Tag Archives: Politics

Worldwide, many people were shocked by the outcome of the U.S. presidential election of 2016. It’s been just over one full year since Trump’s electoral win and, although the race between Trump and Clinton was close, many of the electoral polls forecasted Clinton as the likely winner of the 2016 election (Perez, 2016). While the outcome of said election left many data scientists confused, many social media analytics firms are claiming that their measurements would have been a much better predictor (Perez, 2016).

In the last decade we have watched the birth of social media, and are continuing to watch it grow and mature. In times like these, where Trump and Clinton are in a tight race for the U.S. Presidency, The UK has just voted to leave the European Union after 23 years together, and we are facing something reminiscent of the civil rights movement with #BlackLivesMatter…there’s a lot to talk about. Opinions and commentary fly free on the internet and political opinions in particular are abundant. Networks like Twitter are so full of posts, following issues in real time, that it’s not uncommon to see something on Twitter before an official article is written about it. A lot of people find it annoying to open up their Facebook pages to find the opinions of their old high school acquaintance’s neighbour’s sister on their Newsfeed. Others love engaging in a good old fashioned political debate within the comments section of a post. Trump and Hillary themselves are tweeting their way to the White House, using it to stay relevant and connect with their audience. There’s no denying, our social media world is becoming more and more political whether we like it or not.

The Future of Social Media is in Social & Political Change

Paige Mahoney-Nagle   March 16, 2015
Global-Digital-Snapshot

Web References: Sprout Social, What Culture, Pew Research Center, We Are Social, Forbes, Ad Week, Salzburg Academy on Media & Global Change, Huffington Post The Internet has come a long way since it’s inception, evolving to suit human needs and transforming to become more accessible to people around the world. The Internet has changed the way people communicate, network, share… Read more »

Senator Rand Paul a Social Hit Wonder

anguyen44   March 12, 2013

On Wednesday, March 6, 2013, an unprecedented 13-hour filibuster, from Senator Rand Paul, from Kentucky, ignited a social media sensation using the hashtag #StandWithRand. Paul filibustered the nomination of John Brennan for head of the CIA. He opposed the nomination saying that Brennan was “a proponent of drone strikes on suspected terrorists.” Paul started with 96,000 Twitter followers just before… Read more »