Orsolino, Erykah Gheil

BSN – Sec 95

Annotated Bibliography: Overall Impacts of Social Media in Politics

Safiullah, M., Pathak, P., Singh, S., & Anshul, A. (2017). Social media as an upcoming tool for

political marketing effectiveness. Asia Pacific Management Review, 22(1), 10–15.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apmrv.2016.10.007

The authors of the article examined whether or not social media could be used effectively as a
political marketing tool. The article thoroughly explores the implications of social media as a
new source of political influence. Furthermore, the article concluded that the effectiveness of
social media as a political tool had a statistically significant positive impact on the general
election. When it comes to political marketing in the age of technology, social media has
emerged as the primary tool for disseminating information. The article went on to explain that
political campaigning is no longer restricted to traditional methods as it was in the past, but has
instead established a strong presence on social media platforms, where candidates can freely use
it to their advantage and develop any form of digital media capable of influencing public opinion
in their desired path towards their goal. As social media has become mainstream, the following
media campaigns will be plastered on a daily basis, which is the primary goal of the candidates,
as they can actively monitor the public's opinions, views, and ideas through social media
platforms, allowing them to better understand their supporters. The main limitation of the article
is the study examines the effect of Indian social media buzz. Thus, the findings and conclusions
drawn from this research may not be generally applicable to other geographic regions or cultures.
With these considerations, reading the article is beneficial in understanding the impact of social
media in India during election time because it will help me understand just how powerful social
media is in changing the course of an election, as demonstrated by one example I have observed.

Bradshaw, S., & Howard, P. N. (2018, November 15). The Global Organization of Social Media

Disinformation Campaigns. Explore JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26508115?

seq=1

One of the primary goals of this article is to examine how governments and political parties use
social media to shape public attitudes and opinions, as well as public discourses, both
domestically and internationally. The article compares and contrasts the organizational capacity
and form of these participants, and it discusses the implications of these findings for the future of
power and democracy. Social media has emerged as a powerful tool for political engagement,
with politicians utilizing it to create content, direct attention, and manipulate public opinion,
among other things. Moreover, the “cyber troops” are state-sponsored groups tasked with
spreading misinformation online. Cyber-trooping is the deliberate dissemination of false,
misleading, fabricated, or manipulated content. Users of social media are subjected to deceptive
propaganda that distorts their perceptions and influence their opinions to political agendas. The
article also allows us to identify emerging trends and track their evolution as government entities
have used and abused social media to achieve political goals. The article's limitations are: the
first issue is a lack of data. It is difficult to get a complete picture of government online activities,
so data and cases will have a gaps but insights like these are critical for establishing a foundation
for understanding this phenomenon and for encouraging additional research into the subject
matter. Second, the data came from publicly accessible English-language sources. The authors
said they only consulted non-English speakers when we found errors. Finally, the article helps
readers understand what has been achieved globally in terms of using social media to spread
misinformation. Despite its limitations, the article is still useful in identifying the widespread
dissemination of false information around the world, and by doing so, individuals all over the
world can better understand how they manipulate and abuse social media platforms.

Zhuravskaya, E., Petrova, M., & Enikolopov, R. (2020). Political Effects of the Internet and

Social Media. Annual Review of Economics, 12(1), 415–438.

https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-081919-050239

The author discusses the impact of the internet and social media on the outcome of political
campaigns and elections. It is heavily based on the reliance on individual or user-generated
content when it comes to using social media as a way to disseminate information quickly as
opposed to traditional offline media. When it comes to the use of the internet and social media in
the context of political campaigning, this study focuses on the characteristics that enable
individuals to distinguish between traditional and modern political campaigning methods.
According to the findings of recent studies on the effects of internet and social media usage, the
author discusses how internet and social media usage has specific effects on voter participation,
street protests, attitudes toward government, polarization in politics, xenophobia, and other
aspects of political behavior. Additionally, the author presents findings on how governments
censor the internet and use social media for surveillance and propaganda, in addition to evidence
for social media's role in the dissemination of false news. Despite the fact that the author
primarily reviews empirical evidence from recent political economy literature, which serves as
the paper's primary focus, the authors does not go into detail about who is most impacted as a
result of his findings. It is timely and pertinent at the moment because elections are just around
the corner. Individuals should exercise caution and responsibility when accessing information
found on the internet. As everything you read on the internet is not guaranteed to be accurate. 
Pogorelskiy, K., & Shum, M. (2017). News Sharing and Voting on Social Networks: An

Experimental Study. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2972231

The authors of this study hope to raise awareness about the issue of whether or not news sharing
on social media has an impact on voting outcomes. For example, according to the authors, voters
are now receiving more political news from their friends on social media platforms than they
have in previous decades, as a result an increasing number of voters are turning to Twitter and
Facebook and other social media platforms to find a source of news and a forum for political
discussion. In particular, the author described that they discovered that misinformation shared on
social media has a greater influence on an individual's overall decisions than political
segregation, as demonstrated by laboratory research conducted in a context-neutral environment.
As it is based on two newly discovered characteristics of individuals' behaviors: To begin, they
frequently share news selectively, meaning they share only news that is favorable to their
candidates. Second, they disregard any additional information that may hinder or negatively
impact their preferred candidate. Finally, their findings stated that voters selectively share news
favorable to their party differ from those found in the confirmation bias and information
avoidance literatures because the subjects in the following experiment do not have the ability to
choose the type of news they receive, but rather have the ability to choose the type of news they
relay to others. The most significant limitation of the article is that all of the subsequent research
conducted in the article has been done only in the United States of America, and thus only
focuses on a limited number of individuals. Despite its limitations, it raises awareness about the
following points, which are critical for understanding how misinformation spread via social
media can have a significant impact on voter decisions. As a result, the article benefits voters by
educating them on the proper way to share information on social media and assisting them in
determining whether the news they saw on social media was credible, both of which are critical
for improving the quality of information shared on social media platforms. Social media usage
has increased significantly this year, particularly in light of the upcoming elections, which has
resulted in a flood of false information circulating on social media platforms. I have personally
observed some of my Facebook friends who continue to share articles or news that they believe
is true with their followers yet it is a fake news. I believe that the main problem with these issues
is that citizens continue to fail to act responsibly in terms of using social media.

Cruz, C. (2018). Social Networks and the Targeting of Vote Buying. Comparative Political

Studies, 52(3), 382–411. https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414018784062

Voters' social networks have been used to facilitate the transmission of political information in
countries such as the Philippines, as described by the author. In their main argument, the authors
state that these social networking sites provide politicians with the ability to exchange goods and
services in exchange for political support by connecting with their supporters through social
media. According to the findings of a survey conducted in the Philippines, individuals who have
a large number of social media friends and followers are more likely to be targeted for vote-
buying schemes. Several other important factors are discussed in the article, including reciprocity
between politicians and the general public, having close personal ties with politicians, and
personal social influence. The article's primary limitation is that it focuses exclusively on the
primary issue in the Philippines. In terms of understanding these issues, it is beneficial because it
can assist legislators in developing more effective voter education for the general public by
addressing the needs of groups that are disproportionately affected by these practices, which are
those who are in poverty. It can also aid in the improvement of voter education in terms of
accurate information access and dissemination; in order to mitigate the case of vote buying,
governments and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) should devote significant attention
and resources to combating vote-buying and vote-selling, as well as to other forms of electoral
fraud.