Digital Media And Social Media Analysis

Digital media and social media have changed the way we receive the news. Instead of a few television stations or newspaper companies, there are thousands of outlets to receive the news. With more and more ways to get the news, there naturally must be more people involved in reporting and interpreting the news. This paper will discuss how digital media and social media have diluted the power that ‘old media’, such as television, radio, and newspapers, once had in reporting the news, which has led to encourage greater democratic participation of people.
Thanks to the Internet everyone has the potential to be a blogger. Everyone has the opportunity to write a blog about a certain interest, whether it is sports, cats, politics or world affairs. …show more content…
We currently live in a world that is in the midst of a technological revolution. Thanks to social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, the traditional relationship between political authority and the people’s will has been upended, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coordinate, and give voice to their concerns (Gladwell 2010). People are able to express themselves by commenting on different issues and having those comments received by their friends or followers. In the past it would take a monumental effort to create change. The famous United States Million-Man march was not planned overnight, and the civil rights movement in the United States was not a quick process. It took hard work, dedication, patience, and around 10 years. Today, social media has given power to the people to make change happen faster. An example would be social media’s influence on the Arab Spring in 2011. Ekaterina Stepanova of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations explains that, “in the 2011 ‘Arab Spring’ protests, social media networks played an important role in the rapid disintegration of at least two regimes, Tunisia and Egypt, while also contributing to sociopolitical mobilization in Bahrain and Syria,” (Stepanova 2011, p.1). It’s also striking to see who are the ones that are using this power to express their outrage. Most social media users in these countries were young and …show more content…
Political campaigns are no longer a game played only by the elite. Social media has allowed grassroots campaigns to emerge and compete with big campaigns. Social media sites for candidates are often getting more traffic than an official campaign website (Jerpi 2012). It has become important for candidates to get connected and to stay in touch with the people they represent. The easiest and most efficient way for candidates to express themselves and to get recognized is to use social media. It does not matter if that means they air Youtube videos, create a Facebook or Twitter, or even an Instagram. Politicians are finding it necessary to become more involved in the social media world. During the presidential campaign in 2012 it was Obama’s social media networking that made him seem more connected and human. His most popular tweet, and the most “retweeted” tweet on Twitter in 2012, was of a photo of him embracing his wife Michelle Obama (Susskind 2013). By using social media, politicians can appear to be more like your “friend” than a politician. On the issue of Twitter in campaigns Jane Susskind of IVN explains that, “Twitter has become a hub for voters to see real-time reactions, candid responses, and instantly check facts and statistics referenced in debates and speeches. It demands transparency from the candidates, knowing that their arguments can be verified in the blink of