How Twitter Can Be Used as a Tool for Shaping Politics
Since Barack Obama used PayPal and other digital money services to fund his presidential campaign in 2008, the political arena has become ever more reliant and entrenched in media and the digital age. This is perhaps most evident with how politicians are now able to go directly to the people with their policy updates (or tirades) on social media, particularly Twitter. Now whether this is necessarily a good thing is not the question here, but rather how and why the usage of this platform for politics has exponentially increased and what that means for the future of politics. Research is now emerging into how these platforms influence both public opinion and politics and it soon will become it's own subfield in the study of media and politics. The Politics of Twitter: Emotions and the Power of Social Media