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The proliferation of social media has created a unique platform for communication between government institutions and citizens. By providing a massive number of people with the ability to gather information and express their views, social media has become a powerful tool for governments to engage with the public and foster dialogue.
The "mass" in which people independently make decisions about, for example, which brand of toothpaste to buy, is a form of collective behavior different from the public. Public opinion plays an important role in the political sphere. Cutting across all aspects of relationship between government and public opinion are studies of voting behavior.
This free interaction between people on Facebook attracted political figures to use social media by to help promote their ideals. The creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, served as a field organizer for Democrat John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. [17] Zuckerberg was responsible for get-out-the-vote and other mobilization efforts ...
Political communication has long used political persuasion, which is a key subfield for rhetoric studies. Political figures understand the role of the media in gaining the acceptance of voters. [18] For example, political communication delivered through social media tends to be accompanied by social interaction and public opinion. [19]
Agenda-setting theory was formally developed by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Lewis Shaw in a study on the 1968 presidential election deemed "the Chapel Hill study". McCombs and Shaw demonstrated a strong correlation between one hundred Chapel Hill residents' thought on what was the most important election issue and what the local news media reported was the most important issue.
Freedom of speech acts as a "safety valve" to let off steam when people might otherwise be bent on revolution. He argues that "The principle of open discussion is a method of achieving a more adaptable and at the same time more stable community, of maintaining the precarious balance between healthy cleavage and necessary consensus".
During colonial times, English speech regulations were rather restrictive.The English criminal common law of seditious libel made criticizing the government a crime. Lord Chief Justice John Holt, writing in 1704–1705, explained the rationale for the prohibition: "For it is very necessary for all governments that the people should have a good opinion of it."
For well-informed participation to occur, it is argued that some version of transparency, e.g. radical transparency, is necessary but not sufficient. It has also been argued that those most affected by a decision should have the most say while those that are least affected should have the least say in a topic.