#engament

What is politics?

What does politics mean by that? What is the first question on your mind when someone asks? Well, politics is defined as government policy, politicians, individuals and organizations who seek to reform how a country is governed.

What is political engagement?

Political behavior refers to people 's acts to share their views in politics. It is possible to hold elections, finance elections, give the candidate money, approach lawmakers or write a signing petition, marches, boycotts and alliances.

What happens when social media meets politics?

According to The Manifesto (2019), 80 per cent of any generation, including Generation Zers (aged 13-17), Millennials (aged 11-34 years), Generation Xers (aged 35-54 years) and baby boomers (aged 55 and older) use social media at least once a day, as social media is part of their daily lives.

Social media also played a major part in this evolution of the changing political landscape. Applicants on Facebook and Twitter and their certified groups actively express their views and opinions. Any party has its own pages on which it can propagate disinformation and call for donations and reports, the results of the survey and the rumours are shared without waiting for newspaper or television attention, as was the case in the pre-internet days. Vote polls are known to be an important part of the process. The Internet has raised the number of polls that we see every day. For example , Facebook polls are open to the public and the results of the polls are no longer only shared via social media sites. The findings of the polls have a tremendous impact, even though they are defective and are seen as a self-fulfilling prophecy. For eg, if voters were to believe that a low-voting candidate would be immoral to vote for them. The latest result of the vote would advise lawmakers to step their opponents forward as well. It also acts as a forum for civic interaction, as lawmakers can hold streams alive through an activity to connect directly with the candidates.

Urbain (2018) also looks at how social media can act as a campaign weapon to collect information from political enemies. The data collection programme Cambridge Analytica is used to gather data from users to sell to other political rivals. This is ethical behaviour, as the data obtained are intended to discredit other competitors in order to ensure that their efforts were successful.

Political officials often use social media for online communication for their thoughts and perspectives on subjects. Citizens ask questions, and lawmakers respond to the public's numerous queries. People use social media to support awareness-raising campaigns for global topics around the world. This creates reform for people from all parts of the world and people will register for demonstrations online and attend demonstrations whether they participate in any cause or if protests lead to changes for the population of a country (Jericho 2012).

Welcome to the Social Media War  

After each of the shock election results of the past four years, pundits have pointed to social media strategy as a reason for the upset. Online political advertising has been said to have played a major part in David Cameron’s unexpected majority in 2015, Vote Leave’s Brexit surprise, Donald Trump’s triumph in 2016 and Jeremy Corbyn’s comeback in 2017. 

Political parties clearly believe it will be a decisive factor this time, too, as they have all invested record amounts of human and financial resource to support their social media efforts.

Despite expert opinion and the willingness of parties to invest in social media advertising, there is a common perspective that questions the impact that Facebook advertising can have on changing the way significant numbers of people vote.

It’s a reasonable opinion and it isn’t an easy one to robustly rebut.

Yes, there are soft metrics for effectiveness that campaigns can point to; reach, engagements, shares and email sign-ups, to name a few.

But such is the pervasive nature of social media in today’s campaigns that the only way to categorically prove its effect on the end result would be to get one of the mainstream parties to agree to abstain from campaigning on social networks completely; a comparison of the polls at the beginning and end of the election would enable an understanding of the impact.

Such an experiment was conducted by social scientists in a local council election in the pre-digital era in order to prove the efficacy of the "ground war", which in the 1970s meant door knocks and leaflet drops.  

Two researchers, David Denver and John Bochel, chose two identical tower blocks in Dundee. They were equidistant from the polling station in a safe Labour ward and Labour was the only local party that campaigned on the ground. Labour agreed with the researchers that it would only campaign in the "experimental" block and would refrain from campaigning in the "control" block, bar a single leaflet.  

The results showed that turnout in the "experimental" tower block was 10% higher than in the "control" block; in addition, in the former, Labour’s share of the vote was 4% higher than in the latter.

At the 2017 general election, there were 97 seats that were won by 5% or less and 51 that were won with less than 2%.

Social media is now used heavily to help achieve the objectives of the "ground war". But the remit of social media advertising extends much further and so the likely effect it has on the overall result is almost certainly significantly higher.

A detailed look at the thousands of social media ads over the past month shows that online political advertising is now employed to help achieve all of a campaign’s political marketing objectives.

List of References

Satterfield, H 2016, ‘How Social Media affects politics’, Sysomos, 5 October, viewed 3 October 2020, <https://sysomos.com/2016/10/05/social-media-affects-politics/>.

‘Politics’ 2019, Cambridge Dictionary, Cambridge University Press.

Cox, T 2019, ‘How different generations use Social Media’, The Manifest, viewed 3 October 2020, <https://themanifest.com/social-media/how-different-generations-use-social-media>.

Urbain, T 2018, ‘Facebook as an election weapon, from Obama to Trump’, PHYS.ORG, 23rd March, viewed 3 October 2020.

Scribe Publications, Carlton North, ISBN: 9781921942877, pp.296-300, viewed 3 October 2020.

Jericho, G, Aug 22, 2012, The Rise of the Fifth Estate: social media and blogging in Australian politics. 

Spotted, Blair and Louis celebrating something that maybe we weren’t expecting!

I hope I get my invitation to your engagment party, I would never miss it!

You know you love me.

XOXO

Christmas is here and I’m ready for it! I mean I’ve been ready since November…

I love Christmas and I get really excited to spend time with my family and friends, listen to Christmas songs, watching Christmas specials on the telly and giving presents to the people I care about.

Now, gift-giving is my favorite part because I love watching people react to what I give them after spending time carefully thinking about the perfect present. Sometimes, even if we want to have all under control we left things like presents for the last minute, either because we have no time, money or we’re too busy doing something else.

So, I present you the Ultimate Christmas Gifts Guide to make your life easier:

1. Statment sneakers:

              Fila Disruptor II: 70$

Nike AirForce 1: 110€

2.Subscription Box

There’s a lot of different subscription boxes. From books to tea and videogames or comics… You can buy one box or subscribe to 3 or 6 months, depending on how much you can spend!

Geet the book box “Owlcrate”

3.Mini Waffle Maker

Get this one for 22€

4.Monopoly

Monopoly is the best table game ever. And there are so many different styles now!

Tropical (couldn’t find it on Amazon, but it’s the best one!)

Electronic Bank

Junior

Big Bang Theory

Stranger Things

Game Of Thrones

Gamer

F · R · I · E · N · D · S

Cheater

5.A year subscription to Netflix, HBO, Disney+…

They will be thanking you for a year!

6.FunkoPop figures

There are so so many figures it’s impossible not to find one that someone would like!

7.Planner

There’s a planner for everyone!  By the one above from Amazon for 27€

8.Amazon Echo

From 30€ to 200€ Echo (Alexa) is the best virtual assistant!

9.Reusable Straws

One of the most thoughtful gifts. Get this one from Urban Outfitters for 18$

10.JBL Speaker

It has the best quality for such a small speaker! 28€ from Amazon

11.Movies

I have a great collection of blu-rays and special editions, so gift me a movie and I’m the happiest!

12.Cozy pyjamas

Get the black satin for £18 from H&M  (“woman”)

Get the red flannel for £30 from H&M (“man”)

13.Thermo / Water Bottle

Makes a difference when you have one! This one is 12$ from Urban Outfitters

14.Denim Sherpa

So many great options and styles with just one jacket! £34.99 from H&M

15.Shane Dawson Eye Pallete “Conspiracy”

Pre-order yours at Jeffree Star Cosmetics for 52$

16. Pocket-size Portable Photo Printer

This has been on my wishlist for a long time. I think it’s so much fun and cute! Get this one from Urban Outfitters for 130$

17. Letter Kit

Writing a letter is something special these days, why not make it even more special with this kit? Get it from Amazon for only 10€

18.Genius Music Cards

Nothing is cooler than this. Nothing. Get a pack from Amazon for 12€.

19.Smartphone

No one will say no to this. Get the iPhone 11 Pro Max on Apple.

20. Gift Card

If all of the above fails or you’re out of time you can always buy a gift card. Fail-proof.

I hope I could help you a little bit!

  Have a nice Friday. I will come back with another post very soon!

Judith xx

Well, apparently since ancient Egypt! But, being actually and clearly used for an engagement was documented that in 1477 the Archduke Maximillian of Austria presented Mary of Burgundy a diamond ring. Before this date, the ring was only a wedding ring, exchanged at the ceremony, and it remained that way up until Victorian times.

Now, being as common as it is nowadays, that it’s almost an obligation to gift an engagement (diamond) ring, dates back only to the 1930s and 40s thanks to a big marketing campaign by De Beers, since the price of diamonds fell thanks to WWI and the Great Depression, saying that “diamonds are forever” and positioning the rock in the mind of the consumer as scarce and very valuable, and that the engagement ring was a MUST for a wedding (even though we all know that white diamonds are not really scarce and therefore not that valuable). But, damn it Tiffany and Co. rings are gorgeous.