Social media plays a consequential role in the United States Elections. Social media has become a vital source for news in American politics. Still, there’s a lot of evidence that people stay in their bubbles regarding the kinds of social media news they consume.
Secondly, social media is a virtually unmediated way for politicians to talk to their audiences, which means that they are bound over the traditional gatekeeping and filtering role that social media play to help people understand political races. So it is a significant outlet so that politicians can talk to their audiences in a virtually unfiltered sense without any challenge or pushback from news media.
Ads in 2020 are transmitted and sent over social media with a different quality than things you see on TV. Social media creates an atmosphere for advertisements that break the norms of political communications in campaigns so that we don’t know what the ultimate impact will be.
Twitter remains a crucial tool for President Donald Trump, as many people are aware of. Trump usually tweets at the beginning of each day and can often change the entire news cycle for that day. It is a powerful tool for him to decide what people will talk about that day in the news and how the information will cover politics. He fails to realize that no matter who the Democratic nominee is, they are not going to gain that kind of eminence on Twitter.
Social media is escalating America’s already polarized news bubbles. We tend to stay in touch with people on social media related to us and our views. They are more likely to share political news that is already reflective of the kinds of other news sources we are already consuming.
Something to think about is that social media enhances the impact of traditional media instead of disrupting it.
Given both campaigns in the 2016 election were overshadowed by a series of scandals and criminal allegations, small wonder that meme-makers represented the election as a choice between the lesser of two evils.
The photo above shows a broader popularization of the 2016 presidential election through meme-ing examples concerning both the Republican and Democratic campaigns, influencing other people when deciding who to vote for.
Luckily I had already voted for the 2020 presidential election, and my decision was pretty easy — trump advocates for the prohibition of late-term abortion and plans on defunding planned parenthood. In terms of climate change, climate policy is skeptical. He questions the science of climate change and doubts whether humans are responsible, which we are!
Must I go on?
Trump is anti-immigration/pro border security, LGBTQ rights are not a priority; combating racism is not a priority, and pro- 2nd amendment/anti- gun safety. He is everything I would not want or tolerate as a president. These are why your vote counts. We must vote him out before taking away all of the human rights that we have fought for over the years. I already handed in my absentee ballot, and now it all lies in the public’s hands.
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