Position Paper about Influencers in the Politics, Essays (high school) of English

Download Position Paper about Influencers in the Politics and more Essays (high school) English in PDF only on Docsity! Name: Janelle L. Tan Year/Section/Strand: Grade 12/Hope/STEM Project Name: POSITION PAPER Date Accomplished: December 18, 2020 THE ROLE OF IMPLEMENTING INFLUENCERS INTO POLITICS The emergence of social media in our life has become prominent, and the role it gives to people plays an important part for having multiple uses in different situations. Such as business, marketing, entertainment, news, and much more. We can see how social media became meaningful in our lives and it is indeed that the use of these things is so important that we cannot perform well in our lives without the use of these things. In today’s society, we cannot deny that the popularity of influencers in social media can make an impact in the lives of the community and it is one of the reasons why most people use social media. The progression of social media as something who can change a person in many ways was able to give power to influencers, these people are called influencers because they have the power to affect the decision of other because of his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with his or her audience (InfluencerMarketingHub.com, 2020), which means that as the rising importance of social media many people use it and according to the We Are Social report almost 3.484 billion people are actively using social media and that is 45% of the world’s population. The cause of this event was able to result an increasing number of influencers on social media, and as we know about them, they can create a clear impact to their followers. We can see how these people can make a change in our society, and now the question lies whether these people who are called influencers should have a role when it comes to politics. Should they keep silent or should they voice out about the issues in our country. For the past decades we can see how many different influencers was able to make an impact in the society on various matters. These people who are called influencers have the power in the society and I think that it is beneficial if they take part and voice out about the issues in the society. There are countless of reasons why they should take part in politics, the first one is that they have power on social media. There are plenty of number who uses social media, and as this number grows, the security of people and appearance of fake news is becoming a major problem on social media. One way to solve this is that people seek out to influencers, they follow influencers as source of information and inspiration. The relationship of influencer and their followers is bonded through the trust, and because of this influencer become more effective and compelling with the use of social media. According to the study of Grieb, the trust of consumers toward influencers (63%) is greater compared to the trust towards brand’s advertisement. This just shows how influencers can change the opinions and choices of people on social media, and as politics go hand-in-hand in social media as they had also taken a big part on it, there is a high chance that these influencers can change people thoughts about politics because of their power in social media and their reputation to their followers. The second one is that they had an impact to change the views or opinions of their followers. It is kind of similar to the first one but it is different, we know that the representation of influencers inside the society is very important in our present time and it made a great impact to the community. Influencers are known for their popularity, and people follow them because of their admiration and belief in them. There are so many things that happens in the world, and most people are not even aware about the fact that there are countless of issues that really needs attention and must give importance compared to other matters. That is why as the emergence of social media and the rising of influencers, they should use their position as influencers and break out their silence to voice out what really matters, especially about the issues that does not give more consideration despite the importance of it and through that they may able to change something for better. Influencers who hold unique position of influence on different platforms should know what they can capable to do and what they can change towards these matters of issues, they should also know what to stand for and fight for what is right, this little action of showing care is enough to change things and results to a better effect in the society. One of the best examples is Paul David Hewson that is known for “Bono”, he is one of the world’s leading singers and known for lifelong progressive advocacies bome out of his home country’s tortured history. During his time in the Philippines, he gave a message to the president saying “you can’t compromise on human rights”, at this time he snubbed a presidential meeting in Malacafiang, preferring to speak directly to the Filipino public. He directly questioned the widely-shared hypothesis that democracy and human rights are supposedly “luxuries” that can simply be compromised during, earlier decades of developmental consolidation. He also gives attention to the sad reality in the Philippines about the tens of thousands suspected extrajudicial killings and calling out celebrities and other influencers to use their voice to speak truth to power. The time during his concert in Manila, he also expresses his deep conviction to journalist as modern heroes in the society as people who keep this country spiritually safe (Heydarian, 2019). People like Bono should be a model to every influencer and use their power to make a change. Aside from that we know that history is also filled with influencers who made a change in the society like Michael Jackson, Frida Kahlo, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi, and much more. The third reason is that these influencers have an adequate insider knowledge. Learning more about influencers, there are different kinds of influencers and they are divided depending on their number of followers, the type of content, and their level of influence (InfuencerMarketingHub.com, 2020). You can see that influencers have their own different ways to be called an influencer and some influencers who may appear unknown in some categories may seem more influential when we look in another way. People might forget about this, but we know that this people who are called influencers is also a part of the citizens of the country. That means that they should also take part in the problems of the country, and as a citizen of this country we should know how to use the power that we have and use it for our advantage to correct what is wrong. The best example here is Greta Thunberg, who is a young activist that inspire a lot of people and she is famous for being an environmental activist known for challenging world leaders to take action against climate change. This person is an example of having a clear position for voicing out what really matters and what is important to the world, she is a young teenager that change the world for her simple message and relentless campaigns. I think that she is the best model for being an influencer and because of her actions she was able to influence and inspire the world. We can see how these influencers have a lot of potential to change the world for the better, they had the power and influence, and I think that they should use this opportunity to change what really matter the most and to change the world for the better. Influencers do have the ability to change others, and they have the power in social media. As the saying goes on that great power comes with great responsibility, influencers should know that they have the power and that must be used for the better. On the other hand, when we look in another way, let us understand why some influencers are silent in politics. There are countless of reasons why they do not take part in politics, and we cannot really judge them because of that. Some of them are helping in other ways and that is completely fine. There are also other reasons why they do not take part, some of them wanted to save face and to secure their reputation in the public. In these past few months, I know that most Filipino people have heard about the shutdown of ABS-CBN. Thinking about it, most of the celebrities did not speak out about this issue and that is just sad. Angel Locsin has taken a big part to rally about this issue and she even called out other celebrities to speak out. In another way, people would think that influencers should not take part in politics because they are completely being bias. They are right, it is really a bias thing, but that thing does not really matter because being bias is not completely bad and it will become a good thing if we properly applied this for useful things. We should make choices in life, and we must