Social Media's Influence on Policies

With the rise of social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, SnapChat, Instagram, Pinterest and more everyone’s thoughts, meals and families are posted within seconds. Videos and messages are going viral quicker than ever before. Everyone is connected to these various applications within seconds on their smart phones. From middle school to politicians social media is a communication outlet that reaches around the world. Social media is strong in today’s society and it makes it easy to share breaking news, societal issues and the exchange of opinions to a live audience (June, Hong & Sung-Min, 2011). The two social media outlets that I would use to promote my policy is Facebook and YouTube. I would use these two outlets because my policy is geared towards teachers participating in professional development. Several teachers use Facebook as a means to communicate with family and old friends. I would use YouTube to upload a video that has the potential to go viral that can be viewed by anyone who comes in contact with English Language Learners and seeks to learn more strategies for effectively working with them.

The audience that I would target specifically is teachers. My policy will require teachers to participate in professional development that targets strategies for English Language Learners. Teachers will be able to share thoughts and ideas with other teachers around the world. Social media even opens the door to speak directly to other educators from other countries. I would use Facebook because it is the most common social media outlet that most educators are already members of. I would use YouTube because teachers often use YouTube to find videos, songs, movies and how to videos.

A great benefit of using social media in relation to policies is crowd sourced policy decision. Social media ideas will influence policy proposal making and decision stages in the near future (June, Hong & Sung-Min, 2011). The closed door process is shifting with the rise of social media to a public policy deliberating stage. Social Media can help bridge the gap between the government and citizens. Putting a simple hashtag on a statement helps it trend among millions. Teachers can also rally together to raise fund on social media for professional development. A challenge is dealing with those online who are trolling or provoking others to argue about the topic and flaming where hostile behavior is exhibited through profanity, obscenity and insults (Lampe, LaRose, Steinfield & DeMaagd, 2011). Cyberbullying is a huge problem with social media since everyone is free to share what they are thinking. This may deter people from participating or supporting a policy.

Resources 

June, P., Hong, C., & Sung-Min, P. (2011). Social media's impact on policy making. SERI  Quarterly,4(4), 125–129. Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.

Lampe, C., LaRose, R., Steinfield, C., & DeMaagd, K. (2011). Inherent barriers to the use of social media for public policy informatics. Innovation Journal, 16(1), 1–17.Retrieved from the Walden Library databases.