During major moments in politics, where do you turn for news? Increasingly, the answer to that question is social media. Social media such as Twitter and Facebook provide us with quick updates that often outshine that of major news sources. Turns out, that even major new sources are using social media as a means to provide news quickly to millions of people. Social media also allows politicians and key players in political movements to interact with each other and with voters.
Representative Eric Swalwell of California clearly demonstrated how the use of social media is important. In June of this year Swalwell made history as being the first congressmen to use Vine, a mobile app owned by Twitter that enables its users to create and post short video clips, to vote on a bill. Swalwell was protesting a bill called the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act. The bill would ban abortions after a fetus is twenty weeks old. The vine was a six second video that showed him clicking the nay button repeatedly. The vine gathered quick attention and over two thousand of his followers saw it almost instantly. Swalwell also used twitter to help express his viewpoints. On Twitter Swalwell posted that the bill was part of a "war on women." Of the Vine, he said, "When House @GOP try to roll back health protections for women, this is how I vote." Though his vine vote didn’t really change the outcome of the vote in the House, it still caught the Nations attention and goes to show how social media and politics are increasingly becoming intertwined.
On June 25th, state Senator Wendy Davis of Texas led what is being referred to as the first crowd sourced filibuster. The filibuster protested against an anti-abortion bill and may have been the first time crowd-participation directly influenced legislation. Where did Senator Wendy Davis seek out crowd participation? The answer is Twitter. Senator Davis used twitter to announce her plan to filibuster. She tweeted “The leadership may not want to listen to TX women, but they will have to listen to me. I intend to filibuster this bill.” Her tweet was retweeted over nine thousand times and on Tumblr her supporters put out testimonials for her to read during the filibuster. One of the testimonials posted on Tumblr had over sixty six thousand reblogs. People also used Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr to document the situation as it happens. Senator Davis used social media as a means of interacting with her voters. Her voters were able to voice their opinions on social media and be directly heard by Davis. Senator Davis use of social media helps to show how politicians use social media to communicate with their supporters.
Most recently, political upheaval in Egypt came to a head on July 3rd following three days of street protests. President Mohamed Morsi was overthrown by the Egyptian military, and to much surprise, most of the conflict played out over social media. Both President Morsi and the military used Twitter and Facebook to post statements that were not seen anywhere else at the same time. Morsi on twitter rejected an order by the army to resolve a political crisis that has drawn millions of people into the streets demanding his resignation, calling a deadline set confusing and saying he would instead pursue national reconciliation on his own. SCAF, which governs the military in Egypt, preferred to post updates on Facebook, such as the terms of the coup. Despite the military overthrow, Morsi continued to tweet in defiance of the overthrow on a twitter account verified to be his. An official Facebook page for President Morsi also posted a status rejecting the military’s coup. This example of the use of social media helps to show how social media can keep the public updated. News sites from around the world ended up using the information posted on Facebook and Twitter because they could not find any other information on the situation in Egypt as fast. Social Media played an important role in updating the public and even news stations on the situation in Egypt.
The reason politicians are using social media to interact with their constituents is because social media allows one to have thousands of friends or followers that they wouldn’t normally have in real life. Social media is built around weak ties. Twitter and Facebook allow a person to be followed by thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people they don’t know. This allows for the spread of news to acquaintances one normally would not keep up with in their daily lives. There is strength in weak ties as stated by sociologist Mark Granovetter. “Our acquaintances, not our friends, are our greatest source of new ideas and information.” Social Media utilizes this strength by helping acquaintances keep in touch.
It’s no wonder as to why social media and politics are continuously becoming more and more intertwined with each other. Social media is the quickest way to get information across to millions if not billions of people. Facebook stated that they now have over a billion active users and Twitter has over two hundred million active users. It’s no secret that if you want to get information out there you have to use social media and politicians know this. In today’s world social media plays a key role in promoting political movements.
Kaaati
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