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Week 11 Social Media In China

Most of the Western social media platforms like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter and so on are banned in China. People spend a good portion of their daily lives on social media in China, however just in different platforms. China is home to the world's largest social media market, drawing in an estimated 927 million users in 2020. (Foreign Policy, 2020)

Social Media Platforms

The platforms that they used are WeChat which is an all-in-one messaging app developed by Tencent, where they have games, online shopping and financial services. Users used this app for almost everything from buying groceries to messaging their loved ones. WeChat offers far more than any of the Western messaging apps. You don't see Facebook Messaging allowing e-wallet transfers now do you? In comparison, WeChat is a combination of Facebook, Whatsapp, Tinder and TouchnGo combined.

WeChat

Now, WeChat is one of the largest social media platforms in China with over 1 billion monthly active users. As it is sometimes called the Chinese Facebook. WeChat can be used for restaurant bookings, flights, making investments, shopping to paying bills.

Weibo

Another popular app used in China is Weibo. Is a micro-blogging platform in China released in 2009. It is considered to be a combination of Chinese Facebook & Twitter. Where users can upload videos, images and gifs. Where they follow each other and read posts by one another from discussing breaking news to cultural events in China.

Weibo is mainly used for information sharing and the opportunity to engage with other users.

QQ

Lastly, a final example of another app that China love to use is QQ. It is an instant messaging app developed by Tencent. Just like WeChat, it offers multiple uses from games to music to online shopping. However, QQ is mainly used for corporate communication among white-collar workers instead of the younger generation.

Conclusion

China has banned all Western social media platforms however that does not mean they live in trees and do not communicate. In fact, they are one of the largest social media markets in the world with their own unique and well-developed ecosystem. I do find it odd that they shunned themselves from the world but in a way, it makes sense as because of this method, China's revenue will continue flowing back to China itself instead of flowing to other countries.

References

DeGennaro, T. & DeGennaro, T., 2020. The 10 most popular social media sites in China (2019). Dragon Social. Available at: https://www.dragonsocial.net/blog/social-media-in-china/ [Accessed November 27, 2021].

Lu, C., 2021. China's social media explosion. Foreign Policy. Available at: https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/11/11/china-social-media-tech-linkedin-wechat-censorship-privacy-regulation/ [Accessed November 27, 2021].

StudyCli, 2021. Guide to social media in China: Chinese Language Institute. CLI. Available at: https://studycli.org/chinese-culture/social-media-in-china/ [Accessed November 27, 2021].

#mda20009

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Week 9: Fandom

What is Fandom?

Fandom is a community where individuals share common interests categories like celebrities, pop culture, games, sports, movies and so on. Where fans come together to share a mutual bond over the interest of such categories in the Internet and social media platforms.

Types of fandoms

There is a huge diversity of types of fandoms all over the world. Examples would be person fandoms, where fandoms usually follow a singer, actor, Youtuber, influencer or celebrities like Taylor Swift or Kanye West. Musical/ Band fandoms, where they follow multiple people instead of just a solo artist like BlackPink or BTS. Video game fandoms, where fandoms follow video games like Animal Crossing or Monster Hunter. Movie fandoms, fandoms would go all out for loving a movie or character from a movie like the Marvel franchise. Where they would also tend to keep up with the actors they love from the movie. Lastly would be lifestyle fandoms, where they don't follow a certain thing but mostly a culture or way of life. For example minimalist lifestyle, or veganism, or maybe even furry fandom.

What is BTS?

Today's fandom area that we are gonna cover is BTS! So what is BTS? It's a 7 member boy band that originates from South Korea. BTS stands for Bangtan Sonyeondan, which is Bulletproof Boy Scouts when translated into English. Unlike most boy band groups in Korea where they rely on TV for popularity, BTS heavily realised the use of social media platforms to reach out and communicate with fans all over the world rather than focusing on TV appearances that focus solely on Korean fans only. Where they would often live-streamed their band practices and interact directly with their fanbase also known as Army.

'The K-pop fandom culture has developed into a mostly respectful environment where fans can educate and communicate with each other' (Feind, K. 2020) As there a huge range of people from different ethnicity and races as K-pop fans.

Fan Page

There are numerous reasons why ARMY fans create fan pages and fan groups. The main objectives would be to meet new people with mutual interests and topics, understand the K-pop group, and even more, deepen the connection with the K-pop group by sheer numbers. As data-oriented accounts dedicated to everything from calling for fan votes to tracking the band’s position on music charts (Moon 2020). Fan accounts run by ARMY member Jiye Kim runs one of the largest Twitter fan translation accounts that translates everything related to BTS @doyou_bangtan, with more than 270,000 followers with the mission to deepen the understanding and connecting of the K-pop group among existing fans and introduce BTS to new audiences (Moon 2020). A college student living in New Orleans, Claire Min runs a Twitter account as well, @btstranslation7 with up to 350,000 followers in early 2018. As she specializes in translating live video streams from BTS members for non-Korean speaking fans (Moon 2020).

While K-pop fans are slowly taking over the world, they also take over every social media platform which includes Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Facebook, TikTok, Youtube and so on. These social media platforms are where they communicate with one another and share their opinions. It is also where they help their idols in whichever way possible, from promoting their music, restream their album, setting record history, and social activism like the Black Lives Matter movement.

Charities

In June, BTS Army has collected and raised over $1 million for Black Lives Matter. This particular effort was organized by a fan group called One in an ARMY. They are the ones who coordinate charitable efforts and fundraisers.

Conclusion The K-pop industry is a highly manufactured industry. BTS is one of the most popular K-pop groups in the world and most of its success is thanks to the highly devoted fans. BTS army has been known for spreading the message of positivity, self-love, inclusivity and youth strugglers.

References

Bruner, R., 2020. How K-pop fandom operates as a force for political activism. Time. Available at: https://time.com/5866955/k-pop-political/ [Accessed November 20, 2021].

Corey Cesare 25 mins ago et al., 2020. Why is BTS so successful in America? finally explained. Talent Recap. Available at: https://talentrecap.com/why-is-bts-so-successful-in-america-finally-explained/ [Accessed November 20, 2021].

#mda20009 #fandom #bts namjoon

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Week 10: Gaming Community

As a girl stuck in lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic, I started my gaming career really late compared to a lot of people. And so with the little savings I had, I purchased a PlayStation 4 just to play Monster Hunter World with my friends. My first-time experience in the gaming community was positive, fun and jokes. However, everyone that has been in the gaming community for many years have other opinions about it. Let's move onward!

Beauty of Gaming

With the advent of digital games came the advent of gamer cultures and identities. Playing online games has become a norm for most people. Online multiplayer games typically encourage interaction between players. Where collaboration with other players may be essential to achieve a higher success rate on winning. Especially in this age of social distancing and mental health strains due to the global pandemic, gaming has become a new outlet for people to gain much-needed social interaction in the safety of their own homes.

One of the main popular game social interactive gaming during the pandemic was Animal Crossing. Where players can visit friends or strangers' islands via code online. Some people hold birthday parties in Animal Crossing while others go on dates, some would even host weddings in the game itself. (TheLifeProject, 2020) It is a very successful game catered to everybody from young to old. With lots of cute items, tons of fun characters and customisations.

Gaming Toxicity

But just like any community, gaming also has its share of toxicity and hostility. It includes sexual harassment, hate speech, threats of violence or even spamming. These actions are fueled by the anonymity of virtual environments, as anyone can just create a fake profile to spread hate behind a screen.

Studies have also shown that women who are equally or more skilled than men in video games are still likely to be the targets of toxicity compared to male players. Besides gender hate, research has also shown that harassment is also targeted related to their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation. As a third of the LGBTQ, Black and Hispanic players experienced in-game harassment. One of the few experiences would be physical threats, stalking and sexual harassment. As a result, a quarter of those who experienced toxicity has to quit playing certain games as a result.

Conclusion

There are good and bad in the gaming community. It is beneficial in terms of meeting new friends, hanging out with current friends and having events that we can't have physically due to the pandemic. However, it is also a dangerous place with a lot of weirdos that hide behind the screen to spread hate and toxicity. We should always know how to stand up for ourselves and be careful of giving personal information online especially to strangers.

References

Opinion, W., 2020. Toxicity in gaming is dangerous. here's how to stand up to it. Wired. Available at: https://www.wired.com/story/toxicity-in-gaming-is-dangerous-heres-how-to-stand-up-to-it/ [Accessed November 20, 2021].

Rabindra Ratan, C.S., Men do not rule the world of tanks: Negating the gender-performance gap in a spatial-action game by controlling for time played - rabindra ratan, Cuihua Shen, Dmitri Williams, 2020. SAGE Journals. Available at: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0002764220919147 [Accessed November 20, 2021].

Ratan, R., Shen, C. & Williams, D., 2020. Men do not rule the world of tanks: Negating the gender-performance gap in a spatial-action game by controlling for Time played. American Behavioral Scientist, 64(7), pp.1031–1043.

#gaming community #mda20009

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Week 8: Crowdsourcing

What is crowdsourcing?

Honestly, this is the first time I have encountered this word. After some research, here is what I've found. Crowdsourcing is the practice of engaging a crowd or group for a common goal. Often with the goal of innovation, problem-solving or efficiency. (Crowdsourcing Week, 2021) People involved in crowdsourcing usually obtained information or opinions from a large group of people who submit their data via the Internet or social media platforms. People sometimes involved in crowdsourcing often worked as paid freelancers, but often others also perform voluntarily.

Crowdsourcing is part of all social and business interactions. It allows companies to provide work to people everywhere around the world, as to find skills and job expertise without the overhead cost of in-house employees. It changes the way the flow of companies and businesses, also giving small start-up businesses a good push as well. As it is a method to raise capital easily.

The few areas that can be crowdsourced would be enterprises, education, the government, IT, entrepreneurship and so on.

Examples Of Crowdsourcing

In 2017, Mural Arts Philadelphia hosted its Monument Lab, a city-wide project requesting residents to submit ideas of monuments to represent the city. This project, it helps increase the awareness of the city's history, and also resulted in some great monument proposals. (Livescault. J, 2021)

Another example would be Space Robotics Challenge by NASA. Teams around the world would work together to develop humanoid robots to help astronauts in future space exploration.

Advantages Of Crowdsourcing

So after much research, let's list out the advantages and disadvantages of crowdsourcing. Let's start with the advantages! The most significant benefit of using crowdsourcing is the ability to find unexpected solutions. With the help of the internet, organizations get a quicker and maybe better way of solving problems by involving a broader group of people all around the world. By using crowdsourcing, organizations can also get access to a mixture of knowledge, experience and expertise by communicating with a larger range of people which is something hard to obtain without crowdsourcing.

Disadvantages of Crowdsourcing

Even though there may be a lot of advantages of crowdsourcing, just like everything in life, not everything is good. Here are the distances of crowdsourcing! Firstly too much crowdsourcing would lead to no confidentiality. By putting up the organization information and queries, it could potentially clue competitors and steal information or ideas from the original organization. The second disadvantage would be sometimes the entries are just in poor quality, thus wasting time to filter out the good from the bad. Crowdsourcing contestants would normally submit whatever comes to mind. As they are not well-versed in the chosen industry.

Conclusion

Crowdsourcing is an incredible way to include any organization or businesses process. It is very useful in terms of solving unexpected solutions to tough problems, and provide a great diversity of thinking and experience, and reducing management burden. However it should be used with caution, as sometimes it may lead to important information confidentiality leakage, poor quality entities and popular misleads.

Sekian Terima Kasih

References

Crowdsourcing Week, 2021. What is crowdsourcing? Crowdsourcing Week. Available at: https://crowdsourcingweek.com/what-is-crowdsourcing/ [Accessed November 20, 2021].

Hargrave, M., 2021. How crowdsourcing works. Investopedia. Available at: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/crowdsourcing.asp [Accessed November 20, 2021].

Livescault. J, 2021. 6 great advantages of crowdsourcing you can benefit from. Braineet. Available at: https://www.braineet.com/blog/crowdsourcing-benefits [Accessed November 20, 2021].

Yudkin. M, 2016. Crowdsourcing: 9 hidden pitfalls of this new method of generating your new business name. Crowdsourcing: Disadvantages and Pitfalls of Crowdsourcing for Naming a Business or Product. Available at: https://www.yudkin.com/crowdsourcing.htm [Accessed November 20, 2021].

#crowdsourcing #think #teamwork #experience #mda20009

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Week 4: Is blogging still relevant in the age of TikTok and Instagram?

What is a blog?

A blog is an online journal or information website displaying information. Where people come together to write and share their views on multiple subjects. The main purpose of a blog is to connect to a relevant audience. Blogs also promote reader engagement. Readers can comment and voice their different opinion on particular topics and discuss them together. There are multiple types of blogs but the most common would be personal blogs, business/ corporate blogs, fashion blogs, travel blogs and so on.

The first blog

The first recognized blog was Links.net, created by Justin Hall while he was a Swarthmore College student in 1994. Others quickly followed Hall's footsteps by creating their sites to share their thoughts as well. However, it wasn't until 1997 that the term “weblog” was coined. Which is then shortened to “blog” in 1999 by programmer Peter Merolz.

Tumblr

One of the most popular blogs in today's generation would be Tumblr. It is a popular platform where young people create a web page that is a collection of all the things they like. Where youngsters post images, music clips, text and also re-blog from other Tumblr feeds they find interesting. Tumble users also tend to follow and keep up to date with certain topics they are interested in. According to Tumblr, 12.8 million blog posts are published daily. (Tumblr, 2021)

However, Tumblr has been seeing fluctuations in its global monthly visitors in light of the porn ban. So previously from 343 million unique visitors, it has dropped to 316 million over six months in 2020 and 2021. (Similar Web, 2021) As of January 2021, Tumblr total web traffic has declined to 20.5 million visitors. Mainly because TikTok and Instagram were the better alternatives due to the instantaneous video posting, which require less effort to absorb content compared to reading on Tumblr.

It is still relevant in the sense that there is still an audience in Tumblr, however, it is a lot lesser compared to what the stats were like a couple of years ago.

TikTok & Instagram

However in an era where everyone has a short attention span. TikTok and Instagram seem to take centre stage. TikTok is a video-sharing app that allows users to create and share 15-second videos with the freedom on whatever topic. Especially during the global pandemic and lockdown to slow the spread of Covid-19, TikTok was ‘the perfect medium for the splintered attention spans of lockdown’ (Haigney, 2020) With the daily results of an increasing number of cases and deaths by Covid-19, the TikTok app had the number of downloads increases by 34% in the United Kingdom alone. (Kale, 2020)

Whereas Instagram is a mobile photo and video sharing app that emerged in the spotlight in recent years. It allows users to edit and upload photos and short videos instantaneously. And each post by a user appears on their follower.s Instagram feeds. It is not only a tool for individuals but also for businesses. As it offers businesses for both big and small companies.

What both of these apps (TikTok & Instagram) have in common is that they’re mainly video content-based apps. Which suited really well compared to Tumblr for the attention span of today’s era. According to research, our attention span has markedly decreased in just 15 years. Back in 2000, our attention span was 12 seconds but now it has shrunk to 8.25 seconds 15 years later. (Wyzowl, 2021)

Conclusion

Blogging is still relevant in today’s era. Yes, there are lesser visitors compared to a few years ago as most users have shifted to the trendy TikTok and Instagram. However, there are still considered a good amount of number visitors. It shows that Tumblr, just like any other apps are slowly having a stereotype of the target audience. Just like how not everybody enjoys reading, and how not everybody enjoys cooking. Tumblr is just slowly suited for the ones who love blogs! While TikTok and Instagram are for users who enjoy video-based content more.

References

Gunn.D 2021, The History of Blogging: From 1997 Until Now, Theme Isle, viewed 21 October 2021,

<https://themeisle.com/blog/history-of-blogging/>.

Geyser.W 2021, What is TikTok? – The Fastest Growing Social Media App Uncovered, Influencer Marketing Hub, viewed 21 October 2021,

<https://influencermarketinghub.com/what-is-tiktok/>.

Kennedy.M 2020, European Journal of Cultural Studies, Sage Journals, viewed 21 October 2021,

<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1367549420945341>.

Hu. Y, Manikonda. L, Kambhampati.S 2018, What We Instagram: A First Analysis of Instagram Photo Content and User Types, viewed 21 October 2021,

<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1367549420945341>.

#blogging #mda20009

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Week 7: Relationship between social media and Covid-19 in Malaysia

Covid-19

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes mild to severe respiratory illness including death. In December 2019, COVID-19 was first identified in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China. By January 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak was declared a global health emergency by WHO. (Medscape, 2021)

Social Media

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, social media has been a big part of everyone's day more than usual of social distancing and home lockdowns. They rely on news sources and social media platforms to seek health information for themselves and their loved ones. (de Calheiros Velozo J, 2018).

Social media platforms have provided easy access to health information which empowered people to evaluate their health-related concerns. (Tengku Mohd TAM, Yunus RM, Hairi F, 2018) As social media users typically produce and share health information available through local and international sources to the public world regarding the global COVID-19 pandemic. As everyone is eager to seek information and stay connected with other people during tough times where everyone is stuck at home.

It has been over a year since COVID-19 emerged from the world. Countries all over the world are at various stages of disease mitigation, As of October 29, 2020, Malaysia has recorded 29,441 total COVID-19 cases, with 18,499 recoveries and 246 total deaths. (Southeast Asia Covid-19 Tracker, 2020) Malaysia is perceived as one of the most successful countries in disease management thanks to Movement Control Order (MCO) on March 18, 2020. (Omar ARC, Ishak S, Jusoh MA, 2020) Since the implementation of the MCO, the Malaysian public has heavily relied on both local and international media for information relating to COVID-19. MOH Malaysia and the Malaysian National Security Council (NSC) are the official source responsible for communicating information regarding COVID-19. (Mohamad E, Azlan AA, 2020) After official sites have broadcasted important news, usually social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram will rebroadcast in a simpler and shorter format to cater to a wider and younger audience, keeping everyone in the loop.

Social media may be handy in raising awareness and health information about COVID-19, but it may also raise potential fake news as well. For example, in August 2020, a message circulated on social media claiming the infrared thermometers being widely used to scan people when entering premises were causing brain damages. (Diyana Pfordten, 2021) However, the rumour quickly got shut down by the Health Ministry. Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hiisham Abdullah said "It is designed to detect and absorb heat in the form of infrared rays emitted from the human body and converts it into electricity. The electronic circuit within the thermometer processes the electrical signal to determine the temperature and display the reading on the screen. Since infrared thermometers do not emit harmful radiation, it is safe to use." (New Straits Times, 2020)

Conclusion

The internet and social media is a great tool to seek health information and get news about what is going on within Malaysia and all over the world. However read with caution, make sure they have citations, references and proof that they are not fake news.

References

David J Cennimo, 22 October 2021, Medscape, 26 October 2021, <https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/2500114-overview#a1>.

Abbas J, Wang D, Su Z, Ziapour A, 2 October 2020, Dovepress, 26 October 2021,

<https://www.dovepress.com/the-role-of-social-media-in-the-advent-of-covid-19-pandemic-crisis-man-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-RMHP#cit0069>.

J Med Internet Res, 12 November 2020, JMIR Publications, 26 October 2021, <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7674144/>.

New Straits Times, 3 August 2020, New Straits Times, 26 October 2021, <https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2020/08/613661/health-dg-no-infrared-thermometers-dont-cause-brain-damage>.cheers

#mda20009

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Week 6: Social Media & Activism

Protest & Activism

Activism is the practice of direct action and involvement in supporting a particular cause or opposing it to achieve social, political, economic or environmental goals. Activism usually uses direct actions such as protests, petitions, lobbying and strikes. Social media has played an important to bring attention to movements all over the world for the past decade.

In 2017, #DressLikeAWoman hashtag was trending on Twitter after former President of the United States Donald Trump shared preferences of staff attire. Men are expected to wear a tie and be "sharply dressed" while the women are expected "to dress like women". The women working for Trump felt pressured and expected to wear stereotypically feminine attire.

The reference to an alleged female dress code sparked outrage online so Twitter users responded with the hashtag #DressLikeAWoman. From politicians to women who had served in the army contributed to the Twitter trending discussion. People posted photos of women in uniforms, scrubs, space suits and even in a Game of Thrones' armor. Opening up conversations and calling out the sexism.

In July 2013, #BlackLivesMatter movement began on social media after the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of African-American teen Trayvon Martin back in 2012. The movement returned to international headlines during the global George Floyd protest in 2020 following his murder by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin.

According to reports, #BlackLivesMatter got nearly 12 billion views on TikTok. The current trending social media app in today's society. Protesters share information and videos taken on the street, spreading awareness and sparked action.

From mid-2013 to March 2016, the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter has appeared on Twitter almost 11.8 million times with a continuous presence. However ever since the nationwide protest over police brutality and the death of George Floyd, #BlackLivesMatter hashtag has been used roughly 47.8 million times on Twitter with an average of 3.7 million times per day from May 26 to June 7. (Pew Research Center, 2020)

Why is activism important?

In my opinion, activism is really important as it plays a major role in ending slavery, challenging dictatorships, protecting the environment, promoting equal rights, opposing racism and many other important issues. We wouldn't live in the "almost fair" society without activisms performed yesterday. Activism brings out uncomfortable conversations and calls out inequality to all. The world is not perfect but it is improving as people speak up.

Why social media?

In today's era, social media has been a big part of everyone's lives. According to statistics, as of 2019 and 2020, the average daily social media usage worldwide amounted to 144 minutes per day. (Statista, 2021) Since Covid-19 hit 2020, there are over 3.6 billion people using social media worldwide with a potential number increase to 4.41 billion in 2025.

So it wasn't surprising to see conventional activism switch over to social media platforms, as social media is a big part of our lives and we revolve around it even more in this worldwide pandemic. Before social media, there were many common methods of activism. For example, public protests such as rallies, marches or public meetings. There were also persuasions as well, such as speeches, slogans, banners, picketing, protest disrobings, singing, marches and teach-ins. But now that everything is all online, I feel it is easier to reach out to a wider range of age groups and bring out the message effectively with a lesser cost strain and in a shorter time frame.

Conclusion

I think social media and activism plays in a well-coordinated dance. They compliment each other well by bringing out awareness effectively and opening up uncomfortable conversations. It may be impossible to obtain a perfect world where everything is righteous and fair but at least it is improving in the right direction. Small steps are still improvements.

References

Elena Cresci, 3 Feb 2017, Twitter Blacklash Over Reports of Dress Code For Trump Staff, The Guardian, 15 October 2021, <https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/03/dresslikeawoman-backlash-over-reports-of-dress-code-for-trump-staff>.

Monica Anderson, Michael Barthel, Andrew Perrin, Emily A. Vogels, 10 June 2020, #BlackLivesMatter Surges On Twitter After George Floyd's Death, Paw Research Center, 15 October 2021,

<https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/06/10/blacklivesmatter-surges-on-twitter-after-george-floyds-death/>.

Statista Research Department, January 2021, Number Of Global Social Network Users, Statista, 15 October 2021,

<https://www.statista.com/statistics/278414/number-of-worldwide-social-network-users/>.

#activism #social media #opinion #blacklivesmatter #dresslikeawoman #digital age #twitter #donald trump #mda20009

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Week 5: Is social media and politics relevant to each other?

Social media is a dominant role in our day to day life. It creates a wide range of impacts on people of all ages. Based on a report, 4.20 billion people are active social media users. Especially in today's era, social media play a key role in amplifying economic, political and cultural grievances across the globe. Before the internet, political newcomers find it difficult to gain momentum at the polls without connections to influential donors. This is why up to 90% of incumbents are reelected through every election cycle.

According to several reports, politicians utilize social media because it plays a huge role in amplifying economic, political and cultural grievances across the globe. Back in the day, there is plenty of evidence to prove that traditional media for example newspaper, radio and TV had an important impact on political outcomes by providing political news and entertainment. In today's modern society, social media mirrors the exact persuasion effects of traditional media. Social media also allow politicians to have two-way communication between users and facilitate coordination between people. It also allows immediate feedback on policy actions to discuss policy proposals and to measure political discontent.

Obama was one of the first presidency to make use of services like Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. During his second run for the presidency, Barak Obama began to interact with the public via Twitter where he conducted several questionnaires. Rather than being politically driven, instead, he humanised his image by being more relatable and attractive to voters by focusing on the Obama family and his personality.

Barak Obama actively used the Presidential Twitter account @Potus and kept his personal account active as well. He has sent almost 11k original tweets until today of 2021.

One of Obama's famous tweets quoting Nelson Mandela after the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia was the most liked tweet in Twitter history and it was also retweeted more than 1.7 million times.

Another example of a politician using social media would be, former President Donald Trump. Where he utilize misinformation and talk about controversial topics that left everyone speechless.

Social media may help pro-democracy movements at times but they give more advantage to authoritarian parties instead. As it is easier to spread misinformation on social media to inflame social divisions than to mend them as it is an authoritarian medium.

Social media do facilitate the spread of information quickly, allowing rapid communication among large groups of disparate people, giving citizens activist new tools for organizing actions. Yes, indeed, social media can easily spread information but it is equally difficult to repress the spread of disinformation. With the rapid spread of information, it can be used against democracy via information overload.

Reference list

Simon Kemp, ‘Digital 2021: Global Overview Report ’, Data Reportal, 27 January 2021, viewed 29 September 2021, https://datareportal.com/reports/digital-2021-global-overview-report

Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, ‘Political Effects of the Internet and Socila Media’, Annual Reviews,  26 May 2020, viewed 29 September 2021, https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-economics-081919-050239

Tweet Binder Blog, ‘Barak Obama on Twitter 2008/2021 analysis’, Tweet Binder Blog,  26 June 2021, viewed 29 September 2021, https://www.tweetbinder.com/blog/barack-obama-twitter/

Abbas Alidina, ‘Donlad Trump’s 11 Best Tweets’, Crowd Babble,  Election 2016, viewed 29 September 2021, https://www.crowdbabble.com/blog/the-11-best-tweets-of-all-time-by-donald-trump/

Zack Beauchamp, ‘Social Media Is Rotting Democracy From Within’, Vox,  26 22 January 2019, viewed 29 September 2021, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/22/18177076/social-media-facebook-far-right-authoritarian-populism

#social media #information #discussion #donald trump #obama #democracy #mda20009