Many believe this election will make history, but there may be a new kind of history playing out right in the palm of your hand.
Social media has become an even a bigger player in this year’s election; and its new wave of influence may be quickly surpassing traditional media.
Lance Holbert, professor and chair of the Department of Strategic Communication at Temple’s School of Media and Communication, says the way we consume news today is faster than ever.
“If you look at the way people are consuming news they are not sitting down at their desk and sitting there scrolling through a website they are consuming very quickly on various mobile forms.”
So what does this mean for Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump and the traditional media? It could mean getting to know the new media platforms voters are getting their election information from: digital media, social media and mobile media.
“The idea of following their messages on Twitter as an example, really is the first stage. If you’re not aware those messages exists, they’re out there to have the possibility to turn that into knowledge, then turn that into attitude, to turn that into some type of behavioral engagement, awareness is a type of necessary condition.”
For the new generation of voters social media outlets, like Twitter, are playing a key role in how they consume political news.
“No I am not a local news guy… it’s usually just social media and friends that I get all of my information from.”
“I would probably google it then look on twitter, look at the twitter hashtags to see if anything is like popping up… I usually don’t watch the debates or anything like that. Like I will usually just get my information just reading about them, but when I do watch them I am on Twitter too.”
In some cases, for these politicians, quick and short messages on social media may be doing more harm than good when it comes to relaying information like their platform or beliefs on certain policies, to the voters.
“For some the messages are made to come and go…as a result those specific platforms down side is that they may not afford the opportunity to offer the level of substance to really get into particular policy stance…”
But for some young voters, it even takes a big event like a debate to get them looking at a candidate on social media.
“Always on social media but to look specifically on election stuff… oh then probably not that often until like a debate or something big happens.”
“Politicians have always had to adapt to media environment. Media is the vehicle by which they connect with voters. I mean how much of us really get personal one-on-one attention with the various candidates. So everything we know about them is through some mediated form.”
Clinton and Trump continue to use their social media presence to share their beliefs. Only time will tell how that will attribute to their success in November.
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