The Influence Of Social Media On Political Communication

Political strategists and analysts have dubbed Barack Obama’s2008Presidentialvictory as the “Twitter election,” a “triumph of new media in politics,” and “theelection decided by Facebook. In2012, Obama spent47million dollars running socialmedia which is10times larger than Romney did. What’s more, he hired more than100people who were in charge of his social media account, including Twitter.It is considered that social media is going to bring a revolution of politicalcommunication field as television did in1960s. Many scholars predict that socialmedia will bring a explosion growth of information and change the relationship ofpoliticians, government and public. Our society will become opener, moretransparent due to social media.Obama, social media president candidate, won2012presidential campaigneventually. Social media was growing in the past4years. But, does the reality matchthe rhetoric? This paper examines the role of social media in the2012Presidentialelection, asking the question of how social media lays effects on politicalcommunication.By analyzing past literature and survey data from Pew research center’s Internetand American Life project, this study finds that the social media’s effect on politicalcommunication procedure is significant. Social media accelerate Democratic Politics.Political engagement is awake and enhanced. So is supervision of Politics. However,be aware of consensus on Internet, which might bring side effect. Furthermore,social media is an extension of traditional media due to its advantage such as lowbarrier and interactive. For public, social media is a way to know candidate. Forcandidate, social media is a plus means to raise foundation money. For press, socialmedia is another news source.After all, social media is just a media. Its effect on the consequence of politicalcommunication is limited. Social media gathers people who share the same mind andideology. They seem exclude the information which is different from them. That is tosay, it is hard to change their decisions. Thanks to social media,“voice” can be spread louder, further and quicker.