Framing Political Messaging on Social Media
Barack Obama, the first social-media president, used an innovative approach to mobilize the young voters in the 2008 election using the media and specifically the digital platforms. Once elected, “[Obama] routinely [spoke] to the people on popular social channels like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram” (Renfree, 2016, Campaign communications). This marked a shift in how politicians engage with their target audience, allowing them to craft messaging directly surrounding “nationally trending topics” (Renfree, 2016, Campaign communications). The 2020 election has become a battle ground over the rhetoric in the media, with candidates framing issues to benefit their platforms and discrediting sources that go against their narrative. Presidential candidates utilize social media to frame political messaging to their advantage by identifying the capabilities of a given medium to reach targeted audiences.
Social media has provided American voters with – at the least the appearance of – direct access to the President of the United States for the past decade. Both Obama and Trump maintained a heavy social media presence in office and their accounts mirror the voice of both leaders (Davis, 2015). Obama favored pushing issues and topics that were part of his political agenda, often times verging on a “dry and professional” social media presence (Davis, 2015). Obama’s tweets were known as a “fact series, several 140-character bursts of facts and figures” (Davis, 2015) and were researched and published by his team of aides (Davis, 2015). In contrast, Trump operates his own social media accounts, with only one other person granted access (Draper, 2018). Additionally, there are other notable presidential candidates who utilize social media adeptly, such as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders (Renfree, 2016, Campaign communications).
Understanding how presidential candidates utilize social media to frame political messaging is best viewed through social action theory. Social action theory views society as a series of nodes that communicate meaning largely based on the relation between nodes (Khan, et al., 2019, 634). Fundamental to the concept of social action theory is the intrinsic desire of people to control how they are viewed by others (Khan, et al., 2019, pp. 634). This desire directly ties to how communications are framed when shared on platforms.
Technology, such as social media, is an expansion of social actions (Lindlof, 2009, pp. 3), but does not define it. Rather, it is another channel that social actions can be communicated and understood. Viewing social media through the lens of social action theory, social media is a formalized structure of nodes (Khan, et al., 2019, pp. 635) that allows people to communicate, but also provides measurable network gains through features such as likes, comments, tags, and mentions (Khan, et al., 2019, pp. 635). This social action creates a positive feedback loop in which the message creates more engagement (Khan, et al., 2019, pp. 635). This engagement is critical to modern political campaigns.
Social media eliminates communication challenges related to “geographic and demographic boundaries of communication” (Ingrams, 2017, pp. 2). Trump’s Twitter account is a prime example of this; essentially any person may choose to follow and consume communications crafted directly by the President of the United States. This access allows politicians to use social actions such as social media communications with people over time, consequently building trust and influence (Ingrams, 2017, pp. 3). Studies show that sustained “exposure to a particular media outlet or media type may over time increase trust in it” (Hopmann, et al., 2015, pp. 779) and this continued exposure “is positively correlated with trust in the media” (Hopmann, et al., 2015, pp. 779). This implies that a person who was neutral to Trump’s messaging but follows him on social media may shift to a favorable alignment with Trump’s views over time as sustained exposure on the platform establishes trust. There are many motivations as to why a person with neutral views may consume content from a candidate on social media, some of which are: “information, entertainment, relaxation, social utility, and vote guidance” (Ponder, et al., 2015, pp. 285).
Political messaging is essentially marketed across a candidate’s social media platforms by establishing the candidate’s reputation (or online presence) and the platform the message is posted on. A candidate’s social media presence impacts “the voter’s perception of the candidate’s credibility” (Madsen, et al., 2018, pp. 1), which is “integral to the success of engagement (Madsen, et al., 2018, pp. 1). This engagement is specifically calculated to reach targeted demographics at the moments that they wish to consume political messaging. “Big data allows for highly specified models of each individual voter, which allows for targeted political adverts that address specific political issues in a way that is tailored to the individual in question” (Madsen, et al., 2018, pp. 2). These social actions are intended to create the positive feedback loop, by which like-minded groups are drawn to (Ingrams, 2017, pp. 4), engage with, and share the communication created by the politician. This expands the reach of the politician’s social media communications base for future social actions.
These targeted campaigns reach voters on their preferred social media platforms. Candidates understand where their base is and use these platforms mobilize their base. Bernie Sanders uses Reddit to “draw huge crowds for rallies, recruit individuals to phone-bank for the candidate and register voters” (Renfree, 2016, How did Bernie Sanders) and Trump focused on engaging his base on Facebook for the 2016 election to influence voter turnout (Draper, 2018). Motivations for users engaging on various social media platforms varies, with studies showing factors such as convenience, sense of belonging to a group, and affinity ranking highly (Ponder, et al., 2015, pp. 285).
Social media provides politicians with a platform that they can leverage for measurable and direct communications framed for their specific political agendas. Politicians create a sense of community on social media by creating content relevant to the way voters think, understand, and interact (Andersson, et al., 2014, pp. 118). They maintain this community by continuously providing “new information to increase the odds of effective in-the-moment communication, and therefore successful collective action” (Shteynberg, et al., 2016, pp. 666). This creates not only a channel for social actions, but also an audience of voters that actively processing, supporting, and engaging with the communications, which then draws in a larger audience (Khan, et al., 2019, pp. 635).
A consequence of this direct exposure on social media is that voters are responsible for a high-level of media literacy, requiring them to not only understand the angle of framed messaging but also verifying news stories and sources. While the dissemination of legitimately false news stories is not new, the quantity of actual fake news is. “Between January 2014 and January 2016, there was a 1100% increase in the number of traceable online fabricated news stories, from approximately 500 to over 6,000 stories per month” (Amazeen, et al., 2019, pp. 415). This demonstrates that the problem of fake news stories infiltrating news cycles is a real problem. Fake news stories maliciously spread confusion and disinformation among voters, impacting election results and voter turnout. However, the burden of identifying fake news ultimately rests on the voter. Studies show “that possessing working knowledge of how the news media operate aids in the identification of fabricated news headlines and in mitigating the effects of native advertising, including liking, sharing, and misunderstanding suspect content” (Amazeen, et al., 2019, pp. 416).
An example of the challenge for voters to discern real news from fake news from political candidates was provided in April 2020 by Trump when he claimed the New York Times and their recent reporting was fake news. In response to a New York Times article documenting the Trump administration’s timeline to the coronavirus pandemic, Trump declared the reporting and the newspaper to be “fake news” (Sullivan, 2020). Sullivan states in her Washington Post article that a “sizable segment of the nation has been willing to believe the president who tells them to believe only him” (2020) and that Trump “hopes is that Americans — voters — will believe him when he says the news is fake” (2020). The implication of this is that Trump expects voters to believe his word (or reputation) against credible and documented evidence (Sullivan, 2020). This puts voters in a position where either a major news publication that has won 130 Pulitzer Prizes and has been running since 1851 (New York Times, n.d.) is fake news or the President of the United States is generating fake news.
In 2008 Obama solidified the importance of social media in a presidential campaign strategy. Since then, the proficiency of presidential candidates to employ social media has been reflected in voter turnout and election results. The framing of political messaging on social media is best explained through social action theory, which dictates that people assign and receive meaning from various communication methods (Lindlof, 2009, pp. 3), or social actions. Social media platforms are constructed to support these social actions by rewarding engagement with further social reach, broadening the audience of social actions. Political candidates utilize these features with crafted messaging to promote their political agendas, campaigns targeting specific voters, and providing content that appeals to specific demographics creating a sense of shared community. This emphasis on social media to frame political messaging has revealed challenges for voters in regards to media literacy. However, social media has become a vital communication channel to deliver framed political messaging directly to key voters and, ultimately, voters must understand their responsibility to analyze the media they engage with and consume.
References
Amazeen, M.A., and Bucy, E.P. 2019. “Conferring resistance to digital disinformation: The inoculating influence of procedural news knowledge.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 63(3):415–32.
Andersson, E., and Olson, M. 2014. “Political participation as public pedagogy–the educational situation in young people’s political conversations in social media.” Journal of Social Science Education 13(4):115–26.
Davis, J.H. 2015. “A digital team is helping Obama find his voice online.” The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/09/us/politics/a-digital-team-is-helping-obama-find-his-voice-online.html?_r=1
Draper, R. 2018. “The man behind the president’s tweets.” The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/16/magazine/dan-scavino-the-secretary-of-offense.html
Hopmann, D.N., Shehata, A., and Strömbäck, J. 2015. “Contagious media effects: How media use and exposure to game-framed news influence media trust.” Mass Communication & Society 18(6):776.
Ingrams, A. 2017. “Connective action and the echo chamber of ideology: Testing a model of social media use and attitudes toward the role of government.” Journal of Information Technology & Politics 14(1):1–15.
Lindlof, T.R. 2009. “Social action media studies.” Encyclopedia of Communication Theory. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, Inc. 888-90.
Khan, G., Mohaisen, M., and Trier, M. 2019. “The network ROI: Concept, metrics, and measurement of social media returns (a Facebook experiment).” Internet Research 30(2):631–52.
Madsen, J.K., and Pilditch, T.D. 2018. “A method for evaluating cognitively informed micro-targeted campaign strategies: An agent-based model proof of principle.” PloS One 13(4): e0193909.
New York Times. n.d. “Awards and Recognition.” The New York Times Company. Retrieved from https://www.nytco.com/company/prizes-awards/
Ponder, J. D., and Haridakis, P. 2015. “Selectively social politics: The differing roles of media use on political discussion.” Mass Communication & Society 18(3):281.
Renfree, M. 2016. “Campaign communications: A look at Obama’s social media success.” PRNEWS. Retrieved from https://www.prnewsonline.com/obama-social-media
Renfree, M. 2016. “How did Bernie Sanders get so good at social media?” PRNEWS. Retrieved from https://www.prnewsonline.com/bernie-social-media
Shteynberg, G., Bramlett, J.M., Fles, E.H., and Cameron, J. 2016. “The broadcast of shared attention and its impact on political persuasion.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 111(5):665–73.
Sullivan, M. 2020. “What it really means when Trump calls a story ‘fake news.’” Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/what-it-really-means-when-trump-calls-a-story-fake-news/2020/04/13/56fbe2c0-7d8c-11ea-9040-68981f488eed_story.html