‘Alternative media effective ahead of US polls’

SOCIAL media has proven effective over traditional media for presidential candidates ahead of the United States November polls, an expert has said.

Joanna Weiss, contributing editor of the Politico Magazine, on Wednesday told more than 200 journalists covering the United States elections under the Foreign Press Centre Virtual Reporting Tour that social media had changed the face of election campaigns in the US with aspirants actively using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and other social media platforms to catch the attention of voters.

“A lot of the ad production has been migrating onto these digital platforms,” Weiss said.

“Now in terms of the actual news media, social media has taken a huge chunk of people’s eyeballs and attention away from traditional media and traditional media is really struggling, it has been for a couple of decades now with how to do that,” she said.

Media in the US is largely expensive to advertise in as it is in the hands of private players.

The advent of the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic that limits huge gatherings, Weiss said, had also contributed to the popularity of social media.

“Across the board, COVID-19 has had a huge effect on the campaigning process. If anything, it probably creates an even bigger reliance then on online advertising. If President Donald Trump can’t go out and speak at a big rally that has been so effective for him, he has to instead get that message across on social media, which he has been continuing to do, quite effectively. Again, he has been on Twitter pretty nonstop. He put out a video from the hospital and a video when he returned to the White House from the hospital.”

Trump was recently hospitalised after testing positive for COVID-19, but is now back on the campaign trail where he will face Democrat candidate Joe Biden in the polls.

Weiss said former US President Barack Obama’s campaign did very well in 2008 because of Facebook, while Trump ran a successful campaign using Twitter where he is very active.

“You probably remember that in 2016, Donald Trump used Twitter in a different way and more effectively than any other candidate had before to bypass the media completely and get his message directly to the people. He, obviously, is still doing that when he is President, he tweets all day and all night, lots of all caps, lots of exclamation marks, even when he’s in the hospital,” said Weiss.

The campaigners, she said, have already taken to Instagram “largely to present positive views of their campaigns”.

Social media has also become the key tool in fundraising for the candidates who have racked in millions of dollars in the process.