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The Battle for Public Opinion

Social Media has been shown to have immense power and influence over the general public. It has literally swayed elections all over the world, notably it was revealed that Russia used Facebook to influence the 2016 presidential election. 

https://www.npr.org/2019/04/24/716374421/fact-check-russian-interference-went-far-beyond-facebook-ads-kushner-described

The significant change in how public opinion is garnered is our digital world has changed everything about how politicians and corporations communicate with the rest of society. The ability to remain at least somewhat anonymous in the public sphere has also shifted the battle for public opinion -- notable people can now use proxies and ghost accounts to contribute to a public debate on their behalf. The nature of how social media works allows for increased use of propaganda and heavily filtered information to be touted and spread as the truth when frequently it could not be further from that.

Social media has fundamentally changed how we interact with one another, and interact with society as a whole. Anyone can pick up their phone, or open a computer and contribute to a public debate that they, more times than not, has no background or capacity that qualifies them to contribute to.

I also find it really interesting how if we look back on the digital native vs. digital immigrant conversation -- all digital natives have been having their public opinion shaped literally since they were able to utilize media. BBC has a really interesting (and short) video essay on this concept that I would urge everyone to check out. 

https://youtu.be/kVAztNx0rHQ?feature=shared

In my opinion, ethical considerations have largely been thrown out the window when it comes to the race to shape public opinion. National multimedia conglomerates have been shamelessly shaping and "spinning" facts to be viewed in their favor for decades and the ethics around it have seemed to get looser and looser right along with the rise of social media.

The best thing we can do is be aware that there is very little unfiltered information available now and try and do our best to understand who is shaping this battle for public opinion and what their motives are. 


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