Shaping vulnerable and impressionable minds in the 2024 election cycle is the vast world of social media, where likes and comments form a custom algorithm that hooks young users in a constant scroll.

The heightened focus on forming connections through an Internet presence is not too dissimilar to how users converse and share information with each other across different apps, said Mindy Romero, the director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at the Price School of Public Policy. Embracing social media in its entirety can make or break the 2024 candidates’ desired mobilization of targeted demographics and communities.

Daily headlines, sent straight to your inbox.

Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the latest at and around USC.

“[Social media] can encourage individuals or groups to spread the word, share their message, that sort of thing,” Romero said. “Social media can be very effective, and if you’re not there, you’re not running a successful campaign.”

Romero finds that, in this “disinformation age,” Trump’s adoption of divisive and polarizing social platforms, including the social platform X and his own platform, Truth Social, works as an avenue to speak in extremes and express his political objectives, one sound bite at a time.

“He was a master of earned media,” Romero said. “You could also say that [Trump] showed people just what level you could use social media platforms for — but his way of campaigning, his way of talking, his way of interacting, just really lends itself to the 280-character limit on tweets on Twitter. I mean, that’s just factual.”

Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris rushed into the election floodgates with a strong social media presence geared toward the voice and vote of the youth. Launching the “context”-based Kamala HQ account on X, guesting on the increasingly popular Call Her Daddy podcast and seizing the momentum of what it means to be “brat,” Harris has enlivened her campaign presence online.

Alexandria McClain, a freshman majoring in communications, expressed an appreciation for Harris’ X account, which allowed for a more rounded picture of the current vice president.

“I’ve gotten a lot of her tweets, and I like how she’s actually calling Trump out for little things that he does, like when he refuses to go to a debate or refuses to go to a newscasting or broadcasting thing where they’re asking questions that are vital to the future presidency,” McClain said.

Kamy Akhavan, the managing director of the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, stressed the power of social media in “micro-targeting” the fewer than 100,000 voters who will most likely determine if either Harris or Trump edge out the other candidate.

“Social media allows you to precisely laser target individuals to a scary degree,” Akhavan said. “Its ability to influence those people who are somehow undecided or need a little nudge in the direction of one candidate or the other, or one proposition ballot measure, congressional race, all those people who need nudges.”

Social media’s algorithmic ability to recognize political content aligning with the users’ preferences has led to a meticulously crafted user experience.

Siara Carpenter, a senior majoring in journalism, drew stark comparisons between each campaign’s strategy on social media while realizing that content she sees is skewed to her preferred political party.

“[Kamala HQ] will clip parts of her speeches so she’s talking about something in a certain way or something that aligns with the trend,” Carpenter said. “I’ve also noticed that with the Trump administration, they don’t really [target] Gen Z … Honestly, it’s kind of fear-mongering, but they’re using clips of things that he’s saying at his rallies in place of fun things that are supposed to unite people.”

Judy Muller, professor emerita of journalism at the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, stressed a shift in this 2024 election from attention and relevance of TV and print to social media.

“The computer age has just blown [television and print] to smithereens,” Muller said. “People don’t trust the old formats. They trust what their friends say because every time they do that, they get a like and likes feed into our brains. We get a little hit of dopamine every time somebody agrees with us.”

With how critical social media has become to political campaigns, a greater risk of disinformation has become an increasingly notable concern. Muller referred to social media as the “Wild West,” where lies make impressions stronger than what the truth can catch up to.

“Misinformation is rampant on social media, and very few people — including very smart people — don’t take the time to fact check, even though there are many, many, many fact-checking sites that can tell you if this post is true or not,” Muller said.

Shawnell Sims-Ceballos, a sophomore majoring in legal studies, acknowledged how certain pieces of content can deceive and manipulate viewers.

“Some media sources definitely aim to support a specific party,” Sims-Ceballos said. “There’s not much collaboration or [middle ground]; people are just leaning towards one party or the other. I just don’t think a lot of these news sources are doing the best job of giving people the correct information. They have an agenda sometimes.”

Muller emphasized that news literacy is a critical component in the spread of viral misinformation on social media pertaining to the election, especially for Gen Z.

“We have to teach our young people from first grade on how to critically think about what they’re looking at and how to judge what’s true and what’s not true,” Muller said. “People believe what they want to believe, and they get rewarded for that on whatever platform they’re looking at.”