As the number of Internet users is growing, a growing number of people are using SNS(Social Networking Services) such as Facebook and Twitter. Actually, finding people who don't use SNS is more difficult in our daily lives. Think about our lives. Many users engage the world through thoughts and views shared over one or more SNS and SNS is changing our lives as many people prefer socializing online. Also, it is the open door to meeting and communicating with other people. Because of this feature that we can communicate and share our opinion on SNS and its influence to our life is more and more growing, candidates and their supporters use SNS as election campaign tool. SNS can make them communicate with voters and show good images to them and attract them. In here, election campaign is that people who want to support the candidate post something that appeal to select that candidate. Some people think the rapid spread of information about candidates can be misused by some bad people, but I think SNS election campaign should be allowed.
SNS(Social Networking Service) can be defined web service that people can form relationship by sharing information giving out the personal information with other people who aim common interests or activities. The outstanding characteristic of SNS is the rapid spread of information. Actually SNS such as twitter and facebook became the media that people report the event in real time. It can be possible because of the feature of the online that people can post certain information and this information spread rapidly and widely in a short time. Therefore, sns enabled that ordinary people report important things faster than news channels like CNN. This phenomenon can be shown when we see that the one of the passengers
informed the accident that airplane dropped to the Hudson River in New York on 2009. SNS also became the means to disseminate information for citizens during the Sichuan earthquake and Hiroshima nuclear crisis.
Like this, the characteristic of SNS can help candidates communicate with lots of people and secure voter turnout in a short time. SNS election campaign has issued after the election of Obama and Park Won Soon. Both of them were trailing the opponents in the opinion polls near to an end. However, by gaining votes with the young electorates through SNS election campaign, they won by such a large margin. The occasions of them show the impacts of sns very well. As we can see, SNS can make election campaign more effective and have a great impact on the voters.
The Thesis could be explained by showing evidence like actual examples and statistics and basic human rights. First of all, we can raise the peoples' interests in politics as doing SNS election campaign. According to statistics, about 63.4% of people do SNS while using their smartphone and about 35 % people have used SNS as a tool to encourage other people to vote or post their own thoughts or comments on political issues. They also repost content related to political or social issues that was originally posted by someone else. Also, over half of the smartphone users read other people's comments on a social networking site about a candidate or the campaign in general. Like this, half of the people in Korea is influenced by political issues or election on SNS. Actually, Chang Duk-jin, sociology professor at Seoul National University said the use of SNS will affect the election results by up to 12 percent.In the Oct. 26 Seoul mayoral race, civic activist Park Won-soon overcame his handicap as an independent candidate and convincingly beat the Grand National Party’s Na Kyung-won, a success largely attributable to his support from prominent Twitter users. It is result by arousing the voters' interests and participation to politics by using SNS.
The second reason is that candidates and voters can communicate with each other by SNS election campaign unlike existing election campaign. Lately, electorates deem the acts of the candidates that giving careful attention to the public and communication with them important. Therefore, presidential candidates should be more attentive in hearing the citizen's voice and they should communicate with people as Kim Ju Sang who belongs to Korea Social Media Agency said. To fulfill the expectation of the public, SNS can be used strategically by candidates. SNS allows candidates to post messages, promise and familiar feature to citizens on it and show a candidate's human aspects and can nurture a sense of affinity. It can allow ordinary people to be a one-man medium sending their messages simultaneously to many people and response to the promise and posting of the candidates. Candidates can modify and improve their promise and get information related to what citizens want and don't want to the government as they see the response of the citizens to their posting on SNS. Consequently, SNS can help active communication with candidates and electorates so it can improve the politics and make better country.
Lastly, SNS election campaign is the expression of the electorates and it should be protected. Freedom of speech can be defined as 'the liberty to express oneself and one's opinions'. Freedom of expression is part and parcel of democracy and is a basic human right so people should always be allowed it. This fundamental human right on the Internet is started from the peoples' animated participation and every people who use the Internet can exert sovereignty according to the Jefforsonian Liberalism. If public authority like government interfere and suppress the certain information, idea and expression on SNS, it is the act that repress the freedom of expression. Actually, following the Constitutional Court’s ruling last year that said limiting election campaigns infringes upon voters’ freedom of political expression. SNS election campaign is one kind of the expression on the cyber space, therefore it should be respected by the public authority.
My argument has already been discussed between people and in the government. Some people worry that SNS users can post misinformation and false rumor without any basis about the candidates and it can spread widely and rapidly because of the feature of SNS. It can cause, but in South Korea, the act that disseminate false information and traduce can be punished. This kind of act can damage to other people and their human right, so it it already regulated. Also, there is the Police Cyber Crime Investigation Team so it can be controlled and regulated by the law system well.
There are people who claim candidates and their supporters can't post the deepen text to win people's votes on SNS. However, it is wrong thought. Of course Twitter has limitation to word, but candidates can set up a link, and also there is no limitation to word on Facebook so they can post the deepen text if they want. Actually Ann Cheol Soo and Park Won Soon made great use of SNS by posting their election commitments and daily lives. Like this, the worries that people who don't agree the allowance of SNS election campaign have can be solved and we should select the more effective election campaign to fit into the new era represented by communication by Internet.
Knowingly or unknowingly, SNS is placed the lives of people and have impact on their lives. It continues to peddle influence to people's lives and is changing the ways of campaigns and election culture. Especially, SNS has turned into a pivotal tool for attracting votes with the general election in April and the presidential election in December. Even though some people opposite SNS election campaign, this culture has placed on cyber space. Thus it is important to allow it and think about improvement of citizen awareness related to posting on SNS because it can create a new election environment where the young and the old can share their opinions as lots of people want for a long time. SNS can also make election campaign more effective therefore it should be allowed in South Korea.
