Social media and Democracy Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 750 words

Social media and Democracy - Essay Example Political activists use the internet hubs to spread the news of their parties and news of the election. Political activism on the internet has risen all over the world since the 9/11 attack in America. Activists against terror attacks are particularly spreading the word through the internet. The inception of Facebook into the internet has helped and made the activists get a bigger platform to express their views. Popular news networks such as CNN and BBC have Facebook accounts with more than 33million Facebook likes combined. The news networks use the media outlet to communicate the latest news to their fans. The use of social media has made it easy and faster for the news to reach people rather than waiting for prime time to get the news. During the American election season of 2008, new technologies that enabled individuals to participate in online communities’ discussions emerged (Yamamoto, 2010 p. 609). Facebook was very popular by this time, and most politicians used it to pass the message to their supporters. Arguments and trending topics of the political nature were popular among the sites. Twitter is a social network that is more of a mini-blogging site. Individuals can communicate and lay out their thoughts to their followers. Politicians and business people have Twitter accounts where they share news with their followers (Jewitt, 2009 p. 232). Popular news networks are on Twitter that they use to communicate any breaking news. Twitter is a good platform for news networks to convey their messages to people. The 2012 elections in America had a huge coverage on Twitter. There was sharing of opinions, and the use of the hashtag made it easier to reach a large group of people. Politicians shared their agendas for the nation, and it was of big help to them. Twitter increases the popularity of an individual, hence spreading more news countrywide and worldwide. The war and accident