Facebook: New Forms of Politicking - Essay Example

Facebook Has Facilitated New Forms of Politicking Name Institution Introduction Facebook is a type of social networking platform like MySpace. Facebook is a Social networking website that enables individuals to connect and share information with friends and family members online. Originally, Facebook was designed to be used by college students. A Harvard University student Mark Zuckerberg created it in 2004. By the year 2006, Facebook was popular and anyone with a valid email address and over the age of 13 years could join. Today Facebook is the largest social networking website in the world with over 1.4 billion active members. Politics involves the activities that are associated with governance. Politics may be in organizations or nations. These activities include conflicts or debates among parties or leaders already in power or hoping to achieve power. Politicking involves holding debates, campaigns rallies and sharing information among the subjects from whom the leaders or aspirants seek mandate or power. For a politician to be popular among his people he must have a good link, which ensures that his intended message gets to his people. The efficiency in message delivery is one of the major determinants of whether a candidate will win or lose. Politics before the Emergence of Facebook Politics has existed since the ancient times. However, as the technology advances politics has embedded itself with the technology and thus it has continued to grow with it. In the past years, the flow of information was not as efficient as today. The communication channels were limited, and it took a lot of time to pass information from one person to another. The most common methods of political campaigns were holding rallies or using, mass media such as radio or television. Politicians also used emails to pass information, but it was still not efficient because individuals could not get the message immediately. The emails were not efficient because they were able to reach one person at a time. The rallies were also not efficient because the individuals who were able to get the message were individuals who were present in the rally. Although information could be shared among individuals, as the information is passed from one person to another it becomes unreliable because of distortion. However, social networking sites have helped to share information more easily, and since politics heavily relies on the spread of information, it has advanced to a higher level. However, the most influential social networking site is Facebook. Facebook has taken politics by storm by facilitating the development of new forms of political cultures. Features that Have Facilitated Growth of Facebook Political Cultures Facebook is not just another social networking site. What makes Facebook unique from other sites is the ability and capacity to connect and share with people of your choice at the same time. Other platforms such as instant messaging and emails have no capability to communicate to different individuals at the same time. Facebook is available in over 77 different languages (Kirkpatrick, 2011). It allows people to create profiles, upload videos, and photos, and send short messages to friends, family members, and colleagues. More also Facebook has features such as marketplace, events, groups, pages and presence technologies. Facebook provides several major networking components. The most popular component on a personal profile is the wall that is a virtual bulletin board. A wall can carry photos, videos, or short messages. Politicians and political parties can form their groups in Facebook or a page in which they address their subjects and sell their manifestos. Another popular component is a virtual album. Photos can be uploaded from a smartphone, desktop, smart camera or any other device with a capability of taking photos and accessing the internet. Friends can comment or tag on the photos uploaded by their colleagues in Facebook. Facebook has no limit to the quantity of photos that can upload on his Facebook account. However, the Facebook staff can remove copyrighted photo uploads from individuals profiles. Another major networking components is the status updates which enables individuals to share Twitter-like announcements with their friends. All the Facebook interactions are published in a section now as new feeds that are normally distributed in real time to all your contacts or Facebook friends. According to Facebook for Business (n.d) Edi Rama ran a 7-month Facebook campaign and used campaign videos on Facebook as an approach to boost voter turnout. He was able to reach 14% of the Albanian population through Facebook in three days. When it comes to security issues, Facebook offers a variety of privacy preferences to its members. A Facebook member can choose to make all communication visible to everyone, he can choose to keep his communication private or he can decide to block some connections. It means that a person can choose who among his friends should receive his messages and when he should receive them. Members can choose whether they can be searchable, decide the part of their profile they what to publicize and which to make private and decide what to put in new feeds for others to access. For members wishing to communicate privately, Facebook has a messaging feature that resembles an email. According to TechTarget (2014), in the year 2007, Facebook opened a platform that sanction third-party developers to build their widgets and applications that are distributed through Facebook community. Facebook allows other social networking sites to synchronize with it making it more popular. By having a Facebook account, a member can login to other social networking sites. It has promoted other social networking sites such as email websites since having an email is a requirement when opening a Facebook account. Facebook Political Culture Since its formation, Facebook has gained a lot of popularity and as attracted attention from all corners of the world. Facebook having over 1.4 billion membership provides it with a population large than China which has the highest population in the world. This population has made Facebook a community that knows no borders across the world. Facebook has become a target of politicians, nations, organizations and all other parties that involves themselves with politics among other activities. Currently, politics is done in Facebook as well as using other platforms. Facebook campaigns can run without any support whereas they are capable to boost support for other campaigns. For example, Facebook is used to pass information on a particular rally to be held by a candidate. When a candidate is scheduled to attend a debate or an interview with a media station, he can use Facebook to inform his people. However, people who are not Facebook members cannot participate in a Facebook campaign. Since year 2004, Facebook has been used for politics in different nations and institutions. The institutions may be international, national, or even as small as community groups’ leaders’ elections. Companies and non-governmental organizations to campaign for candidates who support their ideologies also use Facebook. The development of Facebook political culture started when Facebook proved to be influential and the most popular site among individuals. It starts with politicians opening Facebook accounts and inviting friends. People who know or want to be associated with them also can request for friendships to the politicians. According to Social Bakers (2015), the United States of America President Barrack Obama has 43 million friends on Facebook. He can send a message to all his friends in real time. It is difficult to compete with a candidate with such a following while you are not on Facebook. During his 2012 reelection campaign, he runs an advertisement to raise fund-using Facebook that reached 47% of all the voting-age American citizens in all the states combined. He also raised approximately 5 dollars for every 1 dollar he spent on his campaign advertisements. In the election week up to the Election Day over 72 million Americans saw his Facebook content. According Ranasinghe (2015), UK Independent Party was the most discussed political Party in the United Kingdom ahead of the general election in May 2015. According to Jenkins (2009), ‘If It Doesn’t Spread It’s Dead’. He explains that viruses and memes must be able to flow unless they are dead. In this case, if a politician cannot be able to spread is the message to the population then he is dead as far as politics is concerned. Facebook itself is political in nature. When Facebook was found it was a mere socializing site, however, people have grown it in different directions. It is advancing form time to time as the population grows and the technology changes. In the year 2011, Facebook formed its political action committee in the United States so as to protect itself from the potential privacy regulations. FB PAC allows employees to contribute to the company (Longbottom, 2011). The funds are then channeled to a political candidate who sits on committees covering social media. Facebook book focuses its politics in the United States of America since it is its host country. Facebook political cultures have been ranked the greatest political arsenals. Political events, political forums, debates, and other discussions are now planned on Facebook. Through Facebook, a candidate, political party, or a political organization can know its strength on the ground. It is right to argue that elections that nowadays elections are either won or lost in Facebook. Facebook political culture is growing steadily, and there is much to expect. People from different parts of the world are sharing ideas, political views as well as discussing how to collaborate best in order to develop themselves and the world. It will not be a surprise if one day the Facebook political cultures unite the world to have one president. Importance of Facebook Political Cultures Facebook has helped people to transform the culture of politics in general. In the past politics were marred with all forms of fights among supporters of different political candidates. Political rallies were common since there were limited ways of selling ideologies. Today, the rallies have decreased greatly, and most of politicking has been taken over by Facebook. This has helped reduce conflicts largely. Political rallies, events, forums are very expensive to organize. Normally organizing such events require booking of venues, drinks, and other logistics. Facebook political culture operates in a platform in its platform. Most of the events are carried out in Facebook. It is free to discuss, comment, post, upload or download anything in Facebook. Such activities make it cheap to run such events hence making the Facebook political culture more popular. Facebook enables individuals to share information to many people in real-time (Kirkpatrick, 2011). Sharing of information in Facebook is not affected by geographical location. It also gives people opportunities to access what was discussed in their absence and still they can contribute at later times. Facebook also helps politicians to conduct mock elections in Facebook, as well as gather information about their popularity. For example, a candidate can tell group members to like his post if they will vote for him. Through such a post, he can be able to gauge his popularity. Tensions and Conflicts that surrounds Facebook Politics Politics are marred with propaganda and other incorrect information that are meant to tarnish the competitors’ names. Its ability to share information to many people and in real-time gives it the ability to spread wrong information that may cause conflict among people. Once your name is soiled in Facebook many people including your boss and other respectable people can access information, and you may not get a chance to convince everyone about your character. In Facebook politics, you cannot be able to vet your friends. You cannot tell whether you have your opponents’ people in your group, so it is difficult to strategize, and thus one is forced to work with few people whom he knows well. The Facebook metrics to measure the popularity because your friends may not even be serious about the campaign. More also some you cannot tell the location of your friends and they may be just relevant in the Facebook politics and not the reality. Propaganda can be used to cause tension to your supporters as a way of ensuring that you do not succeed. Facebook campaigns must be accompanied by good grassroots level campaigns otherwise; there will be a big lift between the politician and his people. Conclusion Facebook has enhanced the growth of Facebook Political culture that has helped to take the political campaigns to an advanced level. The steady growth of Facebook in terms of technology and memberships continues to empower its political culture that knows no boundaries. Facebook Politics has helped to politicians, political parties, organizations and other political groups to cut on campaign budget have well as up their political games. Although it is instrumental when in campaigns, Facebook Politics has issues that lead to conflict and tensions among people. Its ability to spread information in real-time is a doubled-edged sword that can work for or against politicians. References Barrack Obama. (n.d). Facebook for Business. Retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/business/success/obama-for-america Edi Rama.(n.d ). Facebook for Business. Retrieved from www.facebook.com/business/success/edirama.al Jenkins, H. (2009). 'If It Doesn't Spread, It's Dead' available from http://henryjenkins.org/2009/02/if_it_doesnt_spread_its_dead_p.html Kirkpatrick, D. (2011). The Facebook effect, Simon & Schuster. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks. New York Longbottom, W. (2011).Facebook forms its own Political Action Committee to lobby against privacy laws. Mailonline. Retrieved From http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2042327/Facebook-forms-Political-Action-Committee-lobby-privacy-laws.html Ranasinghe,D. (2015). UK. Election 2015: This UK political party is winning on Facebook. CNBC. Retrieved from http://www.cnbc.com/id/102640165 Social Bakers.(2015). Facebook Society stats – Politics. Retrieved from http://www.socialbakers.com/statistics/facebook/pages/total/society/politics/ TechTarget. (2014). Facebook. Retrieved from http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/Facebook Read More