Causes and consequences and possible courses of action:

Social media allows you to get your message out to your target audience faster. You
can create content and share information immediately, whether it’s a news
announcement or video, to catch the eye of a reporter or blogger who’s browsing Twitter
or Facebook looking for story ideas. People are constantly sharing and engaging
information across social media, so channels like LinkedIn and Interest are useful tools
to get the word out to more people and engage with your target audience
[hardenpartners.com, 2018] The social media sites, such as Facebook and Google+,
are making it much easier for people to find one another and reconnect, even after
decades of being apart. The sites are a great way to see what is happening in the lives
of friends and family, and to meet new people who have similar interests and thoughts
to yours. Social media has become a part of our daily lives and we could make the
argument that young people are at the helm of this shift in society. People seem to
assume that young people (18-24) use social media for everything, but would that be
true when it comes to how they get their political news and would that then influence
this age group to vote. In Who Votes? By Wolfing and Rosen stone, 18-24 year olds
had one of the lowest voter turnouts out of all the different age groups except for the
79+ age group, but social media should have an effect on this particular age group
political participation. Looking at data can show us how much social media use can
change, given different factors that are important to who participates in the political
process. In the book, Voice and Equality by Verbal, Schoolman, and Brady, highlights
that political information is one of the factors that can predict political participation,
which is one 3 of the many ways that social media/media in general can help increase
political participation because citizens can have access to news and information easily .
This can then have a larger effect on the outcome of the election, because if social
media can influence political participation this could have an impact on voter
participation. [Kb.osu.edu, 2017].Corruption also has some worse consequences across
the globe as it perpetuates the inequality and discontent that leads to fragility, violent
extremism and conflict. But through twitter and Facebook social media gives a platform
to people to raise their voice against it. When people become aware of it they are the
ones who demand to greater accountability and thus the politician is removed from its
place. People can do protests and greatly influence the government.