Week 6 Discussion: The Battle For Public Opinion

 The rise of social media and the internet has allowed people to reach a much larger audience than any method previously used. The number of people you can voice your opinions to on the internet dwarfs the number you would reach by writing in the newspaper, writing in a book, putting up a billboard, or even yelling in the street. Of course, this has done a lot of good, like allowing information and knowledge to spread faster and on a much larger scale. However, it also has several consequences, like allowing people to spread hate and misinformation on a wider scale.

Many people have taken advantage of this to advertise or spread their beliefs online. Several key factors affect how effective this will be. One of the more important factors is the bias present in the media a person might frequent. For example, a person who frequents a social media group or follows many people who favor one political party and often watches a news program that favors the same party is more likely to follow what members of that party say online and vote for their candidates.

Despite this, there have been several occasions where social media has been used against different brands who have tried to advertise online. For example, Dove (the body wash brand) released an ad depicting an African American Woman using Dove’s products and suddenly becomes white. It is easy to see why this ad rightfully caused the brand to receive much backlash on social media. Dove did little in response to this, and as a result, the tag #done with Dove was trending on social media for weeks.