Always on Politics

Hillary Clinton is taking the day off again, she needs the rest. Sleep well Hillary - see you at the debate!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 20, 2016

"Mainstream American campaign news has been shaped by the same norms and routines as other daily news: a norm of objectivity according to which reporters are strongly discouraged from expressing personal opinion", as Farrar-Myers and Vaughn share in Controlling the Message. It is interesting to find that most people who are sharing these ideas and opinions on the political campaign are actually doing the opposite. Politics has become an even nastier battle-field where no ones opinions are respected but rather shot down in an instant. Even Donald Trump, as shown above, is bashing Hilary Clinton. He is recognizing the fact that she has taken some time off of Twitter and the campaign and makes the assumption that she is sleeping. Our candidates are even expressing personal opinion on their own campaign!
Twitter has definitely played a huge role on this years political campaign. Trump is only tweeting 4 to 8 times a day, most of his Tweets are bashful like the one shared above about Clinton. People are always looking for what he's going to say next, especially the democrats. In a way he has become more successful on Twitter for causing arguments amongst his followers. I believe that Twitter has made it a lot easier to get insight on the candidates personal life, where most elections before this no one saw. Twitter is a glass window into candidates lives and in our lives error occurs more often then wed expect, however, our errors are easier to recover from, especially when it is not going to go viral on social media sites. It creates a "transparency to followers" as Farrar-Myers and Vaughn share. These candidates are not able to recover so easily where everything they do can be shared in an instant and already cause an uproar with people on social media.

Terrible attacks in NY, NJ and MN this weekend. Thinking of victims, their families and all Americans! We need to be strong!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 19, 2016

Great job once again by law enforcement! We are proud of them and should embrace them - without them, we don't have a country!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 19, 2016

These are some "recovery" Tweets that Trump is supposedly in agreement with. While now the people on social media are more likely to be informed on campaign information, we are now unaware of what's the truth and what's not. Trump could be Tweeting these or the person he hired could be. It actually doesn't really even matter because recovery is a huge part of why these candidates use Twitter.
Hilary uses Twitter a completely different way. As her page is a lot less self selling and more selling of what she is in favor for, for this country. She Tweets almost double the amount that Trump does but gets a lot less interaction. Even when she posts hot topics:

Trump’s calls to torture and mistreat prisoners go against the very values we are fighting to defend. We’re better than this.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 20, 2016

Hilary claims to sign her tweets with "-H" when they are directly from her. Clintons most recent Tweet signed by her is:

Another unarmed Black man was shot in a police incident. This should be intolerable. We have so much work to do. #TerenceCrutcher -H

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) September 20, 2016

This has considerably more interaction with the public than most of her other Tweets. This brings me to my point of people wanting that feeling of "transparency". Like explained with Trump, he brings a lot of conversation to social media and starts a lot of interaction amongst his followers, even if they don't agree with him! This interaction is caused because he says tons of ridiculous things all the time, where as Clinton says what she thinks people want to hear. People respond to what they believe, not to things that you want them to believe. Trump definitely has said some crazy things and because he says them people are more responsive because they believe that he might actually do it. Transparency=Success on social media.

Always on Response

#MarthaAndSnoop @VH1 comn soon 👊🏾 @marthastewart48

A photo posted by snoopdogg (@snoopdogg) on Sep 18, 2016 at 1:24am PDT

Social media in a way has become a documentation of peoples lives while they are always sharing what they have done, what they are doing and what they are going to do. People, especially people who are heavily involved with social media feel a desire to share with others. This is how humans are naturally wired, we all want to be connected with the people we like or the people we care about. This is the phenomenon with social media in this generation, is now we are sharing information out with people who we aren't even wanting an interaction with. As Kaydee http://kdcomm339blog.blogspot.com/ said in her post, "However, being “on” doesn’t always mean you are connected with those who are also “on”. I find myself being both on and “on”, but I don’t necessarily find myself feeling connected or “connected” with those who are always on and “on”; not even with my friends who are actually my friends, I’m just there to be supportive in the form of a like or comment."
Snoop Dogg has been one of those people on social media that just shares for responses. He posts on Instagram up to six times a day. He is just looking for a connection with anyone who is online, unlike typical users such as myself, where I only post to get interaction with my friends. Snoop is trying to get interactions with anyone and everyone.

 

This post clearly shows meaning as to why he posting. He is advertising a new cooking show that is going to be airing soon. However this is just one post. Where most of his posts are useless, like this one:

 

A photo posted by snoopdogg (@snoopdogg) on Sep 15, 2016 at 11:21pm PDT

This one is has a completely different purpose and he is clearly trying to target different audiences. He is just trying to target those who are "On". Where as the first picture was clearly an advertisement for his own fame, clearly targeting his fans and people who admire Martha Stewart. This is interesting, especially for Instagram where only photos and videos are shared, for everyday people this is where they go to get noticed and are trying to get shared by people. This is the reason for hashtags and people go to the extreme to try to get their posts shared. Some people even post the hashtags in their comments, so once they get shared they can delete their hashtags, making it look like they just got the fame. So why is it that everyone is so obsessed with wanting their media shared by everyone.

 



Looking up videos of kittens hugging each other, probably.

A photo posted by Taylor Swift (@taylorswift) on Sep 9, 2016 at 8:38pm PDT

Taylor Swift posts on Instagram for an entirely different reason. As the picture above shows she just wants to live her life through social media as a glass window for people to see what she does as a celebrity. People then feel empowered when they see a post that she posts, that they have also done. When people see this connection it gives them a feeling of empowerment and makes them feel good. So yes we are always "On" social media, but we are all "On" for different reasons. Those reasons define who we are as social media users and maybe even as people.

Wikipedia Response

While Wikipedia is credible and makes our lives all a lot easier because of its accessibility, how do we know that it is approving accurate information. We give people too much trust through the internet because we all assume they are their to help us, but this isn't always the case. In the Gifting readings all of Wikipedia would be considered gifts to society because people are posting information for our use while we give them nothing in return. This benefits us, but it doesn't really benefit the gifter. Yes, the gifter feels better about themselves theoretically with page views and popularity, but why do people feel the need to change information. This is the only problem I have with Wikipedia and its credibility, is so much has been changed and is constantly needing to be changed, I come to ask myself, what are the true facts.
When people share their posts on social media I still think that it belongs to them, but I think the more important question is why do they share it if they know it has the opportunity to be stolen or claimed by someone else. Social media is full of theft, hypocrisy and bad people yet we still offer up everything we post online to these people. I think that the benefit of the people we care about sharing things with outweighs the negative outcomes of having ideas stolen. Why do we care so much about what we post and who sees it? What determines some of us to put our accounts on private and others to leave them public? We have kind of developed altered senses of feelings through our social media, because in real-life we would never want to be robbed or have something stolen from us, but when something is stolen from us online it becomes less of an issue.

The Art of the Gift

The art of gifting is a hard on to understand. In its simplest terms gifting can actually be really simple, giving someone something and not expecting anything back in return, now what you had once paid money for or "owned" is now given up and that ownership is only shared theoretically, because it now belongs to the other person. Gifting gets more complicated when you are wondering whether to buy a gift for your boss during the holidays, in fear of your fellow co-workers calling you a suck up or a brown-noser. But what is it about gifting someone in a higher position than you are that makes us feel like we have done well? I believe this is the idea of wanting to get the total service as Marcel Mauss discusses in "The Gift".

"The tribe is organized by hierarchical confraternities and secret societies, the latter often being confused with the former, as with the clans. Everything-- clans, marriages, initiations, Shamanist séances and meetings for the worship of the great gods, the totems or the collective or individual ancestors of the clan...". Mauss feels as if there is a hierarchy in our society, which is definitely there so when something is gifted how does this affect the hierarchy? Mauss calls it an inextricable network of rites, of total legal an economical services this meaning we get something out of the act of gifting. The more someone gifts the more "total service" one receives. This total service isn't something tangible but it is rather a new position of where you sit compared to someone else. Gifting gives power over someone else, you gave them something they didn't have before or you shared a social media post that they would have never seen if you had not shared. All of these "gifts" give power over someone making them higher on the social ladder.

While it raises the person giving the gift higher, what does it do for the person receiving the gift. Does it make them lesser or does it give them a power they had not had beforehand? "The invitation must be given, and must be accepted", said Mauss. So by them accepting something shared, given or gifted they are not necessarily being moved to a lower position of total power, because they now have something they didn't before but they do not have a sense of more power over someone else. More gifts, more power!