Social Media and Public Opinion

         One of the most surprising uses of social media is how it can affect public opinion. It used to be that if you did something wrong, but not illegal, the only people who really knew, were the people that heard by word of mouth. Now, however, it is just as easy for that information to become public knowledge in the largest degree. We now have the ability to affect the opinions of people with a quick, thirty second video. This has changed the way we look at quick communication, as now more than ever, you're capable of putting out, and receiving, info as soon as it comes out. This affects us in a large way, especially when it comes to the cases I will be looking at. Local politics relied mostly on local broadcast radio and TV prior to social media, along with that, a lot was spread simply by word of mouth. To look at this closer, I'll look at one of my local politicians, Chris Murphy, the democratic candidate for Senate (although the same ideas would apply to the president, a celebrity, or even a friend).

        To start, social media has immense strength in getting your thoughts and ideas to followers and friends. For Mr Murphy, this is apparent when we look at his Instagram (which can be found here https://www.instagram.com/chrismurphyct/). One of the most apparent examples of this is seen right at the front of the page, where we see a large post that encouraging you to vote. Continuing on, we can easily find other social media sites with information about his policies and endorsements. This is another way to communicate to your followers and garner a heightened public opinion. We can see this in a few different places, in my example, we can see that on numerous posts where he shows himself touring the state to speak to different people. This is meant to show how much he cares about the state and the people in it, that he is willing to travel throughout the state and meet many of the citizens. Overall, I feel as though a politician is the most apparent example of using social media to increase public opinion.

(Chris Murphy on his annual walk across Connecticut)

            Now, it may seem like social media might just be a useful tool in broadening your horizons, and sharing your views, but it can be much more than that. When considering its lasting effect on society, democracy, and relationships, it becomes a much more drastic change. For one, people now have the capability of spewing out any misinformation, lies, or hate, that they would like to. This is almost always harmful to society as it promotes online brawls, exclusion, and regression of our society. With this, if a politician does this, it can have a damaging effect on democracy. This is due to the fact that despite the fact that any politician can promote hate and lies, throwing that out on social media promotes the regression of our democracy as a whole. We are better off when people are less trusting of online figures, as it leads to more fact checking on a personal level. Finally, it seems easy to see how this can affect interpersonal relationships. Broadcasting your ideas that may be different from friends or family can lead to fights and breakdowns of friendships or families. Overall, social media can be very damaging to all facets of life. 

        All in all, it's easy to see how much of an effect that social media has on how we both view people, and ourselves. While that can be great for getting information on families and friends, it can easily turn south when we introduce misinformation, lies, and hate. Overall, social media is both a powerful tool, and a harmful one in the realm of society.