Technology, Social Media, and Politics: Voting Systems

August 15, 2011

Written by: Kyle Brady

Voting systems theory is, essentially, a way to look at and analyze political behavior through the lens of voting. In terms of technology and social media, however, there’s another aspect of this area of political science worth exploring: how the technological developments over the last ten years have affected the actual process of voting.

“Technology, Social Media, and Politics” is an extended series from contributor Kyle Brady for SiliconFilter on the interaction of modern technology and various aspects of politics.

Part I covered the communications revolution of technologically-influenced politics,Part II discussed the affects on discourse orientation and divisiveness, and Part IIIexplored the results of this modernization of politics on foreign policy and international relations – Part IV will now consider the affects on voting systems theory.

Reading the Vote

Once upon a time, voting decisions for the majority of the citizenry were based upon whichever piece of propaganda best coincided with their personal interests, needs, and ideologies. This came in the form of, depending on the time period, public speeches, pamphlets, radio speeches, and television appearances. With the advent of the Internet, which followed the rise of cable news networks, the opportunity to spread propaganda has never been greater. While the voting behavior of an individual could previously be pinned to a certain issue or moment, that capability is now gone.

Modern voting is a complex mix of knowledge, assumptions, and propaganda absorption, where voters may vote on everything from a single issue to personal ideology to a candidate’s public personality – hence the so-called cult of personality form of politics. What are these decisions rooted in? Where do they come from? When, and how are they formed?

The Outsized Minority Voice

Those personally invested in politics, through employment, education, or interest, tend to be highly active in various social media outlets. A quick analysis of these peoples’ digital personas can identify who they are, as well as their general ideological positioning. This explains the various trends constantly found on Twitter and Facebook, as the vocal minority of politically engaged individuals overwhelm those not part of the self-selective group.

This behavior of a specific political minority is then picked up by a media culture that is now more attuned (somewhat questionably) to social media. Too often, media outlets see such trends and assume they’re representative of the large body politic, or at least a majority. Stories are created around this faulty assumption, further propagating these opinions and ideologies, presenting them as factual to an unwittingly complicit audience.

Consequently, a large swath of the public tends to form their opinions and political stances not just on possibly faulty information, but also the inflated opinions of a few: the number of truly politically informed is far outdistanced by those who are not.

This is why Sarah Palin is so omnipresent in the media, when she has no reason, whatsoever, to actually be covered as part of the political scene. This is why the Tea Party, a conservative minority in the extreme, has taken control of the much larger and more expansive Republican Party. This is why political sex scandals, such as Anthony Weiner’s, often end in resignation, regardless of factuality or legality.

The Argument

An argument could likely be made that a majority of citizens, especially in America, no longer vote based on a thoughtful analysis of political issues, if they ever did at all. Instead, they vote based on the voice of very vocal political minorities, questionable assumptions founded on pervasive propaganda, and the public opinion of those individuals with a platform to distribute it.

Technology and social media, sadly, are directly responsible for this political reality; not entirely, but they are most assuredly culpable.

Part V of this series -, the final piece – will address intellectualism, data access, and factual politics as affected by technology and social media.

Liked this story? Share it.

Looking for more tech stories to read? Give our new tech news aggregator a try.

About the author

Kyle Brady has written 5 articles for SiliconFilter

This guest post was written by Kyle Brady. Kyle is a young political scientist and writer interested in everything from domestic politics to foreign policy to political theory, currently living in San Jose, CA. He blogs at kyle-brady.com, contributes to assorted publications, and is writing a book on the modern political scene in America. Socially, Kyle can be found on Twitter, on Google+, on Facebook, and via email.