Social Media: Facts

1. Political and social movements

1.1. Increasingly important device for marketing and recruitment for established organisations such as NGOs like Oxfam

1.2. Organizing 'smart mob' demonstrations across the world, i.e. anti-capitalist protests in London

1.3. Activism sometimes takes the form of terrorism, as terrorists too take advantage of the possibilities created by new media

1.4. The cost of information and access are dramatically reduced, and in turn organisational costs are cut - demonstrations and protests can be organised at little or no cost

2. Users

2.1. 2000-2010: the figures of social network usage have grown by over 380%

2.2. By 2010, one quarter of the world's population were users of social media

2.3. Technology is not universally available - in 2009 more than 70% of those in the US were online, less than 7% of those living in Africa were

2.4. Facebook: 2,234 million active users worldwide in April 2018

2.5. 66% of UK's population are active social media users

3. Elections

3.1. 1994 congressional mid-term elections an online political activist was quoted: ' I think that by 1996, we will begin to see some number of campaigns either won or lost because campaign operations either use or fail to use network communications and organisations'

3.2. Obama's 2008 campaign for president was portrayed as the culmination of all the promises of what the internet might deliver

3.2.1. Anstead and Straw describe it as 'the most technically sophisticated campaign of all time'

3.3. Zuckerberg; Facebook was accused of influencing Trump's victory in the 2016 US presidential race