Social Media and Politics

President Obama promised us transparency with his administration, and while he has yet to truly deliver on that promise, social media has kept it for him. There was a time when we got our news from T.V., radio, and newspapers with information about events coming to us days even weeks after it happened. Our knowledge came in such a way that we were hearing about things with no input of our own sometimes long after the fact and in many cases too late to affect any outcome. Social media has changed that drastically. We live in a time now when minutes after words are spoken or events have happened, social media begins buzzing. Once the buzzing begins there is no stopping it, as information travels in an exponential fashion quicker that I can write this post. "You can't stop the signal Mal." Details of events, come to us almost as instantaneously as it does in the Borg collective. Unlike the Borg however, we have our own input that can be sent back just as quickly as we wish. Using hashtags we keep up on subjects and talk about ideas from the inane to the important alike with the speed of Hermes. The instant someone with technology sees or hears things that they deem as important, they are tweeting and posting and sending photos of it for their followers to see. Everyone has their say with social media. This is what makes social media so influential in politics and so cool to boot. We now can speak our minds directly or indirectly to the politicians or candidates on subject we feel strongly about. We can connect with like minded and opposite minded people as well to have our voices heard. It is a phenomenon that is not going away and one that the smart politician or candidate takes notice of and uses to their benefit. Case in point, there were supporters of Sanders that were using social media to insult and demean women. Bernie Sanders did not ignore this issue, he recognized the influence of social media and took the opportunity to distance himself from these fools by saying he didn't want that kind of support. If they want to know what the public thinks, the answer is just a few clicks away. No longer is it necessary to rely just on polls or what advisers tell them or what they hear at a rally. They can learn for themselves online, in their pajamas if they wanted. Sure there is a lot of dip shit stuff to weed out but there is also a ton of legitimate information about how we are thinking, and what we want, out there in cyberspace. Keep it up fellow social media junkies. Keep getting your opinions out there. This is an important part of our political process now. They can't ignore it, not if they're smart.