Social media and Politics in Brazil

USA Today reported recently how Brazil and the United States are holding elections in the next two months. Brazil, a Presidential election, and in America, our midterms. It is explained that Facebook proved to be a useful indicator of the results in the 2010 U.S. congressional elections. The majority of individuals that had more “Facebook fans” or “followers" compared to their opponents wound up winning; Twitter also had similar results. The Brazilian government has not taken advantage of social media until this past year, September 2013. Although Brazilian presidential candidates were not allowed to start social media campaigns (“voter outreach”) until july 6th of this year, parties hired social media coordinators to monitor hot-button voter issues in preparation. President Rousseff actually created a “digital cabinet” specifically to target the youth online. She has recently been posting videos on Facebook of her dancing with children as well as posting satirical “GIFs” on Buzzfeed. This reminded me of "Trend #3 Social and mobile developments are doing more than bringing consumers into the process - they are also changing the dynamics of the process its self“ and "Trend #4 New ways of storytelling bring both promise and challenge” from article I read “State of the News Media” for the class discussion. She is using these videos to humanize herself. This may influence candidates not act so “serious,” implying that they are human too. Alberto Valle explained to BBC Brazil, “The person who wins the [Brazilian] election will have managed to transform social media into a communication platform with the electorate through engagement and continuous interaction.” The article concludes that social media is essential in this era for winning voters' votes. http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2014/09/19/brazil-and-the-us-lead-the-way-in-political-candidates-social-media-use http://www.journalism.org/2014/03/26/state-of-the-news-media-2014-overview/