The power of social media in politics, the example of Donald Trump

Hello, this is your daily politics analysis, you are on BBC news, we're glad to welcome you here today. I am Marguerite-Marie du Pontavice. Now, let's start discussing the link connecting power, media, and politics, especially with the example of the 2016 election in the USA.

Nowadays, the internet is substantial, particularly during election time.

First, we can talk about the concept of a feedback loop. I am going to explain to you this new idea coming from a Republican political strategist, Patrick Ruffini. Let me explain this concept to you, auditors.

Campaigners post something on social media, then reporters write about it on online newspapers. After this, the whole story is sent again on social media, like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or even on blogs dedicated to politics.

All this stuff creates even more chatter and contributes to giving a better rank to the candidates themselves. That's why the new strategy for candidates' political campaign is to post a lot on social networks, because the audience will react right away, and it will cause radically opposite comments.

Before the candidates used a bunch of methods of communication. But now, "you don't have to buy access to reach millions of people anymore", according to Frank Speiser, SocialFlow's co-founder. Only four years ago, social media politics used to be boring. Indeed, they were only "afterthought". Nowadays, people learn about politics primarily through social networks. They admit having learned at least one thing last week with these, so it proves that the globalization of information depends on social networks.

Furthermore, the choice for the elections belongs to what the competitors post on the internet; They will have more power in the polls by being more active on social interfaces.

To conclude, the example of Trump lets us realize the unavoidable link between power, media and politics. Truthfully, he tweets a lot, not only thanking his supporters but gathering multiple subjects which causes more reactions, more versatile.

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