Social Media in Politics

In this episode, we go back to 2004 to learn how one politician turned to social media to help his presidential campaign. And how his actions have changed the way voters interact with political leaders.

From there, we explore how social media has become a primary channel for politicians to raise money and get their message out to supporters.

In my next episode, we explore the importance of primary elections and how voters are using the 2022 primaries to target some big-name politicians they have been unhappy with.

- Ashley

Sources:

"The Choice" Obama for America Youtube Ad (2012)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBorRZnqtMo

University of Pennsylvania Study (2020)
How Social Media Is Shaping Political Campaigns - Knowledge at Wharton

How Barack Obama used Social Media to win both the 2008 & 2012 Elections
Social media use by Barack Obama - Wikipedia

Stanford University Study (2009)
Obama and the Power of Social Media and Technology | Stanford Graduate School of Business

Politics were first introduced to social media during the 2004 Presidential Election. When democratic presidential candidate and then Governor of Vermont, Howard Dean, wanted to boost his campaign, he took to the internet by encouraging the website “Meetup” where supporters could meet him and empty their pockets in support of his campaign. Around 143,000 individuals across 600 locations in the United States attended these “Meetups” with the candidate. And in January of 2004, Dean’s campaign raised $41 million, most of it coming from online supporters.

While Howard Dean did not win the 2004 Presidential Election, or even the Democratic Primary nomination, he did make history by being the first politician to utilize social media for a political cause. Creating a platform that would change the course of politics forever.

Howard Dean being the first politician to use social media was an innovative discovery. Mainly for two reasons: the first one is the audience that he drew from utilizing social media. And the second reason is the amount of money he raised. Most of the $41 million dollars that Dean raised for his campaign was from online supporters. Since then, social media, and in particular the platform Twitter, have been leveraged as a campaign tool to raise substantial amounts of funds. A 2020 study by the University of Pennsylvania found that “Within the first month of using Twitter, politicians were able to raise between 1% and 3% of what they would have raised in a two-year traditional campaign. And it was amplified when candidates included hyperlinks to more information.”. For simple math reasons, let’s say that the $41 million that Howard Dean raised was over the span of 2 years, with the support of social media, that 1 to 3 percent would be $410,000 to $1.23 million raised in a single month.

Another example of social media fundraising is when Elizabeth Warren, a U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, uses her Instagram account to do live chats with supporters who have made donations to her campaign. While these donations are normally between 5 and 10 dollars, researchers have found that small contributions like this are an “important part of the voting process because they represent hope”. Showing how the use of social media has influenced fundraising.

After Howard Dean, the next big political user of social media was Barack Obama for his 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. The former president used over 15 social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube, to raise awareness and financial support for his cause. Here’s one of Barack Obama’s campaign ads that were used for tv and social media during the 2012 election cycle. [Insert "The Choice" - Obama For America TV Ad Full video].

In this campaign advertisement, Obama doesn’t use data or statistics, but straightforward explanations to say how his plans for presidency will affect the American people. His use of logos lets him appeal to his audience of voters by telling them that they have a “choice” and by saying “sometimes politics can seem very small, but the choice you face, it couldn’t be bigger”. This makes his audience feel seen and that they have an important part in the election. My favorite part of this advertisement is that it's so straight to the point, in only one minute, Obama is able to highlight the main parts of his campaign and influence people to vote for him, without having to drone on forever and ever.

Now that we’ve analyzed one of Obama’s campaign videos, let's look at the impact his social media campaigning had. I mean we all know that Obama won both of the Presidential elections so he must have had a large impact, but more specifically, how did his followers on social media support his campaign? During the 2008 presidential election, Obama had almost double the amount of friends on MySpace and Facebook and followers on Twitter than his opponent John McCain. By May of 2011 the Twitter account @BarackObama was followed by almost 8 million people, including 28 world leaders. And later on in the year, his account became the third ever to reach 10 million followers.

Going to the financial side of things, Stanford University found that in 2008 Obama’s campaign had raised 639 million dollars. Most of which was raised through the Internet and social media. Victoria Chang, a student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business described that “Obama’s donors made 6.5 million donations online, totaling more than $500 million.”. Meaning that over three quarters of Obama’s total donations were made through social media. Again, using simple math, that’s an average campaign donation of $76 per online donor. Comparatively, the Republican candidate, John McCain only raised around 383 million dollars in total for his campaign, which is understandable because as I said earlier Obama had double the amount of followers and social media presence than McCain did.

While campaigning and fundraising is a huge reason why politicians use social media, it’s not the only one. Social media has become a place for politicians to reach out to their supporters in nontraditional ways. Now, our lawmakers and legislators can spread information or simply speak directly to us. It could be about policy, or it could even be about their dogs. An example is former President Donald Trump, who is iconic for how he uses Twitter. From tweeting about his takes on international policy, to firing staff members, to voicing his criticism for Greta Thunberg which we discussed in the “How Greta Thunberg is using her words to fight for the climate” episode, to his famous “Stop the count” tweet. Giving Trump and other politicians a platform to reach out to their supporters and spread their message, which keeps us more easily informed on the politicians we follow.

Using social media is such a big deal to politicians that when Trump was banned from Twitter in January of 2021, he created his own social media app called “Truth Social”. Showing how important it is to Trump to be able to speak to his supporters and to be able to share information and his opinions with them. However, this social media switch caused Trump to lose a HUGE following, as of January 2021 before he was banned, Trump had almost 90 million followers on Twitter. And as of April 2022 Trump only has 2 million active users and followers on his app Truth Social. Which is a massive difference that affects how Trump can reach out to his supporters to spread his message.

While Trump is arguably the most popular example, a lot of politicians use their accounts to talk to their supporters. They use their platforms to reach their audiences in a more casual way and to influence us to listen to their opinions and support them. Even in the ways of campaigning and fundraising, politicians have used social media for their self benefit and for our benefit to learn more and get connected with our lawmakers and legislators.

Politics in social media is such a large topic that I couldn’t possibly cover everything there is to talk about in this episode. So, some more topics on social media that I would like to explore are the spread of disinformation, how Russia used FaceBook to interfere in the 2016 Presidential Election, and the debate if Twitter has the authority to ban a user.

Thank you for joining me in this episode! Tune into the next episode where we will talk about the importance of primary elections.

Politically Minded Gal

Social Media in Politics

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