Over the last year, the presidential election of 2012 has been gradually building up from extensive political campaigning and international hot-button issues. Now, with early votes already submitted and the official November date looming, the election is a reality. 

The rise of social media in recent years has created new forums for people to receive and to react to news in ways that are unique to any other election when technology was less accessible and pervasive. The areas for spotlight and debate have grown tremendously, and its prevalence is almost addictive for many citizens.

“A key theme to newer media, such as YouTube or comment pages on websites, is that it gives a voice to people whose opinions were originally limited in their reach,” said David Tewksbury, associate professor in political science and head of the department of communication. “Now, it is uniform for those voices to flow more with the information than to just receive it.”

This interest in the political process can move beyond crowds gathering in television lounges to watch important events for the election. Twitter — which reported 10.3 million tweets about the first presidential debate — and other websites, have the ability to spread across other mediums to reach a larger audience. Many of the largest media companies have adapted to fit new consumer demands.

Despite these advances, Tewksbury said the innovations of social media can be attributed to past media environments. 

“In older systems, there were fewer networks within mediums and they were similar in centralized content,” he said. “But as networks grew, there was a strong market incentive for outlets to break their audiences down into smaller chunks.”

The spread of media content may be responsible for the polarization of political opinion, which can account for the wide spectrum of discourse among Americans. 

From the many sources of information, users seek out which outlet fits their political interests and views. 

According to Tewksbury, the primary media source that people refer to is also the one they most likely agree with and as a result will solidify their political perspectives.

This can be seen in social media as well from the diverse political opinions among users. Its accessibility makes these perspectives readily available. However, this wide variety of content might turn users away from a centralized focus to lean more left or right.

“It’s hard to get a sense of what’s right or wrong without (the content) feeling tainted or suggested in a particular way,” said Tim Brown, freshman in DGS. “You can gain lots of information online, but they are generally opinions that give enough reason to remain skeptical.”

As news is circulated from a digital format, it is possible for the information to be filtered to avoid confusing opinion for fact. 

“You can go online and see something a friend posted, like a debate on a quote from Romney or Obama, and the quote’s different than when you heard it,” says Ben Chansky, freshman in Engineering. “It’s hard to know what to trust.”

However, Tewksbury is neutral on the issue of bias among the users of social media. 

“Primarily, I think it is important that people can become informed from the great bits of information that will pop up on their feed or wall of interest. If that makes them more aware of what’s going on in the world around them – great,” Tewksbury said.

Social media offers an opportunity for anyone to interact with the larger world. Despite the consequences of these innovations, the media stream is now much more fluid and bottom-up than ever before.

Adlai can be reached at [email protected].