Running Head: Social Media and Elections 0

Social
Media
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Social Media and Elections 1

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Social Media and Election...............................................................................................................2
Legal and Ethical Impacts...............................................................................................................3
Social Effects...................................................................................................................................4
Implication of Technology..............................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
References........................................................................................................................................6
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Introduction
The main aim of the report is to provide information about the use of Social media in the election
along with the impacts. This report will cover the ethical and legal effects of social media in
election which can be seen before and after the elections. With the introduction of technology
and its implementation every sector is growing rapidly in very effective manner the outcomes of
the function are much precise and accurate than before but there are some disadvantages. The
increasing usage of technology impacts society in many ways. These impacts will be discussed
in the report including implication of the technology. The reason for choosing this topic as
election is the most sensitive practice in the society which decides the future and development of
a country.

Social Media and Election

The technology is changing the aspects of human life it is helping society to achieve new
horizons. With every development in technology every day new opportunities are arising as well
as the functions are providing the result faster and efficient. The introduction of Social media
impacts the human community in various ways (Allcott, Gentzkow, and Yu, 2019). The human
community is considered as most civilized living organism on the planet due to rules and
regulations which are implemented so that every individual and their activity do not impact the
life of another individual. Elections are most important practice plays dominant role in human
society; it is a practice through which the ruling government or a leader is selected who
represents the whole population of a city, region or country. It has been observed in a study that
one-third population of new voters is influenced by social media for taking part in elections. The
political parties are also getting support from social media to communicate with the voters in
which Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. are included (Kousser, 2019). The main aim
of the political parties is to win the elections and achieve the rule of country for which they
appoint their PR these PR instructs social media experts to design some long term as well as
short term social media strategies. The messages which are delivered through social media are
much effective to influence the youth population of any country. In a study it was observed that
approximately 40% youth population of a country keep themselves updated with the
development in politics by accessing their different social media accounts (Bilal, Gani, Marjani,
and Malik, 2019).
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Legal and Ethical Impacts

The social media develop and influenced the public sector but there are some legal issues that are
growing as well which are faced by the government from the use of social media. The
communication which took place on the platform of social media is no secret there is potential
risk of leaking the information and also they are considered as informal communication hence
there are some guidelines imposed by the courts which are entitled as Open Meeting Act
(Andreotta, et.al. 2019). The communication conducted will be concerned about public records.
The political parties should be aware of the methods which can be used for protecting their
original information shared on the platform of social media. The information shared on social
media has the access to social media organizations and they can be accessed by them so the
parties should also focus on the privacy of their communication (Lewis, Pond, Cameron, and
Lewis, 2019). Any government who use social media must aware that there is some part of
population who are still not able to use internet or do not have access to any social media due to
various reasons. There are chances where the information may hamper to those people who do
not have access to social media. There should be some alternative ways through which the
information can deliver to group of these people. The political parties are also instructed for not
using social media in excess it impact the people who are still using or have dependency on the
traditional methods to receive information (Nocetti, 2019). Sometimes the news or the
information spread over social media may create misunderstanding as well medium to social
riots because the information on social media does not have any explanation as well as there are
maximum chances in which a piece of fake news spread over the social media in election.

Social Effects
Today almost 4.388 billion people are using the internet which is increasing with the rate of
9.1% every year out of which approximately 3.484 people having their accounts on social media.
In January 2109 approximately 72% population of Australia was found as active user of social
media. The information or the news which are delivered through social media creates impact on
society directly because it is developed and designed in very effective manner. The most part of
the population is youth which can easily influence through the special effects. In Australia it is
observed that 95% internet users prefer Facebook and almost 12.5 hours they spend every week
(Vorberg, and Zeitler, 2019). Many political parties use this platform for the election and also get
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benefit. The platform of social media starts a revolution the methods to gather the information
and to deliver them. The messages create an emotional impact on the audience and they get
influenced by the information. In a study it was found that the political parties which are using
the social media accounts have 4.5 times more chances to win the election (Octarina, and
Djanggih, 2019). The social media become the fastest way of getting connected with anybody.
The political party who is using this platform will be easily able to influence the youth
population and in world the major population is youth. By considering the sentiments of people
the political parties design messages or information so that it triggers the population and on the
basis of which the reaction over the messages leads to the results (Florendo, and Estelami, 2019).
In many countries like Australia, India, United States of America, Canada, Brazil, France, the
United Kingdom, etc. are affected by the use of social media platforms. Many political parties in
these countries used social media change the complete scenario of the election results
(Boulianne, 2019).

Implication of Technology
From last decades technology has very effective impact on election around the globe. In many
countries, all the national level elections are involved with the digital equipment in which
biometric voter registration or identification, transmission of electronic results are included. With
the help of technology in election the counting process of the election is now getting faster and
provides effective results (Lee, and Xenos, 2019). However through the manual procedures the
transparency in the election process can be maintained easily but through technology there is
some complexity may arise. The data of election contains sensitive information and it cannot be
disclosed before the implementation there was chance when these data get leaked but technology
supports the election data by providing security applications (Dorpenyo, 2019). The data now
cannot be accessed without permission from authorities. In election there was a time when the
voters have to wait by standing in lines due to which the rate of the election was also least. Now
the scenario is totally changed the voting machines are introduced it hardly took less than a
minute any voter to give vote. Hence now the trend to wait in line is not ended as well as the
privacy of the vote can be maintained. There are some cases that were due to the failure of
machines due to technical issues arise to conduct elections (Dholakia, 2019).
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Conclusion
The report is completely based upon the implementation of social media in the election. It
concludes about the effect of social media in the election system in which the ethical and legal
issues are included. Every change introduces advantages and disadvantages from different
aspects. Legal and ethical issues are the dominant factor for the election as it is one of the most
sensitive systems or practices performed in human society. In legal terms the social media is
platform that cannot be used for formal communication but for the public favor the use of social
media is very effective, the information shared over social media can create violence or social
disturbance which gives rise to ethical issues. The report is included with the social effects which
define the impact of social media on society and its effect on the political parties during the
election. In many countries the use of social media introduced as a game-changer for political
parties who used this platform for influencing public. With the help of this report, the implication
of technology in the election is also explained.
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References
Allcott, H., Gentzkow, M. and Yu, C., 2019. Trends in the diffusion of misinformation on social
media. Research & Politics, 6(2), p.2053168019848554.

Andreotta, M., Nugroho, R., Hurlstone, M.J., Boschetti, F., Farrell, S., Walker, I. and Paris, C.,
2019. Analyzing social media data: A mixed-methods framework combining computational and
qualitative text analysis. Behavior research methods, pp.1-16.

Bilal, M., Gani, A., Marjani, M. and Malik, N., 2019, February. Predicting Elections: Social
Media Data and Techniques. In 2019 International Conference on Engineering and Emerging
Technologies (ICEET), pp. 1-6.

Boulianne, S., 2019. Revolution in the making? Social media effects across the
globe. Information, communication & society, 22(1), pp.39-54.

Dholakia, U., 2019. All’s Not Well on the Marketing Frontlines: Understanding the Challenges
of Adverse Technology–Consumer Interactions☆. Marketing in a Digital World (Review of
Marketing Research, 16, pp.121-140.

Dorpenyo, I.K., 2019. Risky Election, Vulnerable Technology: Localizing Biometric Use in
Elections for the Sake of Justice. Technical Communication Quarterly, pp.1-15.

Florendo, J. and Estelami, H., 2019. The role of cognitive style, gullibility, and demographics on
the use of social media for financial decision making. Journal of Financial Services Marketing,
pp.1-10.

Kousser, T., 2019. Tweet style: campaigning, governing, and social media in
Australia. Australian Journal of Political Science, 54(2), pp.183-201.

Lee, S. and Xenos, M., 2019. Social distraction? Social media use and political knowledge in
two US Presidential elections. Computers in Human Behavior, 90, pp.18-25.

Lewis, J., Pond, P., Cameron, R. and Lewis, B., 2019. Social cohesion, Twitter and far-right
politics in Australia: Diversity in the democratic mediasphere. European Journal of Cultural
Studies, p.1367549419833035.

Nocetti, J., 2019. The perfect weapon: war, sabotage, and fear in the cyber age; LikeWar: the
weaponization of social media, pp. 480-482.
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Octarina, N.F. and Djanggih, H., 2019. Legal Implication of Black Campaigns on The Social
Media in The General Election Process. Jurnal Dinamika Hukum, 19(1), pp.271-282.

Vorberg, L. and Zeitler, A., 2019. ‘This is (not) Entertainment!’: media constructions of political
scandal discourses in the 2016 US presidential election. Media, Culture & Society, 41(4),
pp.417-432.