Politics in the Age of Social Media

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

The beginning of the internet age started with many feeling optimistic about its potential effects on politics, as in theory, it significantly decreased the cost of information. Today, social media’s impact on our politics is often described as null at best, profoundly negative at worst. In this course, we will discuss how elites, activists, and the public have used social media to engage in political processes, go over how this appears to influence public opinion, and look at what the future holds for social media’s use in politics. Finally, we will ask whether social media, and the internet more broadly, has fundamentally changed politics, or if it is just one more step in a long line of technological advancements used in predictable patterns.