Experimenting with Social Networks & Debates

Not all people enjoy watching debates. I am not someone that finds enjoyment in watching the debates because often they move too fast for me to understand fully what is going on. Watching the last presidential debate lived up to my standards and the stereotypes I had of debates in general. I turned this debate into an experiment for myself, one that was based on Speed versus Accuracy.

There is one thing that helps me understand debates more affectively and that is the activity on social networks during the debates. Whether it is facebook or twitter, social media has been just booming during the debates this year. It is easy to get a feel for what is going on in a debate with the click of a button, checking your social media.

In class we talked about the Incivility in politics and what the contributing factors were. Technology is one of the reasons, due to the problem of speed versus accuracy. When I thought about how much I depend on social networks for my understanding on politics I realize that it is not always the most accurate way to retrieve information. During this debate I was attached to my twitter and facebook to see what others had as reactions to comments made by the candidates.  The action on facebook and twitter during this debate blew prior ratings out of the water as you can read about here .

I did not watch the debate live; I recorded it so I could watch it after I had seen what those who I follow on social networks had to say about this. I went into this debate with a bit of an overview of what was going to go on, it was just time for me to compare the accuracy of the statements I read on the various social networks, versus what I actually saw and heard while watching the debate. I decided to look at the accuracy of my friends, and my assumptions based on their statements, versus what actually happened in the debate. One of the statements that made me anxious to watch the debate was one of the people I follow on twitter posted “Did he just say Obama’s Bin Laden? #debate”. Now, reading this I immediately assumed that this was something that Mitt Romney said during the debate, frankly I figured it was a mistake of his. After I watched the debate I realized that it was the moderator, Bob, who made the mistake when trying to mention Osama Bin Laden. It was the speed of the update on twitter and my friend’s lack of specificity that made my assumption incorrect.

Now the question is, whether or not this has a positive or negative affect on the American people and those who are going to vote. Articles say that due to social media, people do not watch the debates the same way that they used to, as mentioned in the article here.  I believe that this has a negative affect on the debate when people look at social networks before they watch the debate. Based upon who you are looking at on a social network can make you go into the debate with a different mindset. If you are looking at a credible source, such as NBC or CBS news, you have a greater chance of seeing information word, for word as said by the candidates. If you are looking at a friends social network you are more likely to get a one sided opinion or their interpretation of what the candidates have said. You're information will not be validated unless you go to the source itself, the actual debate.