As summer comes to a close, the race for the White House has entered its final sprint. What may set this year apart from past election cycles is how social media could shake up the race—perhaps even more than an “October surprise.” The social platforms will continue to amplify commentary from each candidate’s base, and it will make it increasingly hard for former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris to move past any gaffes or missteps.
That was certainly the case just the past week after the former president visited Arlington National Cemetery. Though the Trump campaign said he went to pay respect to the servicemembers killed three years ago during the U.S. military’s pullout from Afghanistan the visit created a minor firestorm online that the campaign is struggling to move past.
This serves as a reminder that in the social media era, it can be increasingly hard to control the narrative. In the past, a gaffe or campaign misstep on Monday would be old news by Tuesday, but that may not be so true when social media can keep it fresh in the voters’ minds days and perhaps weeks later.
“There are several interesting developments happening in social media this election cycle related to ‘gaffes,'” warned Dr. Cliff Lampe, professor of information and associate dean for Academic Affairs in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.
“The first, as you note, is that there’s a reamplification effect that gives the misstep a longer life,” said Lampe. “A campaign makes what people perceive as an error and a large body of online content creators can take that and discuss the issue—keeping it alive longer than what we would have seen when media stories were controlled by a few big sources. This is a function of social media’s ability to allow anyone to easily create and post content.”
The Changing Role Of Social Media And Elections
Social media continues to change the game in elections. It helped show voters that then-Senator Barack Obama was in tune with the latest technology in 2008, and may have even helped remind Americans that his rival Senator John McCain was already an elder statesman in the truest sense.
Trump has also embraced social media, especially Twitter—now known as X—and then his own Truth Social to share his every thought, at all hours of the day and night. It was also this week that the former president shared a crude post about Harris and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which the Trump campaign had to walk back.
Both sides are expected to ramp up their attacks on social media, but it could backfire and be a risky move.
“Content becomes viral online due to several factors. First, the content is contested, questionable, mutually praised, and/or mutually disagreeable. Second, the content appears at the right social moment when users are primed to consider it,” said Dr. Julianna Kirschner, lecturer in Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California.
“Lately, political missteps have a strong possibility of becoming viral. Election season brings out the most polarizing responses, specifically in situations of high praise or disagreeableness,” Kirschner continued. “If the users; chosen candidate does something encouraging, positive amplification by like-minded users tend to follow on social media platforms. The same thing goes for negative content, except users highlight their disagreeable position in connection with the misstep.”
What is noteworthy in 2024 is that it is the missteps that could be amplified on social media platforms.
“Regardless of how one sees the issue, the situation is highlighted on social media for all users to see and evaluate for themselves. It is like having a virtual microscope following all actions that politicians make and magnifying any mistakes,” added Kirschner. “The justification for the virtual microscope often falls on the public aspect of a politician’s job. In other words, they chose to enter the political sphere, so they have to deal with the publicity that comes with it. However, social media has magnified gaffes and mistakes so much that the private lives of these politicians are shrinking.”
Some Gaffes Won’t Make It Out Of the Bubble
It is also likely that some gaffs, missteps and stumbles will be amplified, but only in the political bubble.
“It seems like different ‘filter bubbles’ are spinning different missteps,” explained Lampe. “A filter bubble is where people in social media only see limited content given how the algorithms that decide what content you want are pitched to your preferences and not to political diversity. So, a conservative sees a conservative stream and a liberal sees a liberal stream. Recently, I’ve seen where people are entirely unaware of supposed missteps on the opposing side of their belief system because the information is being so heavily filtered by the platform algorithms.”
That could harden the resolve for the respective bases, and likely result in the country remaining deeply divided regardless of who wins—as those supporting the losing candidate may question why the rest of the country looked past these stumbles.
Moreover, 2024 could be the year of social media overload when it comes to the final sprint to Election Day.
“Social media is a mirror we continually hold up to ourselves,” said Susan Campbell, “The same way people still think the rest of us want to see a photo of what they made for dinner last night, influencers and members of the press think we want to see every little step of this campaign—whether it’s shoving a staff member at Arlington National Cemetery or tripping while coming off an airplane. Perhaps when our use of social media matures a bit, we’ll start using it as a tool to discuss platforms and policies.”
But for now, Campbell said, it will be the photos and videos of people falling off stairs that have our attention most.
“Perhaps we can tell things from candidates in their unguarded moments as shown on Xwitter or Instagram, but as we know if we’re paying attention, those ‘unguarded moments’—buying Doritos or root beer on a campaign stop—are curated,” Campbell added. “Like it or not, here we are, smack in ‘The Truman Show.'”
