Introduction
Political campaigns employ a variety of media to advertise the policies and platforms of various political parties to produce several contenders. Social media was utilized to interact with supporters to convince them during Barack Obama and Mitt Romney Massachusetts’s 2012 presidential election. In addition, there was a substantial online campaign for the 2016 presidential election involving Hillary Clinton of the Democrats and Donald Trump of the Republican Party on Facebook, blogs, Twitter, and other social media platforms. This study will assess the evolution of U.S. political campaigning concerning agenda-setting communication theory.
Background
Information transfer from one place to another is referred to as communication. For the process of conveying information to be successful, it requires both the usage of the media and a set of rules. Several communication concepts have laid the basis for obtaining data to ensure efficient communication, including cognitive dissonance and communication accommodation. The present changes have altered the nature of communication and excluded particular communication philosophies. According to the agenda-setting theory, Hilary Clinton, a female candidate, had an equal chance to compete against Republican Party nominee Donald Trump, a male candidate.
Current democratic media are communication technologies that facilitate the production, exchange, and interaction of political content on platforms and networks. They have developed swiftly over the last three decades and are continually changing. New media have a significant influence on political activity and democratic administration. They have significantly altered the relationship between political figures and governmental organizations. Moreover, they have influenced how individuals participate in politics and government elections.
The complexity of the political media system has increased with the introduction of new media. Famous media include radio, newspapers, television news broadcasts, and reputable mass media outlets that existed before the internet. While traditional media retain relatively stable structures, the range of new media, including webpages, blogs, multimedia platforms, digital apps, and social networks, continually expands in unique ways. Specialized sources have embraced mass media to give broad-interest news to huge audiences through narrowcasting targeted at specific customers. Without the involvement of editorial or institutional gatekeepers, a fundamental component of legacy forms, new media may communicate information directly to individuals (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). Thus, the political communication process now involves more volatility and unpredictability, thanks to new media.
Online Platforms and Political Campaigns
According to a study, social media employment is increasingly significant in our everyday lives, especially in politics. However, this demonstrates a certain degree of progression in the normative theory, which excluded the disadvantaged minority from consideration while giving precedence to a target group. The dominant and underprivileged minorities in this environment were at odds with one another (Baumgartner & Lockerbie, 2018). The candidates’ political careers were a prime example of this discrimination. A rival would insinuate prejudice against the marginalized group by using the difference in membership between the two groups.
One illustration illustrates a comparison of social media use during the 2016 and 2012 electoral processes. Social media significantly influenced Mitt Romney’s and Barack Obama’s elections on November 6, 2012. Barack Obama’s popularity among Americans was lower, and his chances of beating front-runner Hillary Clinton were more remote in 2007. With almost 112,000 Twitter followers and 200,700 Facebook fans, social media, in this case, significantly contributed to the success of his campaign (Baumgartner & Lockerbie, 2018). The Americans, one of the rare social outcasts, made history by nominating Barrack Obama with the slogan “Yes We Can” (Baumgartner & Lockerbie, 2018). Political campaigns were filmed in every state and posted to Twitter, blogs, and YouTube to spread the word and get more supporters. As if this was not enough, numerous supporters of the chosen candidate would sometimes use their fame to win over fellow Americans to their cause by persuading them that a revolution was necessary. The participation of well-known musicians in the public sales of Obama’s ideology, including Jay-Z, Lady Gaga, and Kanye West, was witnessed in several remarkable moments.
The most extensive and digitalized campaigns between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump occurred in 2016. Applications of the evolving technology on websites such as mass media, blogs, and social media pages helped write the global history of social media applications. The freedom for the press to broadcast live political events to the public and the requirement that every voter use an internet platform to openly voice their opinions were among the significant improvements made in the 2016 election. The two rivals frequently provided Twitter updates on the political events occurring during the campaign. As opposed to the past, when political campaigns were governed by communication ideas that were subject to numerous limits. The election theories used in the U.S. in 2016 incorporated evolution, allowing for beneficial candidate competitiveness.
To ensure the most significant supporter participation, the 2016 presidential candidates created websites where supporters could obtain updates and information on the subjects and the campaign venues. It allowed followers to consider the problems and use any queries they might have had. Donald Trump would publish commentary on the functioning of the current administration and offer remedies to American issues via social media and websites. On the other hand, Clinton separated her website’s content into an updated area and news feed portion. Similar to this, the websites included a part for doing online polls to gauge the popularity of the candidates, as well as areas for online donations, video, and speech folders. Regarding Facebook and Twitter’s popularity, Donald Trump had a 78% rating, while Hillary Clinton had an 80% rating (Carlson, 2018). This election method used technology in a way that allowed for the prediction of the potential winner.
Political Development on Social Media
Since 2012, political and social media usage has increased in the U.S. The growth in users is one of the fundamental revolutions. According to the study, the overall number of individuals utilizing various internet platforms to collect political information was 78% of the U.S. demographics (Carlson, 2018). In today’s era, most teenagers are the primary users of Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and these platforms have seen fast growth in U.S. usage. The rise of social media usage has been sparked by technological breakthroughs, inventions, and the desire for efficient communication channels. Social media usage has increased thanks to developments like blog sites, Facebook, Twitter, and the development of new applications.
Some evolved Facebook developments include notification alerts, status updates, and live-streaming ads. Numerous businesses have employed pop-up ads to inform consumers that a particular product is available on the market. As a result, the Facebook page may now be used for several purposes besides gathering the desired data. Pop-up alerts are an additional recent innovation in social media evolution. This modification reminds the audience that they should see a candidate or read any changes made (Hynnä et al., 2019). Thanks to this program, politicians may now participate in online talks with a fan. Politicians may now make a reminder for their followers using the Facebook status alert feature.
Instagram is a further significant social media platform. Since the application’s creation, changes have evolved as it enables politicians to ask their fans to follow their pages. The hashtag (#) following and programming are two notable modifications. The users of this program may access daily information on political party activities. The development of this program is groundbreaking for the LinkedIn community, which allows people to interact in internet forums where participation in diverse subjects is encouraged. This tool has made it easier for top employees to interact with their supporters, saving time and enabling the general public to monitor live campaign activities. Following the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump used Twitter frequently to update governmental activities and what he would do to the populace if elected President (Hynnä et al., 2019). By allowing open contact between presidential candidates and their supporters, this feature created a forum for sharing ideas and kept supporters and candidates in touch. The ability to voice opinions on a topic will now be enabled by a simple retweet, as opposed to the past when the exchange of information platforms imposed restrictions.
In a recent study, media content from the friends’ area was modified due to a petition roughly 1 million Snapchat users signed. A petition was started to replace the old version with the new one (Hynnä et al., 2019). The update was created to assist the political class in differentiating their recent events to support a well-organized comprehensive webpage of information on the candidates’ platforms, tactics, and techniques for attaining goals. It could be helpful when addressing a supporter with specific remarks. However, there is opposition to this progression, and one of the well-known online platforms has locked out the business class.
Social Media Development and the Agenda-Setting Theory of Communication
The Agenda-Setting Theory (AST), established in 1972 by Donald Shaw and Drs. Maxwell McCombs, was based on general population surveys. When the Democratic candidate for president at the time, Lyndon B. Johnson, was defeated by the Republican candidate, Richard Nixon, this idea was established as a study in 1968(Jones et al., 2017). The “chapel study” was the name given to the research. This theory aims to aid in comprehending how the media industry shapes the public agenda by advising the general population on what to believe.
The power of the media to spread salience generated by their news plan is referred to as agenda setting; two main principles support the majority of research on agenda formation. The first fundamental premise of AST is that the press and media rarely portray reality; instead, they filter and shape it to fit the circumstances. The second basic premise of AST is that when media attention is focused on a small set of topics, the public perceives those issues as more important than others (Krzyżanowski & Tucker, 2018). Candidates are in charge of running campaigns around the country to market their ideas, gather donations, and win votes.
Mass communication aims to enlighten the audience about current and historical events. The development of globalization has led to technological advancements that have altered how cultures communicate. People are now much more connected globally because of the internet’s widespread use and social media. Information sources, accessibility times, and the availability of opposing and complementing viewpoints have all expanded dramatically. The function of agenda-setting has changed due to the growing popularity of social and digital media, giving anybody with a social media account access to a large worldwide audience. People are now their gatekeepers, editors, publishers, and citizen journalists.
Conclusion
The study has established that politics has benefited more through the advancement of online platforms. By creating a link between the candidates and their followers, the widespread use of social media has simplified the political campaign. As a result, since 2012, more people have started using social media and marketing strategies. Social media has undergone several adjustments to meet the demands of political candidates and their followers. Several ideas that have regulated language use and user perception are used to direct the communication process.
Both communication theories and the development of various online platforms have undergone significant modification due to technological advancements and the introduction of social media applications. The study primarily focused on the agenda-setting communication theory concerning the Presidential contest. How men and women communicate has been influenced by various aspects of the perspective, such as the mute, the muting process, and muteness. However, the adoption of social media for communication has significantly advanced this idea, resulting in adjustments, including a lowering of bias, participation of women in language modifications, and a decline in male dominance. The removal of regional marginalization and equality for both genders has also been made possible through evolution. Several changes to the social media platforms are another feature of this. Traditional definitions of mass communication theories are altered by media evolution, which provides a more extensive variety of viewpoints from which to see the world. Although the theory is still valid, its definitions must be modified to reflect how the media and communications sector has changed and become more globalized regarding political interactions.
References
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