American electoral processes seem to last forever; I feel like I know almost everything about the republican and democrat candidates. Part of this is due to the new style of electoral campaigns which are being introduced in the Information Age. With the popularity of Web 2.0, candidates now have a way to access a larger demographic and especially a demographic which is notorious the lack of voting: the youth. This is a perfect example of Marwick's self-branding. Clinton uses social media to advertise herself as hip, cool, and in touch with the citizens of the U.S. Some people have criticized Hillary Clinton for her attempts to appeal to a young crowd, identifying her as both "trying hard" and pandering to the youth.
Here's a good example of Hillary Clinton on Vine.
While it's important to get younger people involved in politics, some people argue that it makes a mockery of politics for Hillary to resort to meme-like content in order to get votes. What do you guys think? Is it important to have a political candidate who understands social media and uses it to advertise themselves? Or is it more important for political candidates to view youth as informed, responsible voters who cannot be won over by silly tactics?
I think it's very easy to argue both sides and I do see the merit of both arguments. However, I know in Canada this is the first year we have had the most voter turn out in a very long time. I do not have any statistics on why, but I think a lot of it has to do with social media and the youths advocating for people to vote on Facebook, twitter Instagram etc. It has been a problem for youths for vote as a small amount participate, and their votes could dramatically change the outcome of an election. The question remains whether we want to generate interest and popularity for a candidate and hope that it gets people involved enough to look up the platforms of candidates... or if they will vote based on trivial things. What could be done is a bit of both, using memes to generate interest, and then offer simplified platforms of the parties as I saw Canada did this on social media. Also, Buzzfeed linked people to a quiz they could take and it gave them platform idea and you voted which ones you agreed with most, and then it generated who you should vote for based on your support of their platforms. I think that not using social media would be ignoring a very influential medium to convey messages and reach larger audiences who are not reading newspapers etc. Additionally, candidates use all sorts of tactics to slander their opponents which are just as silly as Hilary Clinton's memes, so I think just because it is on social media as opposed to the radio or television does not make it very different from other candidates ways to influence voters.
ReplyDelete