Politics and Prejudice (Blog Post #8)

 I have never been interested in politics. However, as I got older I realized that I should try to become more informed about what is happening in our United States Government because I need to have a general understanding of issues that are up for vote. Now that I am above the age of 18, I can vote in the upcoming 2012 election. Throughout the month of October, the presidential debates took place and like the majority of Democrats, I rooted for Obama while booing Romney. As I was watching them, I was checking my Twitter timeline. Most of my followers are supporters of Obama, so it was nice and entertaining to see what people were saying about the debate.

Although I am not sure that many of my followers are political savvy which was interesting to see their commentary on the subjects that the presidential candidates discussed. Thinking about this in regards to the report, “Politics on Social Networking Sites” and the podcast, “All Tech Considered”, understating the information posted on social networking sites becomes critical. With the wide array of knowledge that is attained from Facebook and Twitter, it can become a cesspool of uninformed and overly opinionated users. As one of the interviewees in the podcast stated, “Comment threads are a performance,” (All Tech Considered, NPR News).

Along with the podcast, the report found that, “36% of SNS users say the sites are “very important” or “somewhat important” to them in keeping up with political news,” (Pew Research Center). Granted, this is not the majority of people who use social networking sites. This is still a big number of people and could potentially get bigger as technology advances. As the article, “Politics in the Social Media Age: Insights From Joe Lockhart” points out social media is becoming the first primary source of information. “We're now entering an era where people are informing each other, through the likes of Facebook and Twitter, but we're not quite there yet,” (Kanalley, The Huffington Post).

As we are increasing our interaction through social media, checking our information is will become more important in order to avoid ignorance.  The article highlights these three statements:

“- There is a lot of sharing but there's just as much sharing of ignorance as knowledge”

“- Need a centralized core of journalism to inform people, and we don't have that now”

“- We need more authorities, otherwise people will just go to their friends” (Kanalley, The Huffington Post).

I think that Facebook, Twitter, and other social networking sites are great for discovering new information and finding out what is happening in the world including with politics. Yet, I do not think that people should not rely on social networking sites for all their news. Yes, there are pages that focus on news but the first interaction that a social networking user will have is with another social networking user. Social media allows for things to move at a quicker pace. “You can see what your friends think immediately, and things happen much quicker; friends talk about it, their friends talk about it, it goes viral, etc,” (Kanalley, The Huffington Post).  The next time that you like a status or re-tweeting a tweet regarding to a politics make sure to follow up and check that topic out on actual news source like the BBC or CNN. Try to find places that strive to be objective and focus on the facts.

Works Citied:

All Tech Considered. NPR News. Podcast. Date Acc. 28 October 2012.

Kanalley, Craig. “Politics in the Social Media Age: Insights From Joe Lockhart.” The Huffington Post. Date Pub. 19 October 2012. Date Acc. 28 October 2012. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-kanalley/politics-social-media-age_b_1989858.html

Rainie, Lee and Smith, Aaron. “Politics on Social Networking Sites” Pew Research Center.  Date Pub. 4 September 2012. Date Acc. 28 October 2012. http://pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2012/PIP_PoliticalLifeonSocialNetworkingSites.pdf