Social Media and Politics... These Are a Few of My Favorite Things

I love politics. All four of my internships in college and my first job after graduating with my bachelors were in politics, and I thought it was going to be the industry that I worked in for the rest of my life. That was not the case, as I now work in higher education, but my love for politics has not faded.

I know that this is not the case with other people who are from my generations (I am considered a "cusper", I am right on the line of being a Millennial and Gen Z, as I was born in 1995). I have realized in recent years that the older people of my generation have become slightly more politically active, but for the most part my generation does not participate in politics as well as we should. While I exercise my right to vote every chance I can, I don’t think my brothers or fiancé are even registered. I have been keeping up with the President Trump’s Senate impeachment trial, but I know there are a lot of people around my age that don’t even know that it is happening.

I think social media plays a huge role in what Millennials and Gen Zers think is important, and politics is not one of those things. There are several reasons why social media has a big impact on the political views of Gen Z and Millennials, but I think one of the most important one is social media influencers.

These generations are listening to the opinions of their friends and following in the footsteps of social media influencers. So many people are interested in the lifestyle of having followers and sponsors that posting content that may be seen as controversial is something that they do not want to do. There are some social media influencers who will make political posts and stories, but, for the most part, they are told to stay in their lane and that they have authority to post their beliefs. These negative comments are almost always from those of the opposing party.

In the last year or so, I have seen more influencers breaking off from the normal of not posting and actually stating their views. Grace Beverly, and fitness influencer, regularly tweets and posts Instagram stories about her support of the Labor Party (she lives in London). A smaller blogger (who I actually went to college with), Patrick Weaver, recently posted a story to his Instagram where he ranted about his followers telling him to keep his political beliefs to himself.

Because we are starting to see more social media influencers and other important people talking about politics on their platforms, I think that we can expect the younger generations to become more politically active soon. According to an article from Vox, our younger generations (Millennials, Gen X and Gen Z) accounted for more than half of the voters in the 2018 midterm elections. The number of millennial voters almost doubled from 2014 to 2018, so we are on the right path. In one of our readings for this week, CNN Politics mentions an Instagram post from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, commonly referred to as AOC, that looks exactly like a post from an influencer. Having people in our generation represented in politics will help voter turnout. Not only will we identify more with them, but they are more likely to post content that we like on social media.

Social media has changed politics a lot in the past few years. Now instead of having only a few news sources, there are hundreds at the tips of your fingers. Social media also allows politicians to bypass the media altogether by posting information to their own personal pages. I believe that this is, overall, a great thing. People don’t have to travel to hear information from a politician first hand, they can just find them on Facebook or Instagram and get the latest news. In the past few years, we have also seen how harmful having a direct line to a politician can be. Everyone knows about President Trump’s affinity for Twitter and posting dozens of messages a day from his personal account. Lately these tweets have been insults at politicians who are running against him for President, or who just have different views than him! For the most part, politicians do not have a problem with oversharing on social media, but it is definitely something that may become a bigger problem in the future. This site created a list of several different ways that social media has changed politics, here are just a few:

-         -  Politicians have direct contact with voters.

-         -  It is free advertising.

-         - You can easily tailor a message to a specific audience based on location.

-         -  It is easier to receive direct feedback from voters.

But the number 9 and 10 reasons: It’s Hip and gives you The Power of Many. Social media engages the younger voters and gives voters the chance to join together to influence politicians.

Due to the prevalence of social media in the daily lives of millennials, I think it so more important than ever for political candidates to have a strong presence across different platforms. Just like last week, when we discussed the importance of all companies, no matter the size, having a mobile website, it is important for a candidate in any race to have a presence on social media. Having an active Facebook page will help the candidate gain interaction with older millennials while platforms like Twitter and Instagram will help them with the younger crowd. The content will differ on each of the candidate’s social media platforms. Facebook will allow them to post longer messages or videos, while keeping Instagram short and sweet with perfect photos and short videos is important. As we start to see the younger generations get more involved not only in voting, but actually running for office, I think we will truly start to see the impact that social media has had on the political environment. We are starting to see it with people like AOC, but I believe we will see a huge shift in the coming years.