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Politics and Social Media

Social media has come a long way since it first began. Its original intention was for people to be able to communicate with others through the internet. While that is still true today, there is more to that. People are finding platforms to follow and relate to and one of those is politics. Politicians have now found an easier way to communicate with people and not have to worry about how and who can get their message out to the people. All they have to do is create an account on a popular social media application and stay active with the followers. People still watch the news on television, but social media gives them an opportunity to voice their opinions and be more involved in live discussions directly with the politicians. A large downside of following politics on social media is that the users must also venture out and seek out posts that are not on their feed, in order to keep an open mind. Otherwise, they will just keep seeing the same posts over and over and not really allow for diverse opinions

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Social media changed the way politicians reach people, since there are no gatekeepers. 

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If anything, most people use the internet to broaden their media horizons. We found evidence that people actively look to confirm the information that they read online, in a multitude of ways. They mainly do this by using a search engine to find offline media and validate political information. In the process they often encounter opinions that differ from their own and as a result whether they stumbled across the content passively or use their own initiative to search for answers while double checking their “facts”, some changed their own opinion on certain issues.

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2018-02-21-social-media-and-internet-not-cause-political-polarisation

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Social Media offers and alternative way to get involved in politics. 

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Even though every American is entitled to exercise their First Amendment right, teachers refrain from posting their political views on social media in fear of students looking them up.