The Battle for Public Opinion

Over the years we have become witnesses to more and more information on the current events happening globally. Social media has become the new wave to fundraising for natural disasters, helping spread the word of civil rights movements, and even posting gathering information for people to protest and express the causes and beliefs they are fighting for. For example, there are orginizations that will post the option to donate through SNS so users may feel involved in that given area. One account I follow that has this feature currently on their Instagram page is The Marine Mammal Center and they are currently in need of funding for marine mammal rescue, rehabilitations, scientific research, education, and of course feeding the mammals they are currently taking care of. I use this as an example because being a ocean lover, I often find my voice is most passionate and useful in this area as I am more knowledgeable about it. On the conterary, some people may be more passionate about civil rights and that is equally as amazing!
Now while there can be a plethora of positive information and change, we are also aware that there is a large ammount of missinformation online too. We often hear the refrence of "fake news" on social media and other news outlets. We witnessed alot of this during the pandemic and its always safe to take information online with a grain of salt until you can confirm it with reliable resources. Without focusing on the negative, social media has become a powerful tool. For example when people were suffering from the recent hurricane, many people volunteered to help families by donating, posting for exposure, and reaching out to officials to get some help underway. Without doing this, there would be less exposure and thus less public knowledge of the distruction caused by the hurricane. Social media has become a powerful mobilization channel by connecting people who either share the same passion or anger of a topic they would like to see change in. We can see the formation of beach cleanups, protests, peaceful marches, or demonstrations. "Social media is distinctive in relation to mobilization, because of social networking features that allow people to learn about specific events, discuss the issues, expose people to invitations to participation, as well as identify members of one’s social network who are also interested in participation(Boulianne et. al, 2020). " Citatioins: Shelley Boulianne, Karolina Koc-Michalska & Bruce Bimber (2020) Mobilizing media: comparing TV and social media effects on protest mobilization, Information, Communication & Society, 23:5, 642-664, DOI: 10.1080/1369118X.2020.1713847

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