On a lighter note… Politics!

I have been bashing the media’s impact on our society over the past couple of posts, and I am ready to be a little more optimistic. Mass media has always had an upper hand when influencing us viewers; I think I have just been aggravated with the way the power is used at times. Picture emails with no advertisements or daily specials, no Baskin Robbins “Death by Chocolate” milkshake commercial causing you to drool on yourself, no magazines with the latest gossip, or better yet – no news to keep you posted on the most current events.  Imagining day-to-day life without the media just sounds insanely lackluster. Aside from how creepy “subliminal advertising” sounds, we need media to keep the globe spinning at normal speed. 

Let’s focus in on a subsection of “pro-social” media behavior for a second: POLITICS. As much as we are already sick and tired of seeing 2012 election campaign ads, they work!! How else would we know about our potential future leaders if we could not watch an E! Exclusive or follow their every move on Twitter? Websites are an easy access portal for political donations while staying cost-effective … we know those commercials can get pretty expensive during prime-time! Media has become such a part of the political world that every party (and their branches) has a main website, Facebook page, Twitter account, television network, radio talk show, and newspaper section. Here are two fun facts to prove the dominance media plays in the U.S. government:

• Twitter was so important to the Iranian protests after the Iranian presidential election in June 2009 that the US State Department asked Twitter to delay a scheduled network upgrade that would have taken the website offline at a busy time of day in Iran. Twitter complied and rescheduled the downtime to 1:30 am Tehran time.

•  On Nov. 3, 2008, the day before the US presidential election, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama had 2,379,102 Facebook supporters while Republican candidate John McCain had 620,359. Obama had 833,161 MySpace friends and McCain had 217,811. Obama had 384% more Facebook supporters and 383% more MySpace friends than McCain. 

Communication is the key to success. Politicians have to be on top of their game 24/7 in order to stay out of the tabloids and at #1 on the most liked Facebook group list! The “spiral of silence” has the capability of whirling out of control these days, but the media has the technology to cover it all and relay it to the public audience within seconds to affect voter turnout. Whether you are pro “red” or “blue” stay posted (literally) on the upcoming elections and take note of the advantages of media campaigning. Oh.. and make sure to “like” your most respected nominee to get them to #1!