New Media and Politics
Judy Lewis | 04.04.14
New media and politics is something that I had never had much interest in. I used to follow ex Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd on Instagram and Twitter as a bit of a joke. It was like having your mate’s dad on social media, he was a fun guy and it was amusing to watch an older person using these websites. Nevertheless, after the novelty had worn off I proceeded to unfollow him on both accounts. Looking back at the situation now I realize that while I had been liking his posts and having a laugh at the excessive use of emoticons, I had become more inclined to like him as a person and in turn as a politician.
Given that this was a time somewhere between his downfall and rise back to power, I realize that I had started to sympathize with him in a way that could never have occurred without the use of social media. My thought process went something a long the lines of: Look at my poor buddy, KRudd on Instagram, his poor ‘friends’ have stabbed him in the back yet look at him being a true Aussie and carrying on with his life, enjoying each and every day. I found that a lot of my friends felt similar sentiments, often sharing his posts and tagging their friends in the comments section. It was only after unfollowing him that I became immune to this way of thinking. Yes, he might be a nice guy but is he able to govern our country? Took over my original concerns of how appatezing his blue icing and chocsprinkles cupcakes looked.
This is an example of what Theresa mentioned in the lecture about politicians not only campaigning through speeches and fundraisers but by using social media, to subtly manipulate voters (Sauter, 2014). An even better example of this is of course Obama’s campaign where many claim that the successful use of social media won him the position as president of the US. On the other side of the spectrum of course, is governments using social media technologies to suppress its citizens through monitoring and restricting access to social tools.
Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton announced funding for the development of tools designed specifically for reopening access to sites such as Google, YouTube and the New York Times to countries that have restrictions upon them (Shirkey, 2011). However in these countries what good is access to Western information if the people have no means of networking and communicating. There are so many different angles to the situation.
Information acts as a nail, and social media acts as a hammer. The two are useless without the other and even then no actual change can be made to the surface unless a person commits to an action, picks up both and hammers away.
Click to follow KRudd on Instagram and on Twitter!
References:
Sauter, Theresa. 2014. “KCB206 Internet, Self and Beyond: week 8 lecture notes.” Accessed April 26, 2014. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/bbcswebdav/pid-5284591-dt-content-rid-2294437_1/xid-2294437_1
Shirkey, Clay. 2011. “The Political Power of Social Media:
Technology, the Public Sphere, and Political Change”. Accessed April 26, 2014. http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67038/clay-shirky/the-political-power-of-social-media