On November 8th, 2016, the world was left stunned as Donald Trump left political analysts and pollsters red-faced to clinch the top position in US politics with a significant lead. He was set to become the leader of the free world. Earlier in the year and half way across the world, a similar response of shock was observed as the UK voted to leave the European Union, ending a 40-year relationship and ushering in a cloud of uncertainty. In the wake of Brexit, Donald Trump’s presidential election victory and the re-emergence of populism, the role of social media in politics has been put under a microscope. What is it about social media that makes it so effective? What is so special about social media that aids politicians on their road to victory?
Social media has become a vital part of the fabric of modern society, as it permeates all aspects of people’s lives. It has changed how people communicate and conduct business and is increasingly affecting how people express their political beliefs and engage in politics. Social media has had a significant and positive effect on the electoral process because it provides an open and unfiltered space that promotes dialogue between politicians and constituents on key issues, which is essential for democracy: a government by the people. History has proven that successful candidates always find the most efficient, effective or innovative ways to communicate their message to voters especially in the 21st century as voters play a greater role in campaign communication and due to the reduced role of traditional press.
Communication has been and will forever be an essential part of any political campaign. It is an important tool in the search to wield political power. Elections represent one of the ultimate forms of competition in society, where the struggle for influence produces the need to be prevalent in the minds of people, in a bid to attract attention to one’s policies and plans for the future. During a campaign season, a politician must win the hearts of his constituents and keep their support on his journey to the polling stations. Effective communication enables him/her to mobilize support for their cause, raise much needed campaign funds and connect with voters.
Social media offers political campaign teams access to millions of people through the use of social networking sites (SNS) such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, where they can publish and broadcast content, and speak directly to voters instantaneously almost without spending a dime. This enables politicians to by-pass the more traditional ways of communicating with voters such as expensive advertising campaigns and through conventional media outlets like television, radio and newspapers
This has been best illustrated by current US president Donald Trump campaign success. During the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump extensive use of Twitter was profoundly influential to his campaign. With 140 characters or less, he could to tweet to his 10 million followers and millions of other potential voters. This proved to be one of the most important effective strategies in his campaign as he bought himself billions in free advertising. An article published in Reuters claims “Trump likely paid less than $5 per vote during his insurgent White House bid, about half what Clinton paid.” (Gibson and Grant). According to data analytics firm mediaQuant, Trump garnered about $5 billion worth of free media coverage during the election campaign, more than twice the amount earned by Clinton (Gibson and Grant). He benefited tremendously from negative coverage from the mainstream media as his headline grabbing and provocative comments on Twitter, such as his call to ban Muslims and build a wall to keep out immigrants, lead to excessive coverage from the mainstream media. In another article on Trumps mastery of Twitter, New York Times journalist Michael Barbaro summarizes his campaign strategy as “forgoing costly, conventional methods of political communication and relying instead on the free, urgent and visceral platforms of social media.” (Barbaro)