The Utilization of Social Media by Politicians

     Last month, Joe Biden and his team utilized social media and celebrity power to raise awareness for women's health issues. Memphis rapper GloRilla was invited to the White House's Women's History Month event, where she met President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. After the event, GloRilla posted selfies with the president and vice president on social media and links to interviews covering the topic. This undoubtedly brought a lot of attention to the event as many other social media accounts talked about GloRilla's appearance at the White House.       During this event, "President Biden signed a new executive order to improve research on women's health and pledged $200 million over the next year to study the issues." (Grove, 2024) He also called for Congress to "make a bold, transformative investment of $12 billion in new funding for women's health research" (The White House, 2024). On the day of the event, President Biden si...

          For good reason, Barack Obama has been labeled the first social media President. According to Freking (2017), "The year Obama came into office, the White House joined Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Vimeo, iTunes, and MySpace." This is quite the influence. Obama utilized social media in ways no president ever had before. He used his platforms as a way to both educate and amuse voters, which is difficult to do. His social media legacy has undoubtedly influenced the following presidents, such as Donald Trump, to utilize social media as a political tool.      According to Goodman, Wennerstrom, and Springgate (2013), social media and Obama's use of it in his campaign may have ultimately won him the 2008 Presidential election. He used social media to microcast, which is when candidates advertise online to target audiences. His targeted messages and use of interactive communication were found to have "contributed to the 135% increase in youth ...

     While Pokémon Go isn't a traditional social media platform, I would argue that this game has brought people together in many of the same ways social media has. In 2016, Pokémon Go hit the app stores and took the world by storm. It was a huge topic of conversation for many, and it was hard to find someone who hadn't tried it out. Similar to social media, Pokémon Go quickly became a political game for Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton due to the 2016 presidential election.      In July 2016, Hillary Clinton spoke at a rally in Virginia, where she iconically said, "I don't know who created Pokémon Go, but I'm trying to figure out how we get them to have 'Pokemon-Go-to the polls'" (Grebey, 2016).  Following this, her campaign announced they would host an event near the Madison Park Pokestop in Lakewood, Ohio. A Pokestop is a real-world place where players can visit to compete in-game in battles with other players to win for their team.  ...

                                          Researchers at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications performed a study that examined how the then-Vice President nominee (now Vice President) utilized a platform that was at the time known as Twitter (now "X"). This study "created a lens through which future researchers and the public may better understand the redefinition of Black women in both social media and politics" (Grant, Burden & Cheek, 2021). The study collected Harris's tweets and organized them into a narrative to analyze their themes.      The first theme was "Change". Harris emphasized throughout her tweets that change is possible and community involvement is the root of change. She consistently emphasized this message of "we" over "I," which is to say that the community ultimately trumps the individual. She discussed many top...

     "X" is a social media platform formerly known as Twitter. Anyone who was around during the 2016 and 2020 elections will likely remember how prevalent Donald Trump was on the platform. According to Madhani and Colvin (2021), Trump's account has posted over 57,000 times since its creation. Posts from his account largely included critiques of other candidates, politicians, and celebrities. No one other than his family was safe from his attacks. During the impeachment proceedings, when he was particularly riled up, it was said that he made more than 100 posts in a day. Besides spreading criticisms, he also spread misleading or false information to his followers. According to Madhani and Colvin (2021), the platform flagged over 470 posts made by Trump for misinformation.      On January 6th, 2021, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Since the objective of the attack "was to prevent a legitimate president-elect from assuming office, the attac...

               It's clear to everyone who doesn't live under a rock that social media is a powerful tool that has taken over how we communicate and spread messages. Millennials and Gen Z are considered digital natives since most of their adolescent years were exposed to the internet. For politics, this is important. " In the last decade, millennials have risen  from 20% to 26% of the voting populace, and Gen Z from 0% to 9%. With such shifts, candidates must develop more sophisticated and diverse uses of online platforms." (Robinson & Henry, 2023)     In 2022, Democratic candidate John Fetterman and Republican candidate Mehmet Oz were both running for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. Fetterman's campaign trail uniquely utilized social media to gain traction in the election. While he had a social media team helping him, he gained such popularity because his posts were directly from him or were his original ideas.  Sophi...

      Marianne Williamson is an author and political activist who has run for political positions on 3 occasions. In 2014, she ran for Congress, and in 2020, she took on her first presidential campaign; both ended in defeat. Then, in March 2023 before incumbent President Biden even started his re-election campaign, Williamson announced that she would be running for President as a Democratic candidate. As of November 2023, Williamson and Republican candidate Nikki Haley had similar polling percentages, yet Haley was being praised and Williamson was being swept under the rug. Despite not being taken seriously by mainstream media, Williamson found much of her success through social media.      Though Williamson has only 65 videos posted on TikTok, she has garnered over 11 million views. (Grim, 2023) She used the media's dismissal of her to her advantage by speaking out against elites and being this kind of role model for the people. She is seen as an outsider ...

       Jeff Jackson is a Democratic representative from North Carolina who has made unexpected waves on the platform TikTok. Through this app, Jackson has made a series of videos aimed to inform the audience about political topics such as the Russian-Ukraine war and the national debt ceiling. In a video he made addressing the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, he garnered an impressive 29.8 million views (as of 2/19/24). He's clearly found his niche audience as at the time of writing this, he holds 2.5 million followers and 34.5 million likes across all videos.      While he has received support from many TikTok viewers, other viewers, as well as Congress members, disapprove of his presence on the app due to security concerns. TikTok is a Chinese-owned app that is rumored to exploit users' personal data. There's been a push from both Democrats and Republicans to band TikTok. Jackson is one of less than 30 members to utilize the app personally, but even he a...

     According to a study conducted by Megan A. Brown and Maggie Macdonald of the CSMAP at NYU, Republican candidates are the most likely to share unreliable news sources with their followers. This study collected data from the Facebook pages of Congress candidates from 2020 and 2022 and considered the URL links shared on the platform. "From January to July of 2022, on average each day, 36 percent of news that Republican candidates shared came from unreliable sites, while that was true for only 2 percent of news shared by Democratic Candidates each day." (Macdonald & Brown, 2022)     This study points out some concerning statistics about the Republican party, but I want to highlight the outliner in these numbers, Sarah Palin. As of 2022, Palin was running for Alaska's House seat as a Republican candidate. Out of 853 links shared, 849 were deemed unreliable, equaling up to 99% of sources being unreliable. Palin was so much of an outlier that without her, the ...

     Twitch is an online streaming service that sees up to "140 million unique monthly active users" as of August 2023. (Elad, 2023) This streaming service allows content creators to share their lives with viewers in a new and exciting way by livestreaming what they're doing. This frequently includes gaming, but creators can share virtually anything they're doing, allowing viewers to feel more connected since they're able to watch live. There is an average of 2.1 million people watching Twitch at any given time, and 55% of those are between the ages of 18 and 34. (Khan, 2021) So clearly, this could easily be a tool used to reach the younger audience.       In October of 2020, Congresswoman  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (commonly referred to as AOC) took to Twitch to encourage young voters to get out and vote. The stream became one of the most viewed streams in the platform's history. (Thorbecke, 2020) Early in her stream, she outlines her motivations ...

     One way that Politicians utilize social media is by utilizing people who already have a platform on social media. It's a lot easier to reach an audience when the audience already exists. In my previous post, "Social Media Utilized for Vaccination Efforts", I used the example of President Biden collaborating with Instagram user @dudewithsign and this is a great example of what I'm discussing today.      In July of 2021, Pop Star Olivia Rodrigo made an appearance at the White House under the Biden administration to promote vaccinations. At the time of her appearance, she was only 18 years old and had already released her debut album which was met with wild success. Being so young, her music attracted those of the same demographic, so she was very influential in youth culture. "Healthy young adults are historically hard to reach, and the White House has been upfront about the difficulties that officials have faced in persuading those groups to receive a v...

     On August 10th, 2021, Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced new efforts from the Biden administration that were aimed at boosting vaccinations. For the month of August (2021), Dr. Anthony Fauci was set to conduct weekly Q&A sessions with "notable influencers" through the social media platforms Instagram and TikTok.      This tactic was  used in order to reach new audiences who may not have been exposed to the information otherwise. There's a layer of trust from the audience since the information is coming from a respected doctor who's deemed credible.      Source:https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/press-briefings/2021/08/10/press-briefing-by-press-secretary-jen-psaki-august-10-2021/       In the same year, 2021, President Biden himself utilized Instagram to promote vaccinations by collaborating with user @dudewithsign. The man behind the account, Seth Phillips posted a photo of himself with President Bide...