Political advertising is a type of marketing that allows candidates to directly communicate their message to the public and sway the overall opinion of themselves. Candidates can reach audiences who might not otherwise be paying attention to the election and create name recognition, highlight crucial issues, and bring awareness to their opponents’ flaws by airing advertising in various forms of media. Social media is an incredibly successful, although occasionally borderline unethical, tool for political advertising campaigns due to booth its immense popularity and loose misinformation regulation. In many cases, examined more closely in this post, it drastically outweighs the efficiency of traditional advertising.
Barack Obama was one of the first presidential contenders to embrace social media advertising in his campaign in 2008. Candidates spent a total of $22.25 million on online political advertisements in 2008. Online political advertising has surged since then, with candidates spending $1.4 billion on it in 2016, and the sum is continuously rising since then. Following the 2016 presidential election, the general public realized how effective and game-changing political advertising on social media might be.
As the newest communications form to enter the scene, social media has several distinct characteristics that set it apart from previous media. There is no practical limit to the number of social media platforms, just as there is no limit to the number of newspapers or cable television stations. In practice, though, a few large platforms—Facebook, and its subsidiaries WhatsApp and Instagram, Google and its subsidiary YouTube, and Twitter—dominate the scene (Nott, 2020). Another feature they share with newspapers and cable television stations is that they are not obligated to air every political advertisement they receive.
Social media platforms, contrary to a widespread opinion, are not bound by the First Amendment. They are private businesses with the freedom to determine their own content restrictions, and unlike broadcast stations, they are not obligated to grant advertising slots to all applicants. Social media platforms, on the other hand, are not regarded as publishers in the same way that newspapers and television stations are. They’re considered internet service providers, and they’re not accountable for anything other people put on them, thanks to Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. They can’t be sued if they allow fraudulent content on their website or conduct false political advertisements.
The possibly most important distinction between social media platforms and previous mediums is that they allow for a practice known as microtargeting. Microtargeting is achieved by separating a wide audience into small, demographically different groups and then approaching these groups to account for their demographic differences. This tactic has grown especially contentious in recent years when it comes to targeted political commercials. Each of the big platforms has its own set of rules for what kinds of political ads it will run and how much targeting it will allow. Some social media networks, such as Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest, have avoided the problem entirely by excluding political marketing—though it’s worth noting that political advertisements were never a big part of any of these platforms (“Why Has Social Media Affected Political Campaigns?”, 2022). Facebook and Google have traditionally been the dominant players in this field.
In conclusion, social media platforms’ lenient legislation in relation to misinformation and propaganda presents campaign management with a wide range of opportunities. Although ethically questionable, these opportunities are undoubtedly a product of the evolving times that are likely to continue to hold a central stage in the political campaigns of the future. Furthermore, the role of social media platforms and other innovative communication channels is likely to continue to increase as the key to affecting the informational infrastructure of future voters.
References
Nott, L. (2020). Americanbar.org. Web.
Why Has Social Media Affected Political Campaigns?. (2022). Web.