Weekly? Monthly?

The idea of observing opposing viewpoints on social media and how they’re presented is essential to understanding social media as a whole, and as a tool to further campaigns and clients. In order to understand the complexities of debate and controversy on social media, I created the hashtag #PlannerDebate2015 which debated between weekly and monthly planners. Because social media debates become very impassioned (as they often deal with life-changing issues), I wanted to present a topic that wasn’t as loaded, to allow for the most basic understanding of how opposing views on social media interact. Because my issue isn’t even an “issue,” it encourages involvement from others without commitment, and less bias from myself in presenting the ideas. The idea is to attract supporters from either side, and in this case, they can be essentially anyone. In order to execute this task, I tweeted several advantages of either weekly or monthly planners, allowed people to submit their opinions in a poll, and join in the conversation through the use of a hashtag. Each side of this particular debate only subtlety attacked the other, stating some of their disadvantages to further their own interests (in this case, “winning” the debate). Even in a debate over something this simple, it’s important to note how social media can help/hurt campaigns simply through the language used and ideas presented.

 

-Kiara Bunting

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