It’s a Podcast

So, I recorded a podcast about how social media impacts politics in today’s day and age.

But how did I do it and why? Well, the why is because it’s an assignment for my course, the how encompasses how I came to this idea, and how did I go about creating the podcast.

When I saw the options for the topics I could address, the first one stood out most, because it’s something I have knowledge on, something I do daily and something I basically breathe like air.

How has the rise of social media impacted contemporary politics?

First, I had to find something to talk about and so I simply popped the question into Google. Of course, the most common result when you put in anything social media and politics is a whole lot of webpages and news articles about Donald Trump. So, I had my first step. But then I need a counterpoint or comparison.

I remembered reading previously that the Obama campaign in 2012 was the most expensive political campaign in the history of the US.  I thought to myself, what do I do as a job? What I actually do is try to reduce the costs of companies and increase their returns, especially with their social media.

And then I had my comparison. And I was ready.

Big spend vs social media

I had to research the facts first, and I came across some interesting information.

According to NPR Barack Obama vs Mitt Romney in 2012 was the most expensive election campaign ever topping $2b.

In the same NPR article, it mentions the spend on television ads was about $900m of the $2b. They weren’t concentrating on social media or using social media as a driving force. The majority of their spend and time was going to tried and true television which is still to this day, very expensive.

Now, moving forwards to the 2016 election and according to a Washington Post article in 2017 in the presidential campaign between Clinton and Trump. Clinton’s spend was $768 million in spending with Trump only spending $398 million.

That’s right, Trump apparently spent half the amount of money as Clinton. And together they barely scratched the surface of the previous campaign spend.

That’s not to say the Trump campaign wasn’t using television and other tried and true methods to campaign. Instead, through careful manipulation with social media, Trump was able to get practically free coverage for his electoral campaign.

Donald Trump is able to stay in the mainstream media on an almost daily basis just by tweeting. It doesn’t matter what he tweets, the news will report on it. During his election campaign, this gave him daily coverage at little or no cost. Search Donald Trump Twitter on Google, and it’s not even his Twitter that returns as number one, but Top News Stories reporting on his tweets.

Basically, Donald Trump’s social media has become newsworthy. And that as a huge effect on politics today.

Recording the podcast

In my past I have recorded a highly successful podcast on the video game DC Universe Online, averaging 30,000 listeners per episode. So I drew on this experience and wrote out a plan for what I was going to talk about. I then went and took some music that matches my personality from www.bensound.com (this is a great source of free music for people who want to record podcasts.

The struggle was keeping the podcast down to 5 minutes. My notes took up 5 pages! So to overcome this, I recorded everything I wanted to say, a few times. My first recording was 20 minutes. Then I listened back and cut out sections I thought were a bit rambling, or didn’t press the point enough. Then I re-recorded it until I had the right length and enough information to push the point I was trying to make.

What I ended up with you can listen to below: