Even if you aren’t interested in politics in the slightest, it is undoubtable that 2017 was the year that you found yourself entering into many educated or, more likely, uneducated heated discussions with friends, family and strangers online regarding whether you should or shouldn’t actually #VoteLabour. The way that people interact with the outside world is changing, since having everything accessible to us at a touch of a finger people, especially young people, don’t bother with buying print news papers or watching traditional news programs such as BBC news on the TV. Instead social media is our number once source of political information meaning that political parties are having to change the way in which they interact with electorate. In the past it would have been through various methods such as television and newspapers, canvassing and leaflet drops as well as public speaking. Although these methods still exist they are not effective ways of grabbing the correct and broader attention of the masses. These can also add up to be very expensive methods and are increasingly becoming less important outreach methods and although they are still used, platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and Youtube are taking over. The most important aspect of social media websites such as Twitter, Youtube and Facebook in terms of the 2017 election was that it meant regular people had a platform to talk and discuss their own political views and standpoints as well as feeling a deeper personal connection to the politicians running in the election humanizing them on a more relatable level.
Campaigns run on social media are enhanced in their effectiveness by not only the fact that more people, especially younger people can be reached and targeted but also by the fact that we can see other people commenting on the campaign and sharing their own views, this then causing a greater engagement. The higher the engagement the, greater interaction and the more people reached. There have been some major political shifts occurring because of effective social media campaigns even as simple as slogans. Two key examples of this were Obama and especially and most recently with Trump with his slogan ‘Make American Great Again’. Although most of the wider world population didn’t agree with Trumps ideas, the slogan ‘Make American Great Again’ was plastered all over all of our social media feeds whether it was promoting his cause or trolling it. This follows the idea that no press is bad press and in Trumps case all the bad and negative press really worked in his favour as it got the world talking.
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