HELLOOO EVERYBODY!!!! I am back to bring you one last blog post for this semester!! While I am glad that this is the last time I have to write a blog post for this class, I am going to miss talking to you guys every unit. What I am going to talk to you guys about today is a little harder to talk about. A lot of people would probably call it a little controversial, too. So, at this time, you are probably wondering what this topic is and how bad it could be. Well, I am going to be talking about politics and social media. More specifically, how social media impacts democracy. So for this blog post, I will be mainly talking about how Facebook has impacted modern democracy and if democracy is now broken, then can it be fixed again?
From the discussions we have had in my class, nobody could really explain if they thought social media did have an impact. When we began unpacking why we could not give an answer, we discovered that a majority of my classmates did not really keep up with the political world. Even though it is a big thing that we should be keeping up with, nobody really cared or kept up with it on social media. One person specifically said that they would not participate or take action on anything political (not including voting). When I was listening to the conversations and heard the answers that everybody was giving, I became very surprised. Based off of everything I have seen on just about every social media platform, I thought that people my age were more politically active than they have been in a long time. But maybe that is another part of democracy that social media has affected.
As the years have passed, I would say that political parties have become more polarized . Or they have become more publicly polarized than before. It has been argued that the political parties have always been this level of polarized, but the circumstances of the time have made it seem like the two parties could get along. Ever since the creation of American democracy, people have been split on how America should be run. At that time, things also got really heated. I mean, there were a bunch of wars that were started because all parties were so opposed to the way the other parties wanted to run the country. The country comes together when some major tragedy happens. There have been multiple instances where the United States has gone into war. In that time, the country came together in a way it was not during the time period before. Then things slowly returned to the way things were before. But with the creation and development of social media, I believe that, at this point, no matter what happens, the parties will not ever get along. Things about politicians are constantly revealed on social media and so many rumors are spread, it does not matter if there is any truth to anything, if something gains traction online, anybody could believe it.
Facebook has been a major instigator in polarizing the parties. In class, we read Social Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy by Siva Vaidhyanathan. Vaidhyanathan believes that Facebook is one of the reasons why democracy is the way that it is today. In the book, she describes the reasons why she believes Facebook has been further separating political parties. The main reason why Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook was to connect with family and friends. He also said that he wanted to connect the whole world. While I do think he was able to connect friends, family, and the world, I think Facebook has evolved its usage into something else. The way Facebook's algorithm works, it relies on your likes, comments, and posts to suggest advertisements. Those ads have become more political and are pushing it on users' pages hard. It wouldn't matter if the advertisements were correct or fact-checked, if it was something Facebook knows you would be interested in, it would be recommended to you. Because of all of the incorrect information that is being pushed onto people's pages, people will believe it and it will warp their idea of what they think is correct.
To conclude this blog post, I want to talk about whether I think democracy is broken or not. I personally believe that democracy is broken. Not a lot of people have faith in the system anymore. Because of how much false information is online and how many people have seen it, they believe that democracy is working against them, as well as the opposing political party. People are so stuck in their beliefs that I believe they become hostile toward other people from the opposing political party. Social media is a big part of our everyday life; it's not going anywhere. Social media, specifically Facebook, has broken democracy. As long as people can access social media and incorrect information is still prominent, I don't think democracy can be fixed.
And that concludes my final blog post for this class. It's such a bittersweet feeling. I have enjoyed writing to all of you while I have been in this class.
I hope this has been an educational experience for all of you too!
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