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Running head: SOCIAL MEDIA, INFORMATION GOVERNANCE AND ELECTIONS

Social Media, Information Governance and Elections
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date of Submission

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Social Media, Information Governance and Elections
Social media has emerged to be a key influential tool in swaying the majority of
voter’s opinion polls to a charming and favorite candidate. This aspect was clearly depicted
in President Trump’s 2016 elections where the given presidential candidate relied on
Facebook as one of the major platforms to source for campaign funds as well as estimate his
popularity amongst the competitors. With the upcoming American elections being settled for
November 2020; there is an imperative need for social media sites such as Facebook to take
provocative action and deter the manifestation of mistakes that were witnessed in the 2016
elections. A comprehensive analysis of Facebook preparedness for 2020 elections from a
Chief Information Officer perspective will reveal the role social media played in the 2016
American Election. Besides this, the research will also reveal the opportunities and
challenges associated with big data use on social media, as well as provide a thorough
discussion of the value of information governance.
The Role of Social Media On 2016 US Presidential Elections
Social media continues to play a paramount role in shaping the course of prime events
within the political landscape (Alashri, et al., 2018). Unlike other traditional news platforms
such as magazines, radio, and newspapers, social medial played a significant role in 2016 US
Presidential election, particularly Facebook Company by creating a platform where people
have the ability to post, share, and comment articles concerning the policy of the candidates,
news surrounding the candidates, and below a Presidential candidate‘s advertisement (Alashri,
et al., 2018). The basic medium of getting information has been drifting over the years from
newspapers to the internet due to its easy accessibility and high variety. The Presidential race
to the white house between Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Hillary Clinton was marked
by a great influence that was facilitated using Facebook accounts for advertisement and

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campaign purposes. According to Pew Research Center (PRC) (2016), it is estimated that
Trump on his official Facebook page had 9 million followers that doubled both the two other
Presidential candidates (Pew Research Center, 2016). Although these Presidential candidates
used other social media platforms such as Twitter that also accounted for the outcomes of the
2016 US Presidential elections, Facebook made a tremendous impact on influencing and
facilitating the outcomes of the elections (Sullivan, 2017).
There have been significant rhetoric questions in regard to how Facebook played a
major role in Trump's success in the elections with more people denying the fact that Facebook
facilitated his success (Sullivan, 2017). Consequently, it was discovered that in March 2018,
the data of millions of Facebook users were misused by Cambridge Analytica to influence the
2016 US presidential election, which the CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg denied those
claims of meddling in 2016 election (Pew Research Center, 2016). It is obvious that the
organization's role in the election is regarded as massively influential. One of the ways that
Facebook played in the 2016 US presidential election is by spreading both accurate and fake
news. Fake news has been created for different reasons, some political and other commercials,
and as they evolve in the media ecosphere, they enter the public life whereby they are
normalized through repetition (Zhou & Zafarani, 2018). Fake news has the ability to
disseminate false narratives that exposes the public to greater dangers of manipulation and
exploitation for political economy value (Egelhofer & Lecheler, 2019). It’s already clear in
recent times how fake news is spreading on social media platforms and the impacts it has on
swaying people’s opinions and beliefs about different things.
Facebook has now become a crucial media institution where many of its two billion
active monthly users get the majority of their information and data. Statistics reveal that 44%
of the United States citizens got their information concerning the 2016 US presidential election
from Facebook (Egelhofer & Lecheler, 2019). Therefore, Facebook acted as a major platform

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where users could post their views and critics about the presidential candidates thus creating
an atmosphere of debate and controversies. Technically, Facebook has helped in connecting
people globally, but it has also realistically facilitated in dividing acquaintances, friends, and
family into increasingly-solid silos of views, stoked to irrational levels of anger and fear with
conspiracy theories and fake news from different sites and blogs (Zhou & Zafarani, 2018).
Conspiracy theories, over the years, have been used to serve the requirements of diverse social
and political groups all over the world. It has been used to blame the identified elites for social
and economic catastrophes. The theory has been used to shape reality. In most cases, the main
trait of American politics has been conspiracy theories. Governments continue to create a
conspiracy to benefit from something or get away with a crime. Conspiracy theories are not
facts but opinions or stories created by the public due to their belief that something of
significance is hidden from the general public.
In order to stay profitable, Facebook Company needs to keep individuals addicted to its
News Feed. Due to the several allegations of the company having been involved in facilitating
Trump's presidential election success, Mark Zuckerberg has begun to set media policies that
will help enhance accuracy, transparency, and originality (Alashri, et al., 2018). Ironically, the
greater access and connectivity to information creates a lesser aspect of transparency (Zhou &
Zafarani, 2018). Ideally, Facebook influenced people’s ideologies about the presidential
candidates and altered people’s general facts based on the truth about the candidates. It is
surprising enough that most of these candidates mostly campaigned on social media more than
physically and expressed their opinions on why they want to become the president (Alashri, et
al., 2018). Additionally, Facebook also played the role of assisting the candidates to boost their
popularity and political beliefs and stands since two of the candidates had not recently run for
president. As a tactic and strategy, Facebook counted to 70% of the total results that resulted

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in the outcomes of the elections (Pew Research Center, 2016). This is because the majority of
the Americans used this platform to get information and news about the elections.
Also, Facebook as a social media platform, it played a significant role in the context of
helping the general public to air their political views about the elections without fear since it is
possibly less risky (Alashri, et al., 2018). Furthermore, it helped to facilitate the increasing
followers of the candidates by showcasing their relate-ability and “coolness” (Sullivan, 2017).
Additionally, it played the role of assisting the general public to know their candidates, what
the trends are, where to vote and what to expect from the candidates after the elections. It is
obvious, therefore, that social media played a significant role in facilitating the outcomes of
the 2016 US presidential election and there is a great promising aspect of Facebook playing a
tremendous massive influence on the upcoming 2020 US presidential election. Therefore, the
company needs to address the issue of disinformation in the form of fake news propagated by
bloggers/political aspirants using the platform.
Opportunities and Challenges of Big Data in Social Media
Facebook operates as a social networking company that has a global reach, and it is
committed to the development of various tools that allow people to engage freely using both
computer and mobile phone applications. The platform allows subscribers to share their varied
opinion, personal ideas, pictures, and video in a manner that the user has the option to specify
whoever views whatever they share online. Mark Zuckerberg founded it in 2004, and its
headquarters are located in California. The company has been faced with some lawsuits where
it has been accused of privacy issues and data leakage. The management is continually making
improvements to address the issues that have been raised. Facebook, as a social media platform,
is associated with both opportunities and challenges when handling big data.

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Opportunities
Customization of Target Specific Campaign Advertisements
Social media supports sponsored adverts meant to manipulate or strongarm the viewers
into agreeing with the ideas or products being sold to the general target audience. As the new
chief information officer, I would rely on the insight gained from data analytics to ensure that
most of the adverts being generated are based on genuine content, an aspect that is bound to
minimize the possibility of misleading the audience in any way, culminating in them being
law-abiding. For example, the President Trump campaign team acknowledged that Facebook
played an important role in selling Trump's candidature to a large number of people. However,
in 2020, I would ensure that Facebook would only allow genuine campaigns to be optimized
such that they are shown to Facebook users residing in the regions specified by the owner of
the advert. Interestingly, with a large number of the citizens in the United States being
subscribed to Facebook, the optimization would be a win-win for political campaigns as it
would ensure that candidates reach out to regions where they have large supportive bases as
well as areas with minimal support. When comparing the rival statistics and campaigning
strategies between Trump and Clinton in the 2016 election, Trump is projected to have spent a
lot of money on sponsored adverts on Facebook than he spent on television (Issie, 2016).
Contrastingly, Clinton spent more money on television than Trump, but she failed to make it
to the presidency. With this in mind, big analytics is bound to provide a campaign with a more
powerful platform at their disposal which is social media, and through the customization of
target-specific advertisements, vying candidates are able to reach the masses in a more
convincing manner when compared to all other channels of advertisements available.
Greater Emotional Appeal
By relying on the gathered user data, social media is also key in promoting charity
campaigns that are aimed at raising money for a planned political event or helping a deserving

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candidate. Thanks to big data analytics, such campaigns can be carefully drafted to make sure
that they are convincing enough to appeal to the users to make contributions. The campaigns
also work well when deployed to viewers who are familiar with the event where the money is
being raised or the persons requiring help. This is a consideration that I would invest on
attaining as the Chief Information Officer, given that President Trump’s campaign team
confirmed in 32016 elections that they were able to raise a considerable amount of money that
helped to support the campaigns that saw President Trump win the elections at last through the
Facebook platform. Fascinatingly, during the given period, in order to gain a massive fan base
of supporters and a wide following, Trump’s campaign team used to run thousands of adverts
on Facebook, which helped to acquire a large number of contributors and convert them to the
ultimate voters (Issie, 2016). Thanks to the reliance on big analytics, 2020 presidential
candidates will be able to advertise appealing and emotionally intriguing content with the
intention of attracting followers or contributors, an aspect which is a lawful use of the social
media platforms, with Facebook being the key focus.
Challenges
Ease of Manipulation
One primary limitation of big data is that it is easily susceptible to the use of
manipulation purposes. Case in point, Facebook after its accusation of engaging in an unethical
relationship with Cambridge Analytica embarked on the removal of all videos and images that
were a result of manipul...