The colorful tint of Social Media in politics

 Maria Denny 

md964019@ohio.edu 

Photo by Pinclipart

The act of scrolling through social media often becomes convoluted by the mix of two simple colors, red and blue. These two colors are highly symbolic and can be understood by millions of educated viewers. These two colors represent the most prominent political parties in American politics, the Republican and Democratic Parties. 

However, these colors may be seen as black and white to uneducated viewers. That color is a popular deceptive tool that many political organizations use to lure in the oblivious crowd that will repost anything that relatively resonates with something they believe in, whether or not it is factually correct or not. Unfortunately, these individuals do not pick up on the propagandistic force that political outlets present to the public. 

Finding the truth in the media is something that Americans struggle with when scrolling through social media. According to a study from BYU, they discovered potential rabbit holes that students dove into when spending time on social media, like Instagram. BYU public relations professor Pamela Brubaker claimed that social media users sometimes only interact with content that reflects their views. Unfortunately, those habits lead to the apps suggesting other similar content. This practice has caused people to dive into 'bubbles' that have caused viewers to be sheltered by one color and not ever exposed to the opposing political color. 

A recent study proposed by Pew Research Center uncovered that Americans who mainly get their news on social media are less engaged and less knowledgable than those who get their news from other outside news outlets. Further, they uncovered that one in five adults falls into this category, which equals 20% of the voting population in the United States. 

Political candidates on every level should be concerned that a fifth of their audience is uneducated and can be swayed by a simple Instagram post produced by someone with an influential agenda. Unfortunately, powerful accounts represent political colors that may be shiny to a large part of the U.S. population.  

Many things are needed to be done to change the narrative about receiving news on social media. Censorship and fact-checkers are necessary for this trend to continue positively. If this continues to spiral in its current direction, the American political future is quite literally doomed. There is technology to help fix this situation and the people. It is just a matter of time before it is introduced into the platforms in a balanced, not biased, color-educated fashion.