1. How does social media engage in advocacy communications?

With the rapid development of Internet technology, social media has gradually become an important tool for people to communicate, interact and share information. The accounts record people’s activities on social media, and these accounts play an important role in sending, disseminating, and receiving information. In my opinion, these points help social media engage in advocacy communication. For example, I didn’t pay attention to this policy before, but I got the information of “BC indoor dining shutdown” from my favorite restaurant’s Twitter. From my personal experience, I feel that social media is playing an increasingly important role.

2. How does social media use in public discourse potentially challenge advocacy communications?

This question reminds me of the former US President, Donald Trump. In my opinion, he is a good example to answer this question. Although Trump’s account was blocked by Twitter, we still could learn something from his social media experience. In the 33 months of his career, the number of posts on social media Twitter reached 11,887. Although his tweets contain a lot of unimportant content, these tweets also involve important news and policies, such as “The death of ISIS leader Baghdadi, the U.S. announcement on recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and the firing of Bolton, the president’s national security affairs assistant”. On the other hand, Trump’s Twitter policy may not necessarily be passed, but many people blindly believe his news when they don’t understand the situation. For someone who followed Donald Trump, social media use in public discourse potentially challenges advocacy communications.

Reference:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/11/02/us/politics/trump-twitter-presidency.html