Social Media: Could one say today's media landscape is both a mess and a triumph?
Social Media has lent us some new things in politics. While titanic twitter storms, "apocalyptic" Facebook upheavals and cable media typhoons follow extreme proclamations and violent abuses of power, concurrently movements with the ability to fight institutionalized oppression, share content and therefore democratize thought flow occur. This happens in an ever-growing nebulous of ideas turned into words, videos and pictures, attached to the central nexus of the media platform which publishes and/or airs content, online and offline. But the online aspect has become a bigger deal.
Everything has become political because everyone can get involved in politics since posting is free (sort of).
In America, this kind of expression capability is taken for granted, but in countries like Egypt, social media was a center stage player in the Arab Spring uprisings, with people being able to connect Networks formed online to organize the public and activists, according to The Pew Research Center.
The punishment of protest is dicey in dictatorships, but for a society like America, social media is a different kind of tool of necessity since we can share relatively free debate instantly.
In the U.S. it has reached an interesting fork in what constitutes the idea of a celebrity, and how politics and popular culture merge within an ever-present participating public.
Social media globally has impacted celebrity and political norms with its prolific outreach of data transmission, transfiguring how politicians brand their political product and how celebrities promote themselves.
Politicians have reinvented political branding by replicating pop star outreach. In turn, celebrities comment on the political discussion to the public, therefore becoming untraditional politicians since they pressure politicians via movements.
Also, notoriety can be gained more easily, and therefore the public, stars, and politicians blend popular culture and politics together trough thought osmosis.
One example is the March for our Lives concert.
Basically, it appears to be strong man/strong woman politics.
This is not bad since grassroots campaigns are included in popular politics.
The #MeToo movement on Twitter is a form of movement awareness that is positive. #MeToo was started as a social media campaign by activist Tarana Burke in 2006. It went viral in 2017 when Alyssa Milano spoke out for Rose McGowan's allegations against Harvey Weinstein, which got him caught for sexual harassment, according to InStyle. Since then the movement has exploded and has rightfully cast down abusers, in every kind of workplace.
It is a major influence on current viral protest movements which manifest physically. Although there are numerous viral phenomena, with tons of exclamatory content expanding consistently.
It is a fact, whatever is viral (including traditional media, like OJ's Bronco getaway on the air) will be sensationalized. The more outreach, the more sensational.
And it's not just the press since everyday sensationalism is happening in the streets. Doesn't it occur when two people share the fact with each other and become incensed one way or the other due to their beliefs? Is sensationalism the new norm, or was it around since antiquity? Still, today it has an exponentially bigger impact. This calls for a little more calmly objective view of the content presented, no matter where you are.
This construct of social media lends itself to public figures that anchor the public interest. Celebrities have and are taking a more prominent role in politics, while politicians have and are stepping into the realm of celebrity, like JFK and Marylin Monroe painted as media darlings or Barrack Obama becoming a celebrity in his presidency, and now he's forayed into the realm of the political idol with a blockbuster role. The memory of more legislatively liberal days that saw tons of progression socially (which I believe is here to stay).
David Axelrod a former Obama Era Advisor is now a political commentator for CNN and has a show, The Axe Files. I wonder which job he likes better. Joe Biden is like this too, recalls a kind of fame branding (liberally) that a Republican is famous for.
Consider this, in the social media web, every node (a live person, not a bot) is a world within it'self, and in turn, interacts with other nodes. Nodes can work within localities and outside of localities, and interactions are enough (allowing Twitter storms to be engineered). #Trollfarm.
The flip side of the coin is social media can expose crimes and wrongdoing of any kind like the extent of police brutality, via cell phone video. On top of this, a politician or celebrity can grab a hold of it and make it into a movement.
To pile another level, just the association with a famous person and the right type of outcry can start a rumor mill. Stormy Daniels case in point.
A question to ask is why is there more attention directed at that conversation than the aftermath of the Standing Rock protests? 56 bills have been passed in 30 states to restrict protest in reaction to it, and yet that atrocity is not being covered in the mainstream, according to the Nation.
Social Media has been capitalized upon (sometimes selectively), by compiling aggregate data (like in your news feed) and branding (what you post for others to see). It goes from the meme you sent your friend, to how Trump bashed Oprah for just interviewing his base.
To boot, conversations are quickly picked up, lost and replaced unless that story has a validity to it. But even then that doesn't mean the issue gets resolved.
Of course, most people are not out to gain fame, but to stay networked (friends and family included) and to be socially relevant. Still, everyone is sharing ideas.
Heres a map of ideas. It's data on social media and the 2016 election from Harvard's Berkman Klein center.
Conservative media is more contained within its own thought world than the left. The center-left is the center, the anchor of the media landscape because of media outlets. The more left, the less important. Meanwhile, the Far Right, The Fringe Alt gig, is what drove the GOP. Moderate conservative politics was a whisper in a shouting storm.
So social media has become the king of right and left, and the current interconnected media landscape that percolates on social media from TV, movies, books, thoughts, words, and opinions, fiction and non-fiction, is the celebrity politician's God.
What the above map also tells you is that fewer people talked more intensely on the right in key electoral states, since if one can remember, Hillary won the popular vote. And not everyone voted. Surprise!
To add about Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton, they have achieved a sort of celebrity status as wielders of the staff to fight the Balrog. But why would they attend Trump's wedding in 2005, coincidentally before social media blasted off?
Discreet relationships between everyone in power appears to be veiled by public dispute whether genuine or not.
In any event, Politics and celebrities have taken from social media a new twist from a relatively ancient concept. Information disbursement. Not since the first printing press have we seen an uptick in what can be published for the public viewing eye to see. The social media landscape is the public printing press and the public its printers.
This tangible democratization in information has been used effectively by those who want to gain notoriety and use it for their means, (as evinced by the map above).
Donald Trump is not the first Twitter president, or first celebrity to become a president. Even the first American Presidents were a sort of celebrity, branded to the American people with the promise of the American Dream.
What led to them was Thomas Paine's Common Sense, something akin to a printing press blog post that sparked anger in the Colonies cascading into revolution. The social media sensationalism of today is the same sensationalism of the past. The difference is we have the better tech which is connected globally.
Reagan should then stick out like a sore thumb. He was an actor, and used tactics in branding from acting, to portray the image of the kindly grandfather (who inspired the Iran-Contra scandal) to bring back the "good old days," of America.
The propaganda of white right-wing politics produced the inception of MTV, Tom Cruise in Risky Business, inspired the greed in the stock market and the movie Greed which commented on it.
Reaganomics created the eighties hair metal bands and original pop glam while reinforcing Hollywood and political norms of whitewashing, gender authority disparity and racial inequality, Americana, reminiscent of Birth of a Nation. White privilege advertised as the American dream.
But Reagen also reinvented a Presidents image crafting, due to just being a famous actor. If one celebrity can be President then another can because that sets a precedent that it is ok.
Donald Trump is an intense manifestation of this above institutionalization which is making a comeback.
The liberal left revolts against the GOP as it irks in revulsion, to the current GOP branding tactics, taking a right-wing stance, while being appropriated from the current Hollywood and liberal social media. Ronald Reagen smiles from his grave.
Gwenda Blair, the author of The Trumps and Donald Trump: The Candidate, said: “He’s a salesman and a salesman’s No1 technique is to keep the attention on him and frame what the conversation is and control what is being discussed. Twitter is perfect: it allows him to get out ahead of the news agenda. Although Twitter wasn’t around in the 70s, that performance MO was already in place... [Twitter] it’s like his magic wand. Why would they want to take it away? He’s used it to undermine the media, detach facts from the truth, makes himself the arbiter of what’s important and cement that politics-of-grievance bond," according to The Guardian. Bang.
This sort of sales technique can be used by anyone nor can anyone escape it. It is being used by you whether you want to or not, either you selling yourself, or someone collecting and selling your data thereby selling you.
On the flip side, anyone can become famous in a way that's novel because of the democratization of content creation and disbursement.
Buyer beware, it's a double-edged sword.
News, facts and content perceived as credible modify our perception of the topic or person. Charlie Sheen is known for being scandalous because of what we know he did, not just because he did those actions. You need either source facts or hearsay to affect reputation publicly. Since social media posts (public statements) constitute an action and are incorporated into the reputation of the perceived. This applies to everyone.
Branding by reputation, grandstand politics, forms this relationship between celebrities and politics, and the public, which appears naturally split by partisan lines (publicly).
On top of internet stars with their success on social media platforms, there is a more diverse and just more anchorage for the public interest.
Celebrities and media who are credible enough by reputation can enter politics and/ or start movements and/ or inject growth hormones into them by speaking out.
Charles Barkley recently had an interview with Axelrod, and said, "I've never been more angry and disgusted at this situation than I am now. This turmoil every single day -- the tweeting, the hiring, and firing."
While Miley Cyrus had posted this photo on Twitter and Tumblr, the celebrity in the middle of a protesting crowd which came together to pass gun legislation restrictions broadcasted to over 40 million Twitter followers alone.
Leonardo Dicaprio shares his passions of environmentalism and activism. Trump posts devolving nonsense. Nicki Minaj is playing her latest mixes and the New York Times recently posted this.
Rosanne said this. (which is actually clouding the point of what she is representing).
Although everything can't be mentioned here, the question is would we have the same type of dimorphic and expansive media landscape with celebrities and politics taking center stage, blurring the borders between them?
Yes, probably, and it seems it would have inevitably happened with the creation of social media platforms.