A Contextual Impact of Social Media

Government Shutdown

Recently when the government shut down everyone seemed to think it was the end of the world, though it has happened before. The last time the government “turned off” was in 1995 and, in the long run, it didn't really affect public opinion.

But this time around far more people are aware of its effects because of this new invention called “social media.” This form of communication wasn't quite widespread in 1995 as it is now, as I’m sure many of you are aware.

During the shutdown, government social media accounts went dark. This encouraged the enraged populace to turn to social media to vent their anger and frustrations (NBC). It became very apparent of what others were feeling—seeing tweets and posts about how “the shutdown has hurt my family” or “congress is so dumb and that’s why I don’t care about politics.”

There was much rage from all sorts of social networks, particularly Twitter. Twitter’s use of hashtags makes it quite easy to see what is trending. Many of Twitter’s trending topics revolved around the government shutdown. #DearCongress, #ShutdownPickupLines, #NoBudgetNoPants, and some even as simple as #GovernmentShutdown were among these trends (Klein).

Twitter wasn't the only network, of course. Statistics show that more than 17 million users generated about 45 million posts related to the shutdown, though most were from Facebook users between the ages of 55 and 65 (Addvocate). Reoccurring terms included congress, GOP, and ObamaCare (Lafferty).

People sharing their personal impacts from the government quickly turned into citizen journalism. Whether it was 140 characters or an entire blog dedicated to the matter, citizen journalism exploded. Some made jokes about, some made internet memes about it, but mostly it was the struggles that many people were experiencing.

A tweet from a user on twitter (Klein): .@KevinYoder as a constituent, I don’t agree w/ you putting 800K Americans’ ability to pay their bill at risk in the name of partisanship.

As time went on people became far more away of peoples problems and what opinions they had on the matter. From a local standpoint, Stephanie Clayton (a representative of Kansas State) actively uses her Twitter account to represent different parts of Johnson County (Klein). Clayton uses Twitter to communicate her decisions and receives feedback from constituents. “I use it because I believe that it makes me more transparent and accountable to my constituents,” Says Clayton. Though using social media makes you more vulnerable to public opinion, she finds it worth the risk.

Clayton is unsure of her influence on a broader level (Klein). In hopes to get congress to hear her messages, it is unlikely that they would change their minds on their positions. Though politicians always want to know the public's opinion, it sort of has a more indirect effect on certain matters, such as this.

Most said how much they disagreed with Congress and how there were many mistakes from both political parties. But others said how this was a good thing and how it’s helping our country by giving the government less power that it had. Many argued about that is was one political party’s fault over another. No one was right or wrong in this situation. In reality it was just one big “mess up spot” and no one could compromise until the very last moment.

Though the Government is now back up and running, I feel that social media played a huge role in this ordeal. Whether it helped Congress come to a decision or not, it made everyone aware of the hardships that friends, family, and/or co-workers were going through. Social media turned this whole event into one big conversation for you to voice your opinion. I think that helped get peoples points across and hopefully prevent any other incident similar to this from happening in the future.

Sources

Addvocate. "Government Shutdown Prompts Social Media Rage, and Instagram Ruins Your Appetite." Blog.addvocate.com. Addvocate, 9 Oct. 2013. Web. 8 Nov. 2013.

Klein, Kaitlyn. "Social Media Plays Role in Response to Government Shutdown."Kansan.com. The University Daily Kansan, 8 Oct. 2013. Web. 9 Nov. 2013.

Lafferty, Justin. "Facebook: 45M Interactions about Government Shutdown - Inside Facebook." Inside Facebook. Facebook, 3 Oct. 2013. Web. 9 Nov. 2013.

NBC News. "Frustration Over Federal Government Shutdown Hits Social Media."NBCWashington.com. National Broadcasting Company, 7 Oct. 2013. Web. 9 Nov. 2013.