Social Media Communication

1 Why Study Social Media?

LEARNING GOALS

This chapter will help you understand:

• What is the power of social media?
• Are social media the culprit of causing social distrust?
• Why do we need to study social media?
• How are traditional and digital media technology adopted differently?

KEY CONCEPTS

The “Us vs. Them” mentality

Echo chamber

Digitization

Silo effect

Information cocoon

Digitalization

THEORY HIGHLIGHT

Construal Level Theory

Overview

Even though Joe Biden won the United States presidency in 2020, Democrats in the House of Representatives suffered serious defeats in the election, falling far short of expectations and setting off infighting amongst themselves. Immediately after Election Day, some Democratic House members pointed fingers at colleagues for losing seats in the House of Representatives. One of their key concerns was lack of appreciation of the importance of social media strategies in political campaigns. No one argued about whether to incorporate social media into campaign strategies or not. Rather, they debated the consequences of failing to let social media play an important role in the political activities.

The Power of Social Media

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that it was inadequate for her Democratic colleague, Conor Lamb, to spend merely $2,000 on Facebook the week before the election, although he did manage to win in Pennsylvania (Herndon, 2020). “If you’re not spending $200,000 on Facebook with fund-raising, persuasion, volunteer ...