Social Media’s Influence on Policy Issues

“In the twenty-first century, the proliferation of electronic social media portals, such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, or Blogs, deployed on laptops and handheld mobile devices, are new, powerful communication tools capable of influencing users’ opinions in the realms of politics and policy” (Auer, 2011). None of these portals were specifically designed for collecting or sharing information on politics or public affairs, but much of the internet’s present-day functions go well beyond the purposes.

One realm of social media I would use to promote my policy on early childhood curriculum and development would be Twitter because the use of tweets, #hashtags, and "followers" can spread an educational trend globally in a matter of moments. “Evidence of this trend, for example, are the half-million followers of tweets transmitted by two, young State Department officials. The New York Times reports the pair’s tweets have become an integral part of a new State Department effort to bring diplomacy into the digital age, by using widely available technologies to reach out to citizens, companies, and other non-state actors” (Auer, 2011).  The audience following Twitter is immense, and although it only offers a 140 character limit per message, a “trending” or “viral” policy could create global change by the gathering, processing, and dissemination of information relevant to the policy.

Another realm of social media I would use to share my policy would be a professional blog because this avenue also creates a platform in which to mediate public understanding of important events, trends, and decisions. By building a reputation fueled with dependability and comprehensiveness, I can build a solid reputation that attracts followers to receive my cumulative decisions of the policy. Although this avenue may not reach as many users, it provides a fast and low cost way to disseminate policy information, while still attaining public feedback and communication with the citizens.

The benefit of using social media such as Twitter or a professional blog is that it opens up communication channels by virtually anyone with an iPhone, smartphone, or high-speed modem, to disseminate people’s immediate impressions on a policy. Additionally, as the writer of the policy, I can post messages to social media platforms without interference from editors or censors.  One challenge in examining social media includes a present concern that social media does not offer an “official” stance on a policy, just a mere opinion, leading to the dependability or credibility aspects to the audience reading information from social media.

Reference

Auer, M. R. (2011). The policy sciences of social media. Policy Studies Journal, 39(4), 709–736.Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.