"What is the Point of Social Media?" (currentaffairs.org)
Political media controls and influences much of how the public views politics. According to Wikipedia, “The mass media is a powerful guardian of proper political behavior because audiences tend to trust the press, who they believe should inform them about government wrongdoing and provide proper suggestions. All mass media is politically important because of its potential to reach large audiences.” This can have several pros and several cons.
One of the pros of the current political media is that because political information is so easily accessible whether, through social media, the newspaper, or television, people are able to learn new facts and understand certain issues much easier and more efficiently. Politicians also have much more direct ways of communicating with the public. Politicians such as Joe Biden and Donald Trump have social media accounts on Instagram, (not to mention Twitter) where they can express their values and ideas in ways that make the public feel closer to them. Another pro of the current political media is that the public is now able to discuss issues among themselves, connect with like-minded individuals, and debate with those who aren’t. This helps to open people’s viewpoints and leads to having more interest in political issues and more people voting than ever before. Through being able to obtain news easier and becoming more educated, by connecting with politicians in a more direct way, and through being able to talk to those who relate to your ideas and debate with those who don’t, people have much stronger views, more interest in politics, and are more encouraged to vote than ever before.
"The politics of Social Media" (Digital America)
"The Media, the Politics, and Our Society"
The political media also has some negatives however. Perhaps the biggest is that not everything that people are reading is necessarily accurate or true. It is also much easier with social media to read propaganda or news with bias. News sources like Fox and CNN clearly support one party over the other and because of so, their information leads the reader to think a certain way. This can be dangerous because the public only reading bias means that they do not shape their own opinions. Many also don’t realize the inaccuracies in what is being said and believe every word, misleading them and their views. This also leads to a negative of the parties growing further apart. It is very rare in this day and age to be neutral. The majority of people on the right and the left hate what the opposite party stands for and their candidates, and this turns people against each other. Because the two parties has become so separated, supporters of each can no longer recognize and admit when their favored candidate is at fault and instead point out where the other candidate has gone wrong. Once someone is proclaimed a liar, the substance of the actual issues they talk about gets displaced and becomes obsolete. This makes politics less about actual facts and more about being right.
In order to maximize the true benefit of how accessible information is, people must learn to step back and look at issues in a more neutral way and without preconceived biases that override the substance of the issue. Doing this will allow us to form our own opinions in more intelligent ways. The public must also learn to recognize when the party which they support is at fault instead of looking for what the opposing candidate is doing which will help to detect if there are any inaccuracies. We can’t believe everything we read and therefore, we must learn to do these things in order to find out the truth and to vote in the best interest of ourselves and our country.
"Vote Smart Wants you to Be Informed" (NPR)
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