Social Media & Politics

Today, social media influences politics. The governments of Republicans and Democratic Party have accounts on various social media, and they convey their news through them. As a result, voters can find them and participate in discussion to argue their thoughts and opinions. Here is some examples. 

In the case of North Korea, for instance, the government could control the citizens by blocking social media, so that the nation could keep their politics.

On the other hand, in the middle of 20 century, there was another example. Media such as movies and film gave people messages which were authors' thoughts about politics although they were not based on the online network, and they were close to one-sided messages. For example, Russian films were about Soviet policies, and Italian movies were used to convey their political ideology.

People can be exposed by enormous influences of social media in that they can be watching what the governments do politically because today's technologies of social media has been more developed than the past. In addition to, they are double-way interactions or bilateral websites unlike the past ones.

The current social media shows not only the government's situations, but also voters' position/conditions. For example, broadcasters can collect information about pre-investigation and the exit poll. According to the exit poll, it sometimes influences people. In other words, proper using of social media could be a good strategy to affect voters' minds like Barak Obama's twitter which took a portion of the 2008 presidential election.

Social Network & Activism

I knew that activists point out people who participate in social/political events. I found also that Advocacy refer to people who support those issues. In that the terms are used for political incidents through social networks, they are often used interchangeably according to the organization called Dosomething. Today’s social networks encourage PC users to engage themselves in sharing social/political opinions. People can see easily governments’ accounts, social associations’ pages, and political organizations’ profiles on the SNS. They can also check what they’re doing in real-time. Like said before blog about the SNS’ functions, they serve countless and easy buttons: to reply, to like, to share, and to comment, and so on.

SNS users can gather the strength via online; it’s easy to turn into political tendencies/biases. For example, in the last year, I could see lots of comments seem to be pros and cons when I researched 2014 obligation of Obamacare. Replies about the Affordable Care Act can be activism and advocacy depending on their contents. Therefore, in order to avoid becoming online-rallies, they have to take care of business whenever share the view.

Crowdsourcing & Crowdfunding

Crowdsourcing refers to collecting information or building data base from crowd, that is, amateurs. Crowdfunding also means the money from them. Their advantages encourage people to make services and share its benefit. Like online communication or collaboration via the internet, individuals can offer unlimited creative ideas. For example, Wikipedia is one of the crowdsourcing. There’s another example. Most people already know flash-mop videos by amateur users can be enough to convey a message. It points out, however, some drawbacks such as that it lacks of expert’s information. In addition, it’s difficult to manage them.

Did you enjoy this 2014 Sochi Olympic a few days ago? It’s issued that Jamaican bobsledding team attached great importance to the participation rather than the result. How do Jamaicans who living in a nation in Africa play bobsledding even they couldn't experience the winter? The answer is crowdsourcing and crowdfunding. People watching the movie called Cool Runnings (1993) donate the fund over the world. Furthermore, according to Wikitree.co.kr, it says, “the cheering song for Jamaican team is played 1,000,000 for a week.” It added, “They could participate in Sochi Olympic by crowdfunding.” It gives people a lesson that there’s not impossible challenge although they’re not professionals. Who knows if they could win or coming 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic or someday? By crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, and collaboration through the online, people recognized that they could overcome a stereotype; Jamaica can’t play bobsledding.