It may take you all of 5 seconds to scroll through your Facebook newsfeed and see a political post.
Think about it. When was the last time you logged on and didn't see something with the words “Clinton,” “Trump,” “Bernie,” “Cruz,” etc.?
41 Action News is the exclusive news source in Kansas City to get a look behind Facebook’s curtain to see exactly how many Missourians are talking politics on Facebook, how many times they are interacting with a political post, who they are talking about and what they are talking about.
Dominating the Missouri political conversation on Facebook: Donald Trump.
“Particularly in this campaign, in a year unlike any cycle I’ve ever seen before, when one candidate, I’m talking about Donald Trump, has dominated the news cycle as effectively and as thoroughly as he has,” said KCUR’s “Up To Date” and Kansas City Star political reporter Steve Kraske. “I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life.”
Kraske said what’s happening on Facebook are exactly the kinds of conversations that influence voters.
“You know in the old days, meaning 5 or 10 years ago, people would get out over the back fence and talk about who they’re backing in the upcoming election,” said Kraske. “These days they sit at their computers and do the same thing via Facebook and Twitter, so I think it’s really important. The most important indicator, the most important motivating factor to sway one person or another to a candidate on the democratic side or on the republican side is interactions with friends and neighbors. Those are the kinds of contacts that have the most influence. Today I think a lot of that’s happening on social media.”
DOES ALL THE POLITICAL TALK ON FACEBOOK SHAPE VOTES?
According to some Kansas City metro primary voters, conversations on Facebook made a very small impact on their vote.
“No, not at all,” said voter Chris Pine. “It’s been mostly negative and rants and everything. I already knew who I was going to vote for.”
“It didn’t make my decision for me. But it exposed me to candidates and ideas that I might not have thought about on my own, so it had some influence,” said voter Eric Giovanni.
“I won’t say that it made a huge difference. Probably confirmed my choice of candidate,” said voter Jennifer Artman.
WHAT ARE THE MOST TALKED ABOUT POLITICAL TOPICS ON FACEBOOK IN MISSOURI?
Courtesy of Facebook
IS THERE SUCH A THING AS TOO MUCH?
Kraske said yes.
“There’s aggressive dialogue, assertive dialogue; there’s nothing wrong with that, but when it goes too far, when it gets ratcheted up beyond a certain point… Most of us recognize what that is when the names start getting called, swear words start getting tossed into the dialogue. That’s not good,” said Kraske.
Voters 41 Action News talked to were at varying degrees of agitation levels with the social media rhetoric.
“My policy is not to defriend or unfollow anyone because of their political leanings. Sometimes I’ll start skipping over their post,” said Artman.
“It’s crossed my mind [defriending] but it occurred to me it’s probably good to be exposed to all ideas so I didn’t do that,” said Giovanni.
“I was seriously unfriending, unfollowing people. [It] just got kind of annoying,” said Chris Pine.
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Brian Abel can be reached at brian.abel@kshb.com.
