Social Media and Current Affairs
In a couple of days the United Kingdom will decide on a new (or old) government, so this is an exciting and nerve-wracking time. Keeping up to date with things that are going on and understanding what the parties that are on offer stand for used to be only accessible for those who really had an interest in politics. These days, however, with sites like Facebook and Twitter and the recent leadership debates on TV this has all changed. Now you dont seem to be able to avoid being informed about the latest trends in the polls and contents of the major (and minor) parties' manifestos.
The internet in general has changed the election prep and general current affairs in general but in my opinion there are three major forces that have made all the difference this year: Facebook, Twitter and the two in combination with the TV debates.
Facebook launched a campaign in partnership with the government to encourage new voters to register. Although the implementation could have been more resourceful (with possible online sign up etc), giving young people the chance to simply download the form that they needed to fill in to register was a step in the right direction. This campaign certainly had the right aim at heart.
Twitter has also played a major role in the campaigning of parties and the political day to day life. We have seen politicians step down following "unsuitable" comments they made about others on Twitter. We also saw politicians engage directly with the voters (or their followers).
The TV debates have completely changed the way Britain votes today. However the debates themselves were only part of the trick. The other part was how the debates were covered in the press. Voters' reactions could be instantly made available by crawling the social media sites for tweets and blog posts etc. Therefore, opinion polling and finding out about trends within the country, which used to take days or weeks to compile, is now available almost instantly. Thursday will show us how much the election has been changed by the input of social media. We can only hope for a positive outcome....whatever that might be.