacked at the time.

It was 2011. President Barak Obama was 3 years into his first term as President of the United States, and set his sights on another one. Winning the 2012 election would be a challenge though, with many people tuning out of broadcast television, one of the main ways political candidates advertise. Enter social media marketing, more specifically Facebook. Obama’s campaign made an unprecedented turn to social media to gain a lead in the election, and eventually a win for Barak Obama. Nate Lubin, Director of Digital Marketing for the Obama for America campaign says on Facebook’s business marketing page, “Facebook allowed us to reach all of our constituencies, where they were and with the content we needed them to see and engage with.” If Obama’s campaign had to be innovative in 2012, how did the candidates of the 2016 election use his success with social media to further their own campaigns in a new, social media driven society? Companies now work to not only get content to people it will resonate with most, but analyze the psyche of social media users in order to better target them with content more likely to be received by them. With digital media playing an unprecedented role in the political campaign arena, psychological profiling is not just being employed to micro target a specific voter through social media, but successfully getting the right messages through to people who will best receive them.

Throughout history, presidential candidates have capitalized to newspapers, radio, television and now social media to inform about the campaign proposals. In the middle of the Digital Age, social media platforms such Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn performed an important role during the US presidential elections 2016.

Perloff writes, “If you are right that other people are influenced by the media, then it certainly stands to reason that you too should be effected” (Perloff, 252). This relates to the idea of Trumps social media simply due to the fact that people think others are affected by his internet presence more than they are. While everyone on social media sees a lot of the same things, many seem to think that they are immune to its powerful effects when in fact they are not. Overall, Trumps vast internet presence helped cast him above his opponents and garner unlikely votes that led to his

Appearances on entertainment shows, gives candidates an escape from the highly critical national press to a much more friendlier environment for them. A great example would be interviews on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show or Colbert Report. Another beneficial outlet for campaigns is social websites that were mainly used in the 2008 election and continued through 2012 elections. “For example, nearly six million people viewed the New York Time’s posting of the first Obama-Romney debate on YouTube”. (Dunaway & Graber. 2009. Pg. 316) In 2012 the Obama campaign turned to Twitter to target direct messages to voters and contributors, they also had more than sixteen million e-mail addresses. Others sources of direct social media that campaigns use are candidate-sponsored websites, campaign websites, and special interest pages for groups such as senior citizens, veterans, college students, or young

In modern industrialized democracies, the broadcast media reach virtually all adults and provide a national forum for candidate and political parties. (Iyengar 19) Media systems today do this so much that they become repetitive and sometimes annoying to viewers. During the presidential campaign there is a lot of media time given to the candidates through debates, interviews, other outlets, and their own advertisements that they pay for themselves. I am fully aware that our country needs to be involved and notified of political events as they currently happen but recently there has been major coverage each day about small things. For example, if a candidate is just out around or doing something that we have already seen then it should not be