The 2024 US 'Social Media' Election
- Murphy Xi
- Sep 30, 2024
- 7 min read
The 2024 United States Presidential Election has perhaps been one of the most polarised and severed elections in recent memory. In stark contrast to the 2012 and 2016 elections, American and global discourse share homogenous viewpoints and social identities on two diametrically opposed sides of a clearly divided and bifurcated political system. According to recent polling data from YouGov, if you were to walk up to a random American who is planning to vote in the upcoming November election and asked the question “Trump or Biden”, 90% would have a clear answer.
But what is the cause for such a marked shift in the political attitudes held by the US voting population? Research on voter turnouts from 2018-2022 reveals that voter demographics by age, race/ethnicity, education and family income have seldom changed during this period. More specifically, political participation amongst younger voters has also sustained a strong continuity over time, with a mere 7.7% increase in voter turnout for those aged 18-29 between 1988 and 2016. And whilst voter turnouts in the US are at an all-time high, it does not explain why political polarisation in recent times, domestically and internationally, has exponentially accelerated.
A specific examination of political spending and campaigning in the upcoming election has revealed that social media and its usage amongst voters is the main cause at stake. It seems that the realm of politics and political elections has mirrored the broader societal move into a digital epoch of social media usage and news consumption. In taking the case study of the 2020 and upcoming 2024 US presidential elections, it is palpably clear that social media has borne, and will bear tangible impacts in the election of the world’s future leaders.
A Scientific Explanation
A scientific article titled “The effects of Facebook and Instagram on the 2020 election: A deactivation experiment”, co-opting the findings of over 30 contributors, was published in May earlier this year. Employing a randomised de-activation experiment during the 2020 US election, 45,000 Facebook and Instagram accounts were de-activated before the election occurred and subsequent political participation, news consumption and voter behaviour/voting records were tracked. Upon its conclusion, the experiment revealed three major findings. The first was that voter mobilisation as a result of social media had significantly increased political engagement, where voters initially disengaged with the election cycle and began to engage in online political discourse and discussion. The second was a marked rise in affective polarisation (in other words, the emotional divide between parties), driven by content overload pushed forth by social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. The third was the amplification of online misinformation surrounding voting methods, election fraud and COVID-19, contributing significantly to political instability and further polarisation. Through these three findings, it was scientifically concluded and proven that there was a clear correlation between increasing social media usage and political engagement and polarisation in the 2020 election.
However, whilst the study primarily noted that while social media increased political discourse, it also revealed forms of deep-seated reinforced ideological segregation, often referred to as echo chambers, a social media phenomenon that has seemingly only risen into the public conscience in recent years. All social media platforms, not just for political purposes but for all types of content divide users into specific ‘categories’ or ‘profiles’ based upon demographics (age, gender, location, etc.), interests (sports, music, politics, etc.), and engagement (time spent on certain interests). This has birthed the phenomenon of microtargeting: a model of content curation (more commonly referred to as the ‘algorithm’) where groups of people who connect with certain issues are often pushed content that aligns with their biases. The direct effect of microtargeting is, as aforementioned, polarisation. Left-leaning voters are pushed left-leaning political content, and conversely, right-leaning voters are pushed right-leaning content. Centrist voters are also funnelled into one side of the political spectrum because they too receive all the left-leaning or right-leaning content that they slightly agree with more. Particularly evident on platforms like Facebook, where its algorithm saw the most intense increase in partisan divides, the amplification of misinformation on voter fraud and foreign interference played a critical role in undermining public trust in the electoral process. Although the deactivation of these platforms had minimal impact on actual voter turnout, it highlighted social media's profound influence on shaping perceptions of election integrity and deepening emotional divides between political parties. Ultimately, it is clear that from a scientific perspective, social media played a complex, destructive role in previous elections, particularly in terms of misinformation, polarisation, and voter engagement.
Social Media and the 2024 US Presidential Election
By the time November rolls around, political advertisement spending is projected to surpass $12 billion USD. Increasing nearly 30% from 2020 and even more from the 2016 and 2012 elections, this relationship is exponential. Of this increase, over 60% is going towards connected TV (traditional news sources) and social media, with spending towards Meta (a conglomerate that owns Facebook, Instagram and other popular social media platforms) surpassing that towards Google. This is in tandem with the unprecedented celebrity endorsements of major political candidates. According to Arimeta Diop in VanityFair, Republican candidate Donald Trump has been prominently endorsed by Elon Musk, Billy Ray Cyrus, Logan Paul and Adin Ross and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris has been prominently endorsed by Stephen Curry, Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift.
It must be argued that these two factors will have tangible impacts on the upcoming election. Given the age demographic of voters who closely follow these celebrities – younger audiences who are the most statistically disengaged voter group in the US – such endorsements are not only increasing voter turnout but also increasing the turnout in a way that is advantageous towards the candidate that said celebrities endorse. Richard T Longoria, an associate professor of political science at the University of Texas, posits that this is significant because it will directly target the critical ‘swing’ voters – it is because the election is currently polling at 90% of voters who have strong partisan alliances at an almost even split – that the remaining undecided 10% become critical in deciding its result. Longoria claims that “11% of US adults can be persuaded by a celebrity endorsement and about 19% of young adults say the same”, thus concluding that the “impact of a celebrity endorsement is strongest among irregular or new voters”. Further research from Dataforprogress reveals that the swing voters of the 2024 election are younger and more diverse than the overall composition of the voter population. 43% of all swing voters are under 45 (compared to the overall 33%) and only 62% are white (compared with the 71% likely voters). Additionally, swing voters are far more likely to be politically disengaged – both intuitively – but also because they statistically access fewer political news sources and display less enthusiasm for the upcoming election.
These statistics have therefore prompted a direct engagement of the politician with the social media influencer. Whilst this is not a new method of campaigning, where the 2022 midterms saw Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y) streaming the popular video game ‘Among Us’ on Twitch to over 400,000 voters, most of whom were young and politically disengaged, its impact in 2024 has been much more pronounced. Recognising that the majority of his critical votes were coming from young voters with strong access to social media and its relevant personalities, Donald Trump on August 5 sat down with Adin Ross, a popular online streamer, and live-streamed their 90-minute conversation to Ross’s followers on a platform known as ‘Kick’. Peaking at over 580,000 live viewers, and spreading rapidly across platforms like Tiktok and Instagram, the live stream effectively targeted a new mechanism for voter engagement, leveraging the relationship between Ross and his fans in a way almost akin to one sharing their personal thoughts to a close friend. Katherin Haenschen, an assistant professor of political science at Northeastern University claimed that this was highly effective as it tapped directly into young voters who don’t typically “answer the phone” or respond to text messages but are active and “already on these platforms” with existing convivial bonds to certain creators. Ultimately, it is evident that the move away from the bubble of media questioning and towards the wide-reaching scale of social media, reflected in the campaign spending of both Trump and Harris, has become a central focus point for the 2024 US election, one which will bear huge impacts in many states.
What does this mean for future elections?
Whilst we are unlikely to see the ballot sheet disappear and the US federal election move online by 2028, it doesn’t mean that future campaigning won’t continue to accelerate on our social media platforms. It is becoming increasingly evident to parties that, whilst voter turnouts in age demographics of 50+ years are substantially higher than that of young adults, it is indeed the malleable minds and plentiful numbers of Generation Z that will determine the outcome of future elections. Simply put, it’s much easier to garner the unused votes of the youth who are already active on social media, than to change the vote of a traditional Democratic or Republican voter. Such a trend is not only becoming prominent in the US but will also become a tactic used worldwide in all elections.
But ironically, this might just mean that the existing polarisation and echo chambers in our online spaces will become more prominent. Given social media’s controversially mercenary models and algorithms which will frequently overload voters with leftist or rightist content for the purposes of monetisation and profit, we may well see a decline in the quality of online political discourse. Where voters are being pushed either way of centrist positions, there will exist fewer ‘regions’ of common ground where quality debate and discourse can occur.
Yet, I would like to propose that this is not all doom and gloom. Social media, despite its flaws, has accompanied the exponential rise in youth participation and activism. Perhaps it’s only because of social media access that grassroots political movements have enabled the youth to push for major change and reform in recent times. Just look at the Power Shift Network, a multinational movement involving over 100 youth-led corporations dedicated to addressing longstanding systems of racial oppression and climate disaster. It is social media’s amplification of traditionally unheard and marginalised voices that has introduced new possibilities for political expression and, as a byproduct, inevitable polarisation. So in many senses, whilst it may feel that our social media spaces are becoming increasingly polarised, I believe that it is the inevitable byproduct of more youth participation and activism, something which must ultimately be celebrated.
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