The Internet has revolutionized the way we communicate, and social networks have the power to shape political discourse, values, and the dynamics of conflict. Democrats tend to view social media in a positive light, while Republicans are more divided by ideology. Conservative Republicans are more likely to see social media as having a mostly negative effect (83%), while moderate to liberal Republicans are more likely to see it as having a mostly positive impact (8%). Smart leaders have often taken advantage of new media to influence politics.
For example, President Roosevelt used radio and President Kennedy used television to bridge the gap between politicians and the public. Today, political campaigns allocate a lot of resources to social media campaigns, so it's important to understand how social networks can influence elections and how voters can make informed decisions. For instance, when Facebook users were shown the “I voted” button along with a message that highlighted their friends who had already voted, they were much more likely to vote than if they were only shown an informational message. Social networks also collect political information through the same process.
A user who sets their location to St. Louis can view recently recommended Missouri political forums on their social networks. This content curation model (sometimes referred to as “the algorithm”) allows advertisers to target ads to specific demographics. Political campaigns regularly pay social media platforms to publish political ads to potential voters.
However, even if companies have innocent intentions when creating a social media platform, good intentions don't guarantee a positive impact. Social networks can be used for any number of purposes, many of which can undermine civil discourse. Companies collect widely available demographic data from large scale social media platforms and use large scale models to perform electoral analysis and make statistically calculated predictions about what types of ads might attract members of different groups the most. Political echo cameras are a natural extension of the impersonal algorithm of social networks, in which a platform analyzes a user based on their participation and then shows them more content of the same type.
This can lead to the bandwagon effect, where social networks amplify and reinforce media messages without context or fact-checking, which can affect the public's perception of candidates and their platforms. This allows misinformation to spread quickly and easily. Another negative effect of social media on voters is a sense of political information overload on social media platforms. While participation can help candidates spread their messages and reach more voters, it has also been shown to easily enable electoral disinformation on a global scale.
It is important for individuals to navigate social networks intelligently. People should consider how their behavior on social media affects others on their networks and think twice before sharing unverified information again. Maryville University's online degree programs teach students information literacy and critical thinking skills, including analyzing and interpreting sources on the web. Maryville is committed to creating a culture of respect and inclusion in person and online, where all students can challenge themselves and grow safely.
One possibility for companies is “platform bankruptcy”, whereby social media platforms would restore their total number of users and group followers to zero and rebuild communities from scratch with current platform rules in place. About one in ten responses talks about how people on social media can easily get confused and believe everything they see or read, or aren't sure what to believe. The use of social media platforms by domestic populist forces or external malign forces can weaken national authority in strong democratic regimes, support the rise of populism, and diminish democratic institutions and ideas such as multilateralism and globalization. In weak liberal democracies, social media platforms have a radicalizing effect since they facilitate the rise of populist candidates that erode the country's democratic values.
