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By Faith Ashmore, Benzinga

The landscape of public affairs and politics has dramatically changed since the turn of the 21st century, largely due to digitalization. Before the widespread acceptance and usage of the internet and now social media, how people engaged in political affairs was relatively streamlined. Unless you were involved in activism, citizen engagement was largely restricted to watching the evening news, reading the newspaper and voting in elections.

While people still watch the evening news and read newspapers, digital technologies have increased connectivity outside of geographic limitations. Additionally, it has increased the amount of information citizens can access and changed the way we consume information. Even if people are relying on an evening broadcast and newspapers, there are far more providers of these services than ever before – just think about how many print or digital newspapers are available worldwide.

While digitalization has resulted in heightened transparency and provided the public with the tools necessary to hold governing bodies more accountable, without effective media literacy, it can also be easy to get lost in the information available at our fingertips. Digitalization has the potential to be both wonderful and dangerous.

Understanding this duality is what inspired Timothy Hwang, Gerald Yao and Jonathan Chen to found FiscalNote (NYSE: NOTE) in 2013. The company is a premier information services company focused on global policy and market intelligence. Combining AI-driven intelligence and peer insight, the company has a suite of products that helps lawmakers, companies and other organizations alike tackle the world of digitalization. The company prides itself on providing its customers with a full, unbiased story and it does not source its information from vendors.

FiscalNote data and AI extract value and insights from accessing billions of datasets; its technology can even go as far as to transcribe and analyze every word spoken by public figures to help find trends, correlations, patterns and outliers in information. Users can automate policy and track issues at federal, state and local levels to help make more informed decisions. This is instrumental as Americans gear up for the 2024 election cycle.

The past few elections have made it clear that Americans are increasingly relying on digital outlets and social media to become more informed citizens. According to Pew, over 40% of Americans aged 18-19 say that their primary source of news comes from social media. While the number decreases for Americans aged 30-49, 22% still rely on social media. As such, while social media can be a powerful tool for transparency and accountability, it can also create echo chambers.

Companies like FiscalNote are providing the electorate with the tools necessary to engage with the digital world. The company provides essential tools for advocacy and stakeholder engagement while giving users the ability to effectively sift through news from a more neutral lens. Its solution VoterVoice is a platform for organizations looking to make a meaningful grassroots-driven political impact.

The platform allows users to easily launch campaigns, engage advocates and effectively monitor outcomes with real-time reports. Furthermore, the platform’s AI-driven features connect campaigns to the right audience to drive policy change, and the platform allows users to connect directly with lawmakers. Some of the tools that the platform offers to hep organizations spread their message include AI-enhanced emails, petitions, surveys and pre-filled lawmaker contact forms.

While data shows that Americans may not be as ideologically polarized as they may think, Americans are increasingly emotionally polarized (known as “affective polarization”). Part of this is due to the breakdown in how people consume media. For example, Americans over 65 rely on television and talk radio far more than younger generations. By the end of this decade, Millennials and Gen Z will become the majority of the American electorate; these generations engage in the digital world differently than older generations. Companies like FiscalNote are enabling all citizens to better understand and engage with public affairs, complementing their preferred method of news, whether that be talk radio or TikTok.

Featured photo by Phil Scroggs on Unsplash.

Benzinga is a leading financial media and data provider, known for delivering accurate, timely, and actionable financial information to empower investors and traders.

This post contains sponsored content. This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be investing advice.

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