Representation – 21st Century Citizenship

Social Media: Moving Politics Towards the Future

The social media has made an enormous impact on our day-to-day lives. We now have access to information at a speed that seemed unimaginable to many at one point. We learn of current events minutes, if not seconds, after they occur. Throughout this constant flow of information, politics seem to get a good share of the publicity. After all is said and done, the question still remains of the effect of social media on politics. Is the effect ultimately a good one, or is it damaging?

While the constant buzz of information on current presidential candidates may seem dramatic, this is actually very beneficial to the voting population. Accessing information about candidates and their policies could not be easier, which encourages those ill-informed about the election to do a bit of research. As so eloquently put on ForeignAffairs.com, “As the communications landscape gets denser, more complex, and more participatory, the networked population is gaining greater access to information, more opportunities to engage in public speech, and an enhanced ability to undertake collective action.” Everyone has a greater chance of becoming an informed citizen. Democracy thrives on the voting process, and the social media often gives voters the push they need to gain knowledge about the candidates and make the vote that they think is best. In many ways, the new information highway has been a huge advantage for the voting population of America.

Sometimes it may seem that our knowledge has been duplicated due to our social media connections, but in some cases we don’t learn anything. Depending on the credibility of your source, you may even be retaining illegitimate information. This incorrect treatment of the social media leads to a downward spiral creating a society filled with people acting on facts that aren’t correct to begin with. This, in fact, works against the voting process and can often lead to wrong decisions made for our country. While there is plenty of evidence of the correct usage of the social media towards politics, there is even more evidence of poor information being circulated.

Even though social media has often times led the political world astray, there are certainly ways to educate the public to use credible sources. Information that is poor or incorrect should be reported to the website domain immediately. If wrong information is circulated, people will be convinced that it is the truth. This would lead us nowhere on the path towards creating a world where social media is used to educate rather than simply entertain.

Reflecting on Representation

Over this past trimester we have explored the workings of the United States government piece by piece. We have studied areas from the crucial foundations of political parties to the presidency that the dream of obtaining. Through activities and critical readings we have not only studied these areas, but also questioned the features of our rapidly changing society that affect them. For me the most intriguing topic that I have come across in our studies is the social media’s effect on legislator’s representation.

The first document we read on this topic was Kennedy’s “The legislator as Trustee”. After a careful analysis of this Journal we were able to understand Kennedy’s viewpoint that legislators “represent their local interests.”(pg. 177) and that though they take into consideration the views of the people, it is their opinion that should ultimately decide their vote.

Virginia Commonwealth — photo from nmtcouncil.com

Next we read a journal from the 1812 Commonwealth of Virginia. This journal, titled “The Legislator as Delegate” explained their reasoning behind their view that the legislator’s had the responsibility to express the will of the people who put them there. To the Commonwealth of Virginia, “the people have a right to instruct their representatives, that no man ought to be chosen that will not receive instructions.” (pg 184-185).

After both articles had been read and questions had been answered we were challenged with questions concerning how the two articles related to current times. Though both of these articles were written before the time of the Internet, I found it shocking that is was the Commonwealth of Virginia that was able to predict the future role of the legislator. The idea sharing capabilities of social media has caused legislators to become more “delegate-like” than ever before. With 79%of the American population using the Internet, social media sites can be used as a simple random sample of the United States population. Legislators these days are to turn to these sites to gain an understanding of the people’s view that they represent.

These sites not only help the Legislator understand his people but also the people understand their Legislator. Sites like Propublica allow every day citizens access to a wealth of knowledge about current events and about the people that are involved in these current events. Sites like these let voters research the way that senators and congressmen are voting and their views on specific issues such as the SOPA and PIPA bills. This effect of social media forces Legislators to stay on their toes and realize that if they go against what the people they represent want, they will find out. In this sense, social media causes Legislator’s to be Delegates due to the fact that if they don’t, they risk re-election and with that their career. Another way that social media helps the people know their Legislator is through Legislators use of social media sites themselves (i.e. Facebook, Twitter…Etc.). Take Congressman Pete Sessions, representative of the 32^nd district in Texas. His use of a Facebook page and a Twitter account allows the people he represents incite into his decisions and views and literally and figuratively to “comment” on them.

Considering the activity we did in class and the first hand experience of researching the topic, I believe that there is no question about the fact that in our modern world a Legislators duty is as a delegate. The development of social media sites has allowed legislators to become better delegates than ever before. These considering all of this the question must be presented, Is it even possible for a Legislator to act as a trustee anymore?

Congressional Representation

The Congress is composed of the House of Representatives and the Senate. In this section we studied how the Congress functions as a whole. Understanding how the Congress functions is very difficult because the public never sees or hears what exactly going on inside the Congress, says Woodrow Wilson. But in our class we have tried to understand how the Congress function as a whole and how the powers are split equally. We learned that the Congress functions through subcommittees, and each subcommittee is put together through specialization and seniority. Each subcommittee is split by specialization for example a legislator who has had experience in the military or any other armed forces would be in the subcommittee that deals with those types of issues or laws. The people who have been serving in the Congress for the longest will usually be the committee heads, which would be seniority.

One large issue that comes up with the legislators in Congress is the way the members of Congress represent their people. We learned through our textbook about the Delegate Model, the Trustee Model, the Politico Model, and the Conscience Model. The Delegate Model is when the legislator tries to do his best to represent the people but then he makes his own decisions. The Trustee Model is when the legislator considers the view of the people but then they do what they think is right for the country. The Politico Model is when the legislator does what he wants until the constituents become vocal on a certain matter. The Conscience Model is when the legislators follow the opinions of the people unless he truly believes it better to act against them for the betterment of the nation. After learning about these 4 ways of representation, I thought the best way of representation is the Conscience Model. I think this is the best model because the legislators always follow the voice of the constituents. They should feel obligated to because those are the people that voted them into that office. The legislators are supposed to be the voice of a group of people.

A conflict that still comes up now is that, how are the legislators supposed to hear the opinion of the people? With the launch of the Internet and social networking, hearing the public opinion should not be difficult at all. Almost everyone is using a social networking site or even an email account. Hearing people’s opinion as a whole can be easily noticed because there is always a cause or an issue that many people support avidly as a trend. Hearing news about legislator’s personal life is now very easy through the social network because as soon as one person sees it and shares it with all their friends, and their friends’ share with their other friends, and information can spread within a day throughout the entire country just through social media and networking. For example Congressmen Weiner recently resigned because of a picture that was put up on twitter.