The rise of Social Media

The last couple decades have seen a rapid increase in how media is used in elections. I want to focus today's blog on a particular issue in media and elections. The 2020 election showed just how important it is to reach voters through social media. President Joe Biden ran a campaign in which he was not out and about to the level that many previous presidential winners were. Instead, his campaign focused on reaching voters through social media such as Twitter and Facebook  Often, no news is the best news but this is not the case when candidates are running for election. It is imperative that they use the media to get their message out. So much of campaign resources are focused on getting the electorate to turn out and vote for the candidate. This often looks like running advertisements on television or on social media. Recently, we have seen in increase in the use of social media and less newspapers being used. These ads can be targeted to the very individual based on their preferences. The level that campaigns can target voters is quite fascinating and has been accentuated through the development of technology. Tune in for next week as we discuss how negative and positive news impacts candidates.