The Importance of Local Bridges in the 2020 Election
Anyone, no matter their political views, who watched the first of the 2020 presidential debates last Tuesday can agree that it was a chaotic mess. Both candidates spent most of their time talking over the other candidate and spewing random nonsense. The absence of thoughtful, clear and informative speech in these debates is just another factor pointing to the growing importance of social media in the upcoming election. As the American public is not learning from the debates, they are turning to social media for news. While this seems great in theory, afterall people should be more educated than ever on the candidates because of the plethora of information at their fingertips, the ease of the internet actually stimulates a lot of issues. As journalist Steven Brill explains, “The great thing about the Internet is everyone can be a publisher. The really bad thing about the Internet is everyone can be a publisher” (NPR). The validity of information you see on platforms such as Instagram or Facebook depends solely on who you follow or what other users in your social network tell you to research. As everyone has a unique set of friends, each voter in this election will be informed by a different web of sources. The candidates are trying their best to manipulate this flow of information to be in their favor, even minutes after the debate ended their teams were ready to try to manipulate the network: Trump’s team tried to start a chain of news flow claiming Biden had an earpiece in during the debate and Biden’s team immediately produced a “Will you shut up man.” tshirt to poke fun at Trump. The accounts of Trump and Biden will certainly influence their followers, however it is your specific social network which will ultimately influence your vote.
In class we have spoken about the manner in which networks form, these formations are proving to be invaluable to our country’s political future. Strong Triadic Closure is the property in which if there are two strong ties between a node and two other nodes then there will be another tie, weak or strong, between those two nodes. More generally this property explains the idea that if you’re friends with two people they will probably be friends as well. This idea relates to social networking and the election because of the groups which this property as well as the general idea that friends of friends are friends creates. You are probably within a group of people who circulate the same ideas throughout the group. Thus your group has a strong influence on your opinion, however it may be the local bridge, or the node which links your group of friends to another group, that will have a larger influence on your opinion. This local bridge has the opportunity to present something new to you and therefore your group within the greater social network. In terms of the election and social media this local bridge may be someone you are vaguely familiar with but view their posts and absorb the information which they post, be it false or correct. In moments, such as the debate, where it is unclear what one is supposed to think or what information is actually being presented, it may be these local bridges which post the novel fact or quote to sway you to ultimately change or stick with your vote. Ultimately, it could be the social media posts of local bridges which will decide our president. Thinking about this logic should serve as incentive for anyone reading this blog who holds strong views about the upcoming election, probably most of us, to become active on social media and perhaps be the local bridge which changes a voting decision for one of their followers.
-https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/30/technology-202-chaotic-debate-makes-social-media-more-important-biden-trump/
-https://www.npr.org/2020/05/27/860369744/social-media-usage-is-at-an-all-time-high-that-could-mean-a-nightmare-for-democr