The Politics of Social Media.

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Social Media displays such as YouTube, Facebook and Myspace are influencing the campaigns of political individuals across the Western world: who are utilizing these programs. What is the aim of this? To catch the attention of the younger generation, therefore: creating a larger audience to listen. Having used Facebook and Youtube quite often and not really being into politics myself (although I do have some strong views), I personally do not think that utilizing these programs is helping the politicians with their campaign to reach a younger audience. With all the videos in the world to watch over YouTube, I would not choose to watch John Howard talk about climate change. Although if I wanted to, I would make sure that I watched the news or listened to the radio to listen to the topic of conversation.



Utilizing the internet to help campaigns can be risky business, but how effective is it? The new craze of the social network Twitter has created havoc for politicians for “flaming” or in other words, posting what could be seen as a nasty or disliked messages which at first, were not intended to hurt. As your very own computer screen cannot show expression, the illusion of a message can come across as rude, and some cannot tolerate it. This leaves the politician in a position in which could be seen as bad for their career, and may change people in societies views on them. Despite this, there are a number of politicians who have enhanced their public profile positively to society through social networking. For example, there have been people who believe that Barack Obama won the presidency election in America because of his campaigns over the internet. His efforts created a large amount of recognition and praise from the media and the community of politics for creating a social network to back up his campaign, and shows how effective the use of social networking can be (if you use it correctly of course).

The examples show that there is a growing relationship between politics and these social media programs. Although, YouTube, Facebook and Myspace have been used by the politicians, all having different outcomes, there is a large difference in the effectiveness of it. Despite helping their campaign, issues may be taken the wrong way and could possibly destroy the campaign. Politicians must be careful in how they express their views in order for their use of social networking to be successful and effective.