Change.org is a social site that provides individuals with the opportunity to share their views irrespective or location, class, gender, color, religion or even political inclination. The site gives an array of petitions to suit the vast opinions, aspirations or rather the ideas that individuals have in mind regarding a particular subject matter. The main mandate of the site is to provide a rostrum for change, ensuring the safety of the users. Change provides people with a variety of options on what they can do. To begin with, individuals are given a chance to speak out on any matter that they want to change to be initiated. An individual thus can share his/her personal story, how it affected him/her. The person can also explain how he/she dealt with the matter as well as how he/she wants others can contribute to the solution.
Politicians use change.org to mobilize their supporters by sharing their manifesto. They also get a chance to express themselves to people as well as being open to allow people to share their diverse views so that they can re-strategize their plans. For change to take place, people from different background need to participate actively in a conversation that can be against or in their favor. However, the key element that is needed is being open and ready to listen to different views. Politicians can also get a chance to inform their supporters on recent developments. Additionally, they can share the challenges they are facing in their campaigns and the public can be involved actively in giving solutions on how to mitigate the problems. The solutions can be provided either online or offline, but the key issue is that they are always in contact with their supporters. Change.org, therefore, provides politicians with a rostrum for walking with their supporters through the journey of success. The 2008 presidential campaigns in U.S. which saw Barack Obama being elected as the president was the first campaign that was highly influenced by the social media (Toivo, 2013).
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Social media tools are the best petition weapons as opposed to the traditional letter writing. This is because; the spread of information through social sites is viral such that the issue at hand can be addressed as soon as possible before the situation worsens. Instances the proves how effective social media is in addressing social injustices among other problems in the society can be illustrated with the following examples. First, the demonstrations that were evidenced in the Philippines in 2001 were organized through the media. Barack Obama was elected as the President of the United States in 2008 following the “yes we can” slogan which went viral in our social media. The elections in Moldavia were revoked in 2009 following fraudulent results that were spotted through the media (Toivo, 2013).
The M-15 demonstrations in 2011 in Spain that saw demonstrator moving with camps were initiated through social media. The famous “Arab Spring” movement in the Middle East in 2011 as well as the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in New York in 2011 also mobilized their supporters through the social sites. All these cases capitalized on the effectiveness of the media in establishing swift communications. Presently, the social media has been indispensable in making the world look like a “global village”. The ability of the media to rapidly influence the society marks the remarkable contributions of information technology in the world today. Members of the society, therefore, can organize on launch an online petition, but within no time, the information would have spread to greater distances (Shirky, 2011).
The traditional way was slow and by the time a verdict is decided, the petitioner would have already given up on the matter thus it might end up delaying justice. In addition, the traditional media does not involve active participation. Studies show that the power of the social media to influence the society is based on its special aspects, which are interaction and participation. In addition, the study showed that the decision to vote or participate in a petition was more than a one-step incident. Concisely, it is a two-step communication process. This means that it takes the opinion of leaders or colleagues who can also strengthen or weaken the voters’ or petition opinion.
Media has an integral role to play in our societies. As it is widely known that “Information is Power,” the media serve this role by ensuring that timely information is availed to citizens. This may be information relating to terrorist activities or any other crucial information that would ensure public safety. Social media has brought major changes in the way we communicate, thus indirectly it affects our indulgence in social activities. In this regards, the U.S government needs to capitalize on the changes that the social media brings to promote its values. Suggestions by skeptics that social media has a long way to go before it qualifies to be an agent of change is provocative and rudimentary.
The present president of the United States established himself as the Country’s “King- of- Instagram” on his way to Alaska in an attempt to promote the climate agenda He had. He shared the pictures of the mountains and commented that He will be holding a meeting with the natives of Alaska to discuss the happenings in their lives (James, 2012). Sources indicate that the photo got many likes implying that media can be an effective source of a chance since what most people lack is real-time information about certain events to act as their source of motivation. In recent moments, the various presidential aspirants in the U.S. extensively deployed social media to mobilize their supporters as well as justifying themselves as agents of change (James, 2012). Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush have been very active on twitter discussing their plans on how to solve the problem of student debts. Bernie Sanders was tagged as the king-of-social-media following his aggressiveness in communicating his manifesto. Reports suggest that he has more than two million likes on Facebook. Donald Trump, on the other hand, is deemed as the “god of social media”. He uses social sites to run his campaigns and to take down competitors. Through social sites, Trump has been the key man in feeding reporters and pundits with information owing to his natural ability to provoke individuals in an attempt to expose their weaknesses.
Social media is the best marketing tool compared to the other conventional methods. Research shows that advertisements that are placed on social media get more views globally compared to print ads. It is also cheaper to place an ad online that is doing the same physically. A well-advertised product and company will attract many customers and clients respectively. This actually will make it profitable and thus, the company can impact positively on the lives of its employees. This is also the same strategy that the government of U.S is doing to ensure that the agendas it had are well known to everyone so that every American citizen can be an agent of change. Change can only be realized if people are made to believe that they have a role to play to ensure that change takes place. Most users of the media stated that they often use online information to tackle vast problems at their workplace, which has positively improved their output (Olmstead, Lampe & Ellison, 2016).
The enemies of social media are the people who use it wrongfully. It is unlawful to indulge in cyber crimes when ideally you should be utilizing that time to use the social site to fill some gaps in your life. Some groups of individuals are prone to cyberbullying. Such individuals are the ones who make it difficult for social media to realize its full potential. Users of media ought to demonstrate some form of professionalism and maturity for them to enjoy the benefits that IT has to offer them. The social site can be more effective if strict laws are enforced to deal with vices like hate speech, violence, impersonation, bullying and use of graphics that are emotionally powerful. These are some of the challenges faced by the social media.
References
James, D. (2012). How Social Media Is Changing Political Campaigns. Globalriskinsights . Retrieved from http://Globalriskinsights.com/2016/03/how-social-media-is-changing-political-campaigns/
Olmstead, K., Lampe, C. & Ellison, B. N. (2016). Social Media and Workplace: New platforms can be Tools for Colleagues and Outside experts, but can also Serve as Distractions while on Job. PewResearch Centre. Retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/06/22/social-media-and-workplace/
Shirky, C. (2011). The Political Power of Social Media. Foreign Affairs . 90(1): 28-41. Retrieved from http://www.cc.gatech.edu/beki/cs4001/Shirky.pdf
Toivo, S. (2013). Social Media-The New Power of Political Influence. Center for European Studies. Retrieved from http://www.martenscentre.eu/sites/default/files/publication-files/social-media-and-politics-power-political-influence.pdf
