Modern Media in a Political World

After checking out the discussion topics in class this week, I was so interested in one of the them that I wanted to go into greater detail in this blog post!

When people hear about media, they often think of social media platforms, websites, and news stories. People don't realize that so many things are considered part of the media, one of the biggest being music in modern media. Music is all around us and it has a large influence on us, even when we don't realize it. Artists create lyrics with the intention that we will listen, read, and hopefully connect with them. There are messages in music and artists choose these messages based off of what they want the world to hear. 

Many songs are created with the purpose of sharing a political message and hope to reach as many people as possible. There are people that listen to music just because they like how it sounds, they don't read or care to know about the lyrics. Lyrics still have an impact even if they aren't analyzed by some listeners. Choosing what artists and music you listen to will play a part in your political opinions and views. Next time you listen to some of your favorite songs, read the lyrics and see if you can spot any political ideas behind it! 

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Will Social Media Choose the Next President?

This week we're taking a look at a short article written in 2012. I chose something from almost 10 years ago because I would like to evaluate how social media has evolved over the past decade. Will Social Media Choose the Next President? written by Cliff Figallo explains how over the past few years, Facebook and Twitter had a huge increase in the number of political postings. During the time, 9 out of 10 Senators and Representatives had twitter accounts. People were questioning if social media was actually started to predict the outcome of political races as opposed to just reporting everything that goes on. "In Senate races, the candidate with more Facebook friends than his or her opponent has won 81% of the time."

In 2021, social media has completely taken over politics and elections. There are many similarities to social media influence in 2012 and 2021. It is more extreme now because there are new media platforms and more people have access to these platforms. Sharing political opinions, facts, etc. has become a common thing for everyone on the internet. It's safe to say that this article showed the beginning of the impact social media would have on politics and elections. 

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Media Influence During Elections

Can the media really influence the outcome of an election? Many believe that biased media coverage contributes to "rigged" elections and that the media has a huge influence during the time elections start. The amount of coverage each candidate gets can have the biggest impact on how many votes they receive. If candidates don't win enough interest from the media, they won't do as well when it's time to vote because they won't have any name recognition. An example of someone who is extremely well known and received a lot of media coverage during the past two elections is President Donald Trump. The media publishes stories that will get the most attention and drive the most traffic. Stories like this usually involved Trump and this boosted his popularity a lot. The media can and usually does influence the outcome of an election. When candidates put themselves out there and utilize media platforms, their chances of being recognized are much higher when elections come around. 

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