Political Communication

When looking into the political system, the researcher can look at different aspects individually. One such aspect is political communication. According to the American Political Science Association, political communication is,“the creation, shaping, dissemination, processing and effects of information within the political system—both domestic and international—whether by governments, other institutions, groups or individuals.” In the modern world, political communication is becoming more and more important. Prior to the internet, political officials and candidates had only a few avenues to be heard; radio, television, and print. The older forms of media had one limiting factor as well, they were limited by time. Radio and television programs only broadcast on certain schedules and print media may only come out weekly or monthly. Now with the internet and social media, political communication can now be instantaneous and at all hours of the day. In the information system there are three major players, candidates, politicians, and the public. Candidates and politicians have the most to gain through the proper utilization of political communication: they can relay their thoughts and ideas with a large amount of people. With the modernization of political communication, the public has the ability to learn more about the political system that they live in.

              In our current election season, many of the candidates have embraced social media as one of their primary platforms of political communication. For example, Hillary Clinton has been using Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to communicate with voters. Bernie Sanders has been utilizing Twitter to call out his political competitors. Trump has also utilized the same platforms as Clinton in order to reach voters. These social media platforms have the ability to reach a large amount of people. Twitter has 307 million monthly users and Facebook has 1.55 billion monthly users. With those numbers, it is very easy to see why politicians have begun to embrace social media.