The magazine of the North Carolina Center for Voter Education • Thursday February 23, 2012

The Facebook Revolution
How the rise of social media is changing politics and democracy in the U.S. and beyond

By Alexandra Mendoza
Published: Dec. 27, 2011

CHAPEL HILL - With key elections coming up in 2012 and political movements, such as Occupy Wall Street, developing not only in America but around the world, social media has become a vital outlet for many people -- especially young people -- seeking to engage in politics and democracy.

James Mwombela, a sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill majoring in economics, uses a wide array of social media outlets, including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Xbox Live to connect with friends, but also to engage in the political process.

“I use YouTube to watch clips of political nature,” Mwombela said. “I also follow some politicians on Twitter as well as some opinion-based political news accounts. I like to use social media to follow politics, because my tight schedule makes the ability to see the exact content that I wish to see on demand valuable.”

The importance of user-produced information has led more and more candidates to turn to social media. The Barack Obama campaign may have set the standard for successfully using social media in elections when in 2008 it utilized Facebook, Twitter, e-mail and text messaging to galvanize supporters and mobilize its network of volunteers in states such as North Carolina.

While using social media can allow candidates to bypass traditional outlets when connecting with the public, an effective social-media campaign can also boost a politician’s image among tech-savvy younger voters.

“Using social media to communicate with the people, including as much two-way communication as possible, demonstrates the candidate’s willingness to adjust to changes in society,” Mwombela said.

Social media has had a large impact not only on campaigns, but on social movements all around the world. Movements such as the Arab Spring ignited due in large part to the accessibility to information Facebook and Twitter provide, allowing users to spread their opinions to others quickly.

David Kirkpatrick, author of “The Facebook Effect,” spoke Apr. 7 of this year at UNC-Chapel Hill about the impact Facebook has on global issues. He said protests in Colombia in February of 2008 were organized quickly through the social media network after one user made a group expressing his dislike for the government.

“The single most defining characteristic of Facebook is that it’s a platform for the empowerment of its users,” Kirkpatrick said.

The revolution in Tunisia a year ago also had its roots in Facebook. Only 8 percent of Tunisians were using Facebook when the revolution began in December of 2010. Kirkpatrick said the majority of those users were unemployed college graduates.

“They may have been privately upset but didn’t realize it was something shared by so many others,” Kirkpatrick said.

Facebook has become a digital town square in which any person can express his or her thoughts with the world. It has evolved into a universal directory, which holds large amounts of information about its 750 million active users.

The rise of social media brings with it an energy that has proven to be perilous for some world leaders, such as former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak, who was deposed after social upheaval this year. But that same potency of social media can also be vital for politicians looking to build a network of support.

“Any smart politician is using Facebook,” Kirkpatrick said. “For the same reasons it brought down Mubarak, it can help an official get elected.”

The evolution of Facebook has changed the way news is structured, Kirkpatrick said. Facebook, through its unique news feed, allows individuals to relay information to their friends and receive information in return.

“Ordinary individuals, as part of that empowerment, are now the reporters, the editors, the broadcasters,” Kirkpatrick said.

Even as social media has driven protests in the Middle East, it has helped fuel the Occupy Wall Street movement in the U.S., spreading protests over wealth inequality to cities throughout the country.

“[Occupy Wall Street’s] goal has been to bring public attention, emphasis, and outrage to this injustice, and I believe that they have been moderately successful in accomplishing that,” Mwombela said.

The Occupy movement itself did not originate in social media but has slowly reached a point where social media is pertinent to its message. Videos of protestors suffering brutal attacks by police have surfaced and social media has kept these videos, and the message of the movement, alive.

“Social media has completely changed the way people in this generation communicate,” Allie Isaacson, a junior majoring in psychology at UNC-Chapel Hill, said. “Digital communication has replaced one-on-one communication. News is spread much faster.”

For candidates in 2012 and beyond, keeping pace with rapidly evolving social media will be key to their success. For citizens, the social media revolution holds the promise of engaging in democracy at a level perhaps never seen before.