Influence of Social Media on Elections. Social Sciences Essay (Essay Sample)

Influence of Social Media on Elections
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Influence of Social Media on Elections
Social medial platforms enable the broadcast of false and misleading information. During political campaigns, social networks such as Facebook and Twitter are used to promote political candidates and to disparage their opponents. In most cases, the information relayed by such adverts is mostly truthful, but in competitive races, desperate candidates resort to spreading false information in order to discourage voters from supporting their competitors. In addition, the use of social media enables politicians to communicate directly with the electorate without involving traditional media outlets such as television, radio, and newspapers. Social media has revolutionized political campaigns, changed the way Americans consumer political news, and exposed America’s democracy to manipulation by agents with nefarious intentions.
Social media enables analysts to test voters’ preferences without conducting extensive field research. When social media users engage over platforms such as Tweeter, they generate a lot of user-specific metadata (Ramesh & Srinivas, 2018).