Social media is changing the face of politics – and it’s not good news

February 9, 2016 10.43pm AEDT

Most people across the developed world still get most of their news via television – and
traditional news brands, produced by journalists, still top the rankings for the most read
news on the internet. But a growing number of people have stopped turning on the TV,
buying a paper or even visiting a news website.

They are reading their news – filtered for them by more assiduous friends – on their
Facebook feeds or having it provided for them by organisations or politicians that are
paying Facebook for their attention. Researchers have already noted a growing division
between “news junkies” who read widely (but usually only from sources they agree with)
and a growing band of “news avoiders” who are opting out of news that seems
aggressively polarised.

Two recent elections give some idea of what is happening to news. In the summer of
2015, Jeremy Corbyn stunned seasoned political commentators when he sailed into the
leadership of the British Labour Party. Similarly, in the US election race, outsider Bernie
Sanders is surging in the polls. Nearly 60% of Corbyn supporters use social media as
their main source of news (the average is 32%). An analysis by US Uncut found that
Sanders received 42% of Facebook mentions compared to 13% for Clinton.

For their supporters, social media platforms represent a radical new dawn in which
conservative old media will give way to a myriad of new ideas. Among the politically
aligned and interested, social media provides a mobilising force that builds passionate
partisanship. But they don’t realise that they are living in a bubble and barely registering
in the minds of people who either don’t share their viewpoint or (and this is more
important) are not particularly interested in politics. Sanders garnered less than a third of
the press attention that Clinton attracted. Those voters who don’t share the social media
profile of his supporters may never hear their arguments. Viral news needs the blood
stream of broader media to carry it from one silo to another.

Growing ‘news gap’

Polarisation of news is commonplace in southern Europe, where it has always been

politically aligned. But in northern Europe, television has, since its inception, been
regulated (Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini 2004, Comparing Media Systems) in order to
ensure that people encounter public information and that it is relatively politically neutral.
The US shared this approach until 1987 when the “fairness doctrine” was repealed and
the stage was set for the rise of polarised news.

Research by Norwegian academic Toril Aalberg and James Curran, a colleague of mine
at Goldsmiths, found that deregulation had other effects: in the US, those with university
degrees are far more likely to be knowledgeable about news events than those without
university education – a problem that is not encountered in the Nordic countries where
news is still regulated. The 2015 Reuters Digital News Report also found far greater
political polarisation: two thirds of the Fox news audience identify as right wing, while only
6% identify as left wing. In the UK there is virtually no political polarisation across
channels.

In those countries that retained their television regulation and more neutral forms of
television news broadcasts, what has been termed the “news gap” between informed and
uninformed publics has been held at bay – but that may last only as long as television
remains the major source of news for the bulk of the population. As the youngest
audiences, absorbed by their portable screens, turn away from TV news selected and
ranked by editors, “me” journalism – provided according to its audiences’ pre-determined
requirements – is on the rise.

Rise of the “Daily Me”

In the summer of 2011, the UK Guardian was attracting 35% of its audience via searches
from Google and only 2% from social media. Most of the rest came direct to its website.
Then the Guardian signed up to the Facebook news app and six months later, The
Monday Note blog announced: “This week’s most stunning statistic: In February,
Facebook drove more traffic to the Guardian website than Google did”.

The Guardian’s traffic soared by more than 60% as readers signed up to the app and
everything they read was automatically posted into their Facebook feed where it might be
seen by their friends, commented on and passed on to others. Since the broad
assumption was that numbers would drive ads and ads would increase digital revenue,
the Guardian was delighted and many other publishers jumped in with Facebook to share
this new source of distribution.

Three years later, only 6% of the news stories being read by app subscribers actually get
shared and it is Facebook that determines what they will be – based on its own data of
individual users’ “likes”.

A study by US researcher Pablo J Bocskowski, Eugenia Mitchelstein and Martin Walter

in 2010 found that most people click on stories about sports, entertainment, crime and
weather. My own research suggests that most of what is shared follows this pattern and
that shares are also gender biased. Young women tend to see news that evokes empathy
(crime, health, social justice), while young men are more likely to talk about technology,
gaming and sport. Those who are interested in politics share only what interests (or
angers them) them and are unlikely to see the counter arguments.

This effect is exacerbated on Twitter where polarisation is rife. Analysis of the events in
Ferguson US in 2015 and how they were discussed on social media, shows just how little
Twitter has helped people to listen to the views of others.

Facebook now dominates the news being read by young people and its domination is not
just national – it is global. It may well be time to think about what societies need to do to
counter this growing, global news monopoly. Facebook may not be in the business of
news production but its impact on news is already profound and not always positive.
Angela Philips ( 2016 ) Social Media is Changing the Face of Politics – and it’s not good. Retrieved from
http://theconversation.com/social-media-is-changing-the-face-of-politics-and-its-not-good-news-54266

Summary

The article is all about how social media change the politics faces today. In this article he point out that

this change is not good because other politics use Facebook as a tool to get the attention of the people.

She also said that most of the news today are coming from Facebook or any social media application.

Because most of the people are reading news from Online and they share it using Facebook so their

friends can see the latest news. Only few of the people in the Europe were getting their latest news on

the television and mostly are coming from Facebook this was called a news gap. And because of many

readers are coming from Facebook one of the news company signed up in Facebook News application

and they discovered that there are more people reading the news in their Facebook account rather than

Google. In this article it shows how much powerful is Facebook is in terms of information.

Reaction

In this article I am inspired how they used Facebook as a site to get the latest news that people

need to know, amazed because of the power of Facebook or any online application in spreading news

very quickly. I am also very disappointed on how the politics use Facebook as a tool to get attention of

the people , for me it was wrong because if you are a politician you should know how to promote

yourself not online but in actual because in online the people only see the picture and some words that

describe without any knowing if it is true compare to actual the people are sure that this politician is

very loyal to his words and actions , because they see how she/he do it actually. This article open my

point of view in politics that not all pictures and articles are true it may contain falseness that cover the

whole truth.