Is the participation of politicians in social media the acceptable way forward? — Social Media & Digital Politics

These Blogs are for a University of Malta Assignment.

In our last blog we indicated that social media can be either used or abused by politicians. However, it can be seen that whilst initially most politicians were not cognisant of the potential of social media, this has now been interpreted as a means to contribute to their popularity and success.

Is the participation of politicians in social media the acceptable way forward?

Effing R. et al. (2011) have indicated that whilst initially social media did not influence voting behaviour in local elections, in the national elections the politicians with more social media coverage got more votes within their party. It appears that whilst most political parties just took a free ride on the social media as this was relatively a new development, nowadays this has developed into a more intricate strategy game that is trying to influence the relationships between politicians and society. One particular approach is to provide opportunities to involve and empower citizens to commit themselves through “crowdsourcing” to participate in a cause they relate to. In this way politicians are favoring citizen participation and their empowerment would create a positive interaction with their political counterpart.

On the other hand, politicians will evaluate their performance in social media by a number of social media indicators that would show the number of blog posts, the number of tweets, the number of friends, the number of video posts and the number of subscribers, amongst others. Through the different forms of social media, politicians reach out to further connect and interact with citizens. In this way, the branding of political messages has developed as a useful networking tool.

The instantaneity of social media also facilities a potential blitz of electronic information to consolidate a particular campaign or targets a specific motive. At times this could lead to the development of particular websites that facilitate further interaction with the community and in order to further facilitate outreach by the political activists, a number of issues could be addressed in this website. In this way political entities and politicians can reach out beyond those who already support their cause to attain further support.

More contrastingly, the provision of information to people who want to consolidate their cause helps bring about more active participation in different countries around the world for various forms of protest induced by bloggers and activists. Here social media served to create further interaction and mobilise support by people who wanted to lobby their cause against a state decision they could not agree to. This indicates that participation in social media can work both ways for politicians.

Participation in a way reflects the democratisation of access for everyone but as can be seen this can also act as a two edged knife. It all translates to a question of usage and abusage. A positive political outrage will undoubtedly contrast with damaging events carried out by a political regime.

State control and censorship can result in the blockage of national media. However, some sources of social media can nevertheless prevail to provide an outlet for expression beyond state censorship. Video footage captured through cell phones as well as any social media posts can eventually reach social media even in other countries. Other than serving as a form of protest in extreme cases, social media could also serve as a form of debate amongst different groups in order to facilitate the development of common goals. Throughout these processes social media will serve as a tool to create further understanding.

With the development of electronic voting an increased political trend for tweeting, texting, blogging, vlogging, facebook friends, internet campaigning and online polling, social media has developed into an online technology that complements political activity. Given the way each social media platform operates, tweaking to attain a particular audience profile has also become possible. The advantage of social media is that in a way it facilitates continuous communication and as yet is acting without any specific rules.

In this respect I feel I have to ask is social media really leveling the political playing field? Will it operate independently of politicians? Will it transform the political process? Should there be an established form of regulation and licensing of social media?

The increased public use of social media confirms the importance it has attained in everyday use both on a national and international level. The proliferating political use of social media is leaving an impact which as yet still needs to be evaluated further. (Harvey K., 2014)

Tune in for my next blog which will be discussing youths in relation to politics and social media!