In this day and age, social media is a key part of every aspect of our society.

More adults in the United States are using platforms like TikTok and Instagram, opening up a whole new world of easy communication.

It should come as no surprise that politicians use social media frequently for their own purposes; most politicians, and even many government agencies, maintain social media accounts.

University of Minnesota communications Assistant Professor Alvin Zhou said social media provides a way for politicians to directly communicate with the public and present an unfiltered image of themselves.

“People can reply, people can talk about the misunderstanding of the issues in a more engaging way instead of relying on the middleman,” Zhou said. “Really, it’s trying to bypass the gatekeeper, which is the traditional media.”

While connecting with constituents is a valuable benefit of social media, attempting to control the political narrative in such a personal and informal way garners mixed results.

University first-year student Luke Allen said many of the attempts politicians make to connect with the public online do not feel genuine or relatable.

“I couldn’t really see politicians actually participating in the things they are trying to relate to with us,” Allen said.

Despite the potential benefits of constituent connections and their ability to try to appear more genuine, something in the media environment has shifted. Gone are the days when an awkwardly filmed video clip would be a reliable way for politicians to go viral.

Nowadays, it’s clear that the social media strategy for many politicians is to go outrageous or go home, a strategy best exemplified by President Donald Trump posting an AI-generated video of himself dropping feces on “No Kings” protesters in October.

Zhou said many social media accounts for political figures are run by communications teams that utilize data in order to find what kind of content will boost engagement. Posts that provoke outrage or a moral response tend to get more engagement.

“Once you realize what kind of things are preferred by the algorithm, you can create certain content for that algorithm,” Zhou said.

Posts that provoke outrage or a moral response tend to get more engagement, Zhou added.

Engaging social media posts are particularly useful to reach Millennial and Generation Z voters, who consume several hours of online content daily and will make up the majority of the electorate by the 2028 election cycle.

Allen said the type of media politicians use to target younger generations on social media makes these attempts blatantly obvious.

“Like anime, people our age watch that pretty exclusively,” Allen said.

In 2021, Republican Rep. Paul Gosar tweeted a clip based on the anime “Attack on Titan” to show himself violently attacking Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Gosar was censured and removed from his House committees for this post.

As seen through Gosar’s post, a key problem with basing a social media presence around engagement at all costs is that the methods necessary to boost engagement and stoke outrage are often controversial and dangerous. 

This controversy means politicians run the risk of losing the public’s trust in the offices they hold if they stoke outrage. As trust in government is already near a historic low, politicians cannot afford to lose the public’s faith right now.

University political science professor Paul Goren said while the decline in respect for political institutions predates social media, these platforms amplify this trend by making it incredibly easy to criticise political figures and their personal lives.

“Trust in institutions has fallen,” Goren said. “And trust in the leaders of those institutions has tended to fall at the same time.”

Despite being in the most scrutinized job in the federal government, Trump uses social media to turn the spotlight on others with his infamous insults toward everyone and everything in the political world. Politicians like California Gov. Gavin Newsom have tried to parody his brash style, but this risks further degradation of political discourse.

Goren said Trump and his campaigns pioneered the use of social media to attack his opponents and increase his base’s engagement, often using vulgar methods to do so. This has led to a desensitization toward outrageous content, as it seems nothing the president could say would be over the line.

“Social media has sort of vulgarized political discourse,” Goren said. “But Trump in his second term has taken this to a whole new level.”

Zhou said while online communication is more effective at conveying information and getting engagement, political communications have become much more contentious and polarizing.

“The negativity just draws in more of a loyal fanbase, but actually alienates a lot of the people who don’t care that much about politics but still need to know about politics,” Zhou said. “I think that’s a negative consequence that’s rarely talked about in public discourse.”

Given how polarized our political environment is in the U.S., adding fuel to the fire is a bad idea, as the engagement received is not worth burning bridges and losing respect for your role in governance.

“I feel like they should stick to the formality,” Allen said. “To me, whenever they do that, it seems like a desperate attempt to say ‘Oh look, I’m one of you guys, I watch anime.’ Just stick to what your job is.”

At the end of the day, politicians are supposed to be leaders, yet they don’t act like it online. 

Instead of gaining attention by insulting each other, they should spend their time finding ways to better help the American public they crave engagement from.

It’s time to unplug and get back to work.