Trump use of social media was a brilliant display of keeping in the spot light. As I can recall , Good or Bad he was always in the spotlight as far as Social Media platforms go. His online presence made what he would say almost a forced consumption of information whether you wanted to read it or not. Social Media kind of took over in a way that we have never seen before. Sure Obama used Social Media but not in the sense that you really thought that he was really trying to talk. More of a obligation than wanting to utilize it. For example maybe it seemed like well I have to post a little something on here and there and then focus on other things , where as Trumps campaign sort of transformed the importance of connecting on these platforms
http://www.govtech.com/social/2016-Presidential-Election-Circus-Is-Social-Media-the-Cause.html
During Trumps interview on 60 minutes he seemed to make a really good point in the fact that through Twitter by gaining a following he has a way to fight back when the media says something about him that is debatable.
Another interesting thing that I was thinking about is Twitter shows who trending more than what news outlet is trending meaning that in a way it seems like if you mention someone, good or bad , they will get to benefit from that trend and respond “on top” so to speak.
Trump stated “It’s a great form of communication. Now do I say I’ll give it up entirely?” he told Stahl. “I’m not saying I love it, but it does get the word out. When you give me a bad story or when you give me an inaccurate story or when somebody other than you and another — a network, or whatever, ‘cause of course, CBS would never do a thing like that right? I have a method of fighting back.”
What do you think about this freedom of addressing the public VIA Social Media ?
Social media is part of a much larger effort for anyone who is communicating with a group of people. Even if that group of people is the registered voters of the United States. The issue with social media is this ability to create an online persona that may or may not be an accurate representation of the person. Is the media lying? Is Trump lying? Is he fighting back to make it appear that he is ‘the better’ person? Will the next election render even more outrageous tweets and posts than this election?
It is becoming more and more difficult to discern who is telling the truth, if that was ever possible. Have we, as a society, just unleashed a litany of self-promoters who will stop at nothing to ‘one up’ the next guy? Obama used social media as a vehicle in which to communicate information on his policies, why voting was important and his campaign trail events. Trump used social media to publicly shame people, to belittle, to frighten, to threaten and to play on our unquenchable desire for reality TV.
Very interesting about how Trump used social media. I didn’t realize that until now. It makes a lot of sense. People in Social Media love to make controversy.