Tweet, Tweet Victory

Social media is most commonly used today as a form of entertainment for people to express their thoughts and opinions. People can post memes to Facebook, create fandoms for pop culture on Tumblr, or almost anything they can think of. Although social media is great for all of these things, many people have realized that it can also be a powerful force for political movement as well. During the most recent presidential election, many scholars criticized the use of social media as part of the candidate’s campaigns. Twitter was used more than other platforms for the release of political opinions, which caused many people to worry that the public was being misinformed by biased, incorrect information.

Sanders' rundown of candidate's mentions. 

In his article "Twitter's Impact on 2016 Presidential Election Is Unmistakable," scholar Matt Kapko explains that "twitter makes political discourse more accessible, but the 140-character limit also means it's virtually impossible to share in-depth policy proposals on the service" (Kapko 2016). In another article titled “Did Social Media Ruin Election 2016?” by Sam Sanders, Sanders analyzes not only Twitter but Facebook as well, discussing the “ending of friendships” from people posting statuses along the lines of "If you can't support candidate X/Y, we don't need to be friends anymore" (Sanders 2016). Sanders also gives a graphic of a rundown of the times the two political candidates received the most twitter mentions; only two of which had anything to do with policies.

The titles of these articles alone is enough to show how negatively social media can be portrayed in our lives. In Baym's article, "Making New Media Make Sense," she discusses the many aspects of social media and the effect it has on people. She discusses technological determinism, a tradition in which "technology...acts upon and changes society" (Baym 2). Although this is one way of looking at technology (like social media), Baym later brings up another argument called Social Construct of Technology (SCOT). SCOT refutes technological determinism by stating that humans are agents of change, not technology (Baym 9). Humans are the ones that make the machines, that put content onto social media to be seen by the world. While platforms such as Twitter and Facebook give us the opportunity, humans are the ones creating the content.

Sanders and Kapko both make many valid points about the negative effect that social media has on the election and every day life, but also somewhat fail to look at the positive side of the platforms. Using social media raised more awareness of the election from the younger generations. More people came together to plan events to protest things that they did not agree with, like the Women’s March in January and the March for Climate, occurring later in April. People had more open conversations about the election, even if they sometimes ended in disagreement.

Works Cited

Baym, Nancy K. Personal Connections in the Digital Age. Cambridge, UK ; Malden, MA: Polity, 2010.


Kapko, Matt. "Twitter's Impact on 2016 Presidential Election Is Unmistakable." CIO. CIO, 03 Nov. 2016. Web. 07 Feb. 2017.

Sanders, Sam. "Did Social Media Ruin Election 2016?" NPR. NPR, 08 Nov. 2016. Web. 21 Feb. 2017.