The Roles of Social Media in Politics

In order to determine if the poll is weak or strong, it is important to assess the ways in which the information/data for the poll is collected and how authentic it is. In order for the results, or conclusion, to be strong, the inductive generalization must not contain any fallacies. The sample size must also be large enough to represent a population, so it is not biased. A strong poll would show that the population was selected randomly, with consistently strong statistics, and a low margin error . A weak poll on the other hand, would be one

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

Best starts out the chapter explaining how public opinion is measured, Best specifically uses public polling as a means to measure public opinion (166-167). Best mentions that a small amount of people in a specific population, known as a sample, have their opinions taken in a poll format. Those polls’ results are then used to generalize the whole population (167).

Without a randomly selected sample, the results can only be applied to the specific persons questioned (Blake 1). This is why results from polls that allow self-selection, such as those found on the web, or in your mailbox, automatically demand a higher level of scrutiny and skepticism.

How presidential candidates present themselves in the media can be proven to impact election results dramatically. Political figure using social media did not start to become more common until after the 2008 election because Twitter and Facebook were just recently created, but by looking at data from the past two elections it shows that the news presidential candidates put on their social media can correlate with how people will decide to vote. After researching what topics political candidates post and how they present themselves in the media with election results it can be established that a candidate’s presence in social media can have an impact on how people might vote in an election. “By 2008 candidate websites were standard and campaigns

More and more people are getting their news from social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, Tumbler and many more, and candidates are using this to their advantage. This election is probably one of the first were candidates have actually used social media sites as their direct communication line to potential voters. Social media today had gone from gossip and family pictures to a location for political strategy. Thanks largely to trumps regular social media first declarations and its actually working particularly with the younger voters. A study released last year from the Pew Research Center that Marissa Lang cited showed that “Among 18- to 29-year-olds, nearly two-thirds said social media is the most helpful means of learning new things about politics.” (Lang, 2016). Even if the candidate isn’t the one posting the video or message in the end it will still end up on social media. For example, Trump had announced his plan to ban all Muslims from entering the united states in South Carolina not on social media however it found its way there and spread like wild fire. This sent those who were outraged to respond in disgust and those who encouraged it to share it so that their friends could see and so on and so on. Even if those who shared it did it to

Congress, 80% of our representatives use social media to engage with constituents. That has never been done before and is changing how politicians respond. We even see some votes in Congress made based on their Facebook feedback.”(The Economic) The Internet is like being there in the whole scene. Missing out information is impossible, a simply Google search, all the information is stored. When computers came out, it cost thousands, now it’s cheaper and faster. There’s tablets and phones with the opportunity to surf the web. More than half the candidates have some type of social media, either them or a fan.

This then leads into what is the sample size is too small and is not a great representation of the overall population. If the sample size is too small, it could lead to selection bias which is when the sample does a terrible job representing the actual ideologies of the population in that area. Push polling, which is asking questions in a way that gives the pollster the answer that is being sought out, is often another technique used to potentially skew the outcome. All of these are factors that could potentially be important when it comes to the outcome of the polls. Make sure to keep in mind that whenever a poll is taken there is always a way that someone/something can skew it to their

According to the article, small differences in methods between popular polls can result in large differences when voter commitment is still uncertain (Tackett, 2012). During this election, polls were a great source of information for voters to use in their decision making process. Bloomberg’s poll surveyed 1,002 adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points for the full sample. This means that if the polls were conducted 100 times, the data would be within 3 points above or below the reported percentage in 95 of 100 surveys (Tackett, 2012).

Public opinion can be defined as the collective opinion of many people on some issue. When it comes to elections, party members attempt to estimate a candidate favorability by polling the public using different techniques such as: calling, online surveys, panels, and exit polls. However, when trying to get the statistically most accurate result, party member must be weary of biases like biased questions, undercoverage, and sampling bias.

But I do understand that public opinion polls play an important role in politics. They are used throughout the course of election campaigns by candidates and by the media to see which candidates are ahead and who is likely to emerge victorious. The results of these polls, in turn, largely determine where future campaign monies are to be spent and where each candidate's efforts will be concentrated until the close of the campaign. My political opinion is influenced by public opinion because, knowing the role of the candidates and how they act is a huge part when it comes to voting on election day. Seeing how they act through media can change your opinion on how you see the person who’s running for presidency. Also, you can keep up with everything and see who’s winning the race. This also shows the months before elections, news coverage often focuses on the results of pre-election polls, and the accumulating of polling results on websites further increases their availability to the

The reason why is because there are certain factors and variables that aren’t taken into account that should be in order to create the most accurate public opinion poll possible. One website that outlines which criteria should be met in the form of answering 5 important questions is the website crf-usa.org. This website recommends asking yourself the following five questions when analyzing the results of any public opinion poll, “1. Who Was Interviewed? Generally speaking, the accuracy of a poll depends upon the degree to which the characteristics of the people being interviewed are really similar to those of the group they are supposed to represent. For example, the polling of sixteen-year-olds to predict the outcome of an election would be very questionable since they cannot vote. Also, as a general rule, the greater the number of people interviewed, the more likely the prediction will be accurate. Everything else

Social media can also play a vital role in influencing the political decisions of its users. Multiple studies have been conducted measuring Facebook’s impact on young people. Some suggest that young Internet users are more influenced by other young people online. Others suggest young voters seem to trust older users’ evaluations more (Lee). People who intend to vote need to understand that they have to think for these issues themselves. There is nothing wrong with discussing these issues with others online, but why constantly let others decide for you? Politicians have to use social media

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.

Polls provide the best direct source of information about the public opinion. They involve a survey of the overall population by designing questionnaires, tabulating answers, and analyzing the results in a report.9 A