Zachary Heisler Dr. Sherry Hu ABLE Research Internship 5 August, 2023 The Impact of Social Media on Political Discourse In today’s world, the influence of social media has undoubtedly changed the world of politics. Whether for the better or the worse is temporarily unknown. Social media is the main way of communicating nowadays, most people prefer to talk through social media, which is why it has made its way into politics. Politicians have learned that social media is just another new avenue to be explored. In the early 2000’s not many people took advantage of this, the ones who did got an early start. Barack Obama, a household name, was one of the biggest names to have used social media to his advantage. In 2008, Obama tried to reach out and connect directly with American voters through online social media sites like Facebook and MySpace which were extremely popular at the time. This was heralded as the “Facebook election” (Harbath, 2022). Through my research, my goal is to find how social media has changed political discourse and what the future brings. With the addition of politics into social media, there have been many positive effects. Politicians along with voters have found a new outlet to share their thoughts with one another. Nowadays, communities of voters can share their opinions and show what they want online. Ease of access has become incredibly important in today’s world. With social media, anyone from anywhere can talk to each other without even getting out of bed. In the early 2000’s in 2003 and 2004, MySpace, Gmail, and Facebook were all founded respectively. Politicians who noticed this surge in usage utilized it to their advantage. In 2005, Youtube was founded, along with Twitter in 2006. The first instance of political marketing was politicians making ads on facebook in 2006. Again in 2006 facebook made a news feed to make it easier for voters to see what their favorite politician is implementing and doing. One of the most significant moments in political history that changed politics forever was in 2006 with a video of Senator George Allen of Virginia that went viral. Allen was considered a front-runner for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination, a republican party known as the Grand Old Party. That was until a tracker hired by an opponent hoping to catch a candidate saying something incriminating, caught Allen while he was recording, Allen called him out using a racial slur. The video was quickly uploaded to Youtube and it went absolutely viral. The video surged through the internet, putting an end to George Allen. This shows how social media can bring people’s real colors to light. Democracy has changed forever due to this new meta of social media. However, many argue that social media has done more worse than good. The majority of people agree that social media has made it easier for people to communicate in today's world. Over the years, it’s become increasingly harder to spot fake news and real news. Disinformation has spread like wildfire since anyone can post anything about anybody. While that is a good thing, social media sites like Facebook, Google, and Twitter have the power to alter civic engagement and political discourse. People are scared that these big names might influence an individual's way of thinking. This is where the topic of an echo chamber comes into play. A quote from The University of Texas sums it up well, “A social media echo chamber is when one experiences a biased, tailored media experience that eliminates opposing viewpoints and differing voices. Due to social media algorithms that ensure we only see media that fits our preferences, we have found ourselves in a comfortable, self-confirming feed.” Individuals who use social media politically often fall victim to creating an echo chamber of the same ideas and opinions. This bias is created through algorithms that all social media apps use. This poses a danger to society, since everyone will think they are right due to the constant affirmation of like-minded people. Many worry that social media will eventually get out of control to where big social networks will amplify this effect to where everyone is a zombie. The political landscape has forever changed because of social media. Critics are able to look at the past and present, but it’s quite unpredictable to look at the future. All that was left was to question how politics would change in the future. In April 2023, not too long ago, President Biden released his re-election campaign through video on Youtube. On the same day, the Republican National Committee (RNC) released an ad that envisioned what would happen in four more years under Biden. They predicted higher crime, open borders, war with China, and economic collapse (Powell and Dent, 2023). But there’s a twist, the whole video was made through artificial intelligence (AI). This started a whole new era of political advertising. The fear mongering created by the RNC worked and people were scared. Just in 2018 Deepfakes started to become popular and it created a war of new disinformation. Many believe the future holds the decline of trust in the media. 10 years ago, no one could have predicted propaganda and fake news coming in the form of AI and deep fakes. This poses a threat for anybody who uses social media, everyone is now susceptible to fake news. In the end, it all relies on the individual. After all my research, the conclusion was clear, and the issue was very complex. The positive effects from social media allowed for the politician and the voter to communicate much more easily. It also brought a lot of the bad actors to light by exposing them through social media. On the other hand, social media has also created a new way to spread false news and propaganda. Social media has the ability to create echo chambers where only biased information is heard. To create a good political stance, there has to be both sides, not just one. Algorithms from social media make this incredibly hard since sometimes an individual will start subconsciously believing whatever they see. For the future, it’s hard to determine what’s next, no one could have predicted AI and deep fakes, but they came nevertheless, and have also affected politics for years to come. To answer the question of whether social media has changed politics for the better or for the worse, it’s neither, mainly due to both the pros and cons being so strong. So in the end, the answer depends on the individual’s use of social media. Works Cited ● Anderson, Alyssa. “How Social Media Affects Political Beliefs and Movements.” Huskie Commons , 14 May 2022, https://huskiecommons.lib.niu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2434&context=studenten gagement-honorscapstones. Accessed 28 June 2023. ● “Social Media Seen as Mostly Good for Democracy Across Many Nations, But U.S. is a Major Outlier.” Pew Research Center , 6 December 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2022/12/06/social-media-seen-as-mostly-good-for-d emocracy-across-many-nations-but-u-s-is-a-major-outlier/. Accessed 1 July 2023. ● Harbath, Katie. “A Brief History of Tech and Elections: A 26-Year Journey.” Bipartisan Policy Center , 28 September 2022, https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/history-tech-elections/. Accessed 30 July 2023. ● Powell, Catherine, and Alexandra Dent. “Artificial Intelligence Enters the Political Arena.” Council on Foreign Relations , 24 May 2023, https://www.cfr.org/blog/artificial-intelligence-enters-political-arena. Accessed 30 July 2023. ● Kelly, Morgan, and Egan Jimenez. “Political polarization and its echo chambers: Surprising new, cross-disciplinary perspectives from Princeton.” Princeton University , 9 December 2021, https://www.princeton.edu/news/2021/12/09/political-polarization-and-its-echo-chambers -surprising-new-cross-disciplinary. Accessed 5 August 2023.