1.4.1 Brief overview

unfiltered tweets or Facebook posts has put several politicians into hot water or humiliating situations. For example, Anthony Weiner, who lost his seat in Congress after exchanging sexually explicit messages and photos with women on his Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Social media plays an increasingly important role in the way campaigns communicate with voters. The 2016 presidential elections saw a widespread use of social media platforms by Republican candidate, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton. Multiple social platforms have taken center stage throughout the campaign season, reaching out to people of all ages. All presidential candidates have used social media in a different way. They have used Facebook Live to broadcast rallies, created Snapchat filters, shared behind-the-scenes videos and support from other politicians and celebrities, held Q&As, and increased campaign money through social media. By using online advertising, social media and Twitter, candidates had sent their campaign messages to the voters at a much lower cost to the campaign.

On Facebook, Clinton had linked most of her posts to official campaign communications and where to vote, but on the other hand Trump chose to link to different news media in his posts. On Twitter, Trump stands out for retweeting ordinary people more often than Clinton or Sanders. In terms of videos, Trump also used these to his advantage and posted videos in about one-inten of his social media posts. Clinton only used video in about a quarter of her posts 26 . Donald Trump turned his well-known chant “lock her up” into a trending hashtag and Hillary Clinton and her supporters fired back by declaring #ImWithHer.

Within their Facebook posts, the candidates included external links, 30% of Clinton’s posts on Facebook included links, as did 32% of Sanders’ posts and 30% of Trump’s posts, Clinton’s and Sanders’ s Facebook feeds most often linked to their own official campaign websites, social media account, links to campaign events, videos and donation pages. Links to news media outlets were considerably less common for these two Democratic candidates. On the other hand, Trump’s Facebook posts were more frequently pointed readers to news media, 78% of his posts with links directed followers to articles from large national or international media organizations such as Fox News and the Daily Mail. Trump’s unique engagement with the public on Twitter stands apart not just from the other 2016 candidates but also from past presidential campaigns.

As per the research, in January 2016, 44% of the U.S. indicated that they had heard about the 2016 presidential election from social media in the past week, outperforming all local and national print newspapers. In fact, as of July, 24% report they have turned to Donald Trump's or Hillary Clinton's social media posts for news and election information more than those who turn to any of the candidates' websites or emails combined (15%) 27 .

26 Source: https://www.authoritylabs.com/election-2016-the-role-social-media-played-in-the-elections/ 27 Source: https://www.journalism.org/2016/07/18/candidates-differ-in-their-use-of-social-media-to-connect-with-the-public/