short answer

Chapter 13

Politics and New Media

Objectives

To understand:

How the shift towards narrowcasting and digital media might change the nature of political participation

How online media are creating a new space and a new set of challenges for the conduct of political debate

How the shift towards a greater degree of social and political surveillance may alter the broader political landscape

How myths of the digital sublime shape our views of electronic democracy

How media and new media tools are central to advancing social and political economic change

Web 2.0 Structuration and the End of Politics

Argument for democratic emancipatory potential of the Internet

In reality, there is a shrinking of a public sphere

Within the capitalist market economy, there is a contradiction between the formal equality of political participation and the inequalities of income and opportunity that define the relationships of the market

Web 2.0 Structuration and the End of Politics, cont’d

Media’s relationship with political power—an unofficial watchdog role, acting as a series of checks and balances on those who exercise power

Political economy analysis suggests “democracy” is tolerated by big business as long as real control is off-limits to popular deliberation

Leaps in Logic?

An idealized view of the democratizing power of the Internet is a hopeful prediction; however, this requires leaps in logic:

Internet is no less susceptible to being manipulated by political parties and sectional interest groups than the current system

Issues under consideration in politics online are still determined by those in power positions and do not necessarily address key issues for a broader community

The control of sites by those who wish to promote their own interests will greatly diminish the credibility of the polling results within political circles

Leaps in Logic? cont’d

E-democracy

People make their own history, just not within conditions of their choosing

Structuration: structures may be formal (laws, policies, regulations), formalized (in institutions or organizations), or relatively informal (class, gender or race)

Degree of agency that one can exercise is dependent on these structures, but the human ability to exercise this agency means that they can be changed

New media are contemporary tools used in this process

The Internet as an Election Campaign Tool

Beginning of twenty-first century: politicians in Canada began to embrace the significance and power of using the Internet to reach constituents

The Internet has become an increasingly necessary tool

Cost efficiency

Relative lack of regulation control

Production simplicity

Swift narrowcasting via active interaction with the individual

New technologies in election campaigns are not always used to expand the voter base; sometimes they are used to suppress it

Online Politics and the Reportorial Community

Digital media convergence is shifting the borders of the reportorial community

Blogging has become influential in politics and agenda setting

Too much time is spent on following the leaders, which then frames the content and non-critical tone of media coverage

Online Politics and the Reportorial Community, cont’d

More coverage of policy in media stories, but reportorial opinion focuses on strategy behind the political announcement rather than the content

Political journalists must deal with use of social media by citizens, especially the issue of citizens reporting on issues and events that the mainstream media did not know about or choose to report

Are Bloggers the Future of Democracy?

Alternative media try to contribute to societal transformation by providing critical media content that questions dominative social relations

Live blogging: journalist blogs at the scene of the action and updates every few minutes

Twitter is becoming a source of information for journalists

Political blogging has always been partisan

New Media, Speed, and the Permanent Campaign

Internet has heightened the speed at which society engages in everything from shopping to private relationships

Political parties and governments have felt the impact of speed as an important priority in getting out messages to citizens, disseminated instantly to large groups

In Canada and elsewhere, the length of election campaigns has steadily declined over several decades

New Media, Speed, and the Permanent Campaign, cont’d

Permanent campaign

When a government engages in permanent campaigning, less time is spent on actually governing

Governing itself also subject to permanent campaign; instant communication can reap political rewards for governments by framing issues quickly and setting the agenda

New and social media provide means for governments to accomplish strategies both quickly and deeply, even if they are contentious

Interactivity and Power: A Strength of the Internet?

Internet allows politicians to determine which issues are most newsworthy and enables them to communicate directly with potential voters any time, anywhere

Narrowcasting further fragments the audience of consumers for commercial purposes; likewise, far from constituting an active and organized collective, the shift of politics online may further fragment the audience of citizens

E-Democracy: A Digital Renaissance?

Internet bridged distance and time, thus dramatically bringing us closer to those who govern us

But scale of influence by citizens into governing process remains limited

Information and services available online are still largely determined by governments

Role of citizenship is diminishing as the service provision and information infrastructure development for e-government is contracted out to the private sector

Inequality of Access

Access to necessary infrastructure is not available to some social groups

Despite continued strong increases in the growth rates of Internet use in the last few years, there still exists lesser access to technology and a slower uptake among those in the lower income brackets

Latest federal government’s restructuring of online access to government information is meant to reduce the number of access points to government departments and channel them through the smallest gateway

Decreasing access to government while increasing control over surveillance and content

Cyberdemocracy: A Digital Myth?

Digital myth suggests that access to and the value of information, hence knowledge, can be equated with power, and the Internet has empowered us both as individuals and as organizations

But e-democracy trials in several countries seem to also contribute to the growth of social surveillance and continued commodification of citizenship

Political Activism, Social Movements, and Democratic Media

Use of new media in politics—political activism

Use of existing commercial social networking tools like Facebook and YouTube to inform and coordinate oppositional action

Digital myth: advantage of convergence includes a much freer, more democratic dissemination of information, because the information travels from many to many, instead of one to many

Democratic media could broaden the numbers of those producing, sharing, and distributing content, and link media content with political action

Political Activism, Social Movements, and Democratic Media, cont’d

Arab Spring, 2011: In Tunisia activists opposing the regime used the Internet as an important tool to communicate their dissent, create networks of supporters and activists, and subvert traditional media and state censorship

We shouldn’t assume that traditional economic and social structures won’t be replicated in political activism or the new media environment

To date, “any assessment of the utilization of the Internet and ICTs for political engagement reveals a decidedly mixed score card”

Alternative Media, Politics, and the Internet

Digital myth that the Internet is decentralizing the conventional media’s power base and structures

Internet has reshaped our current understanding of interactivity and thus an opportunity presents itself, but this opportunity appears to be rapidly closing

In Canada, we still have relatively general access to Internet: we can choose what information to digest or reject, and to what extent we exercise our agency

Benefits of access to information can have positive impact on creation and development of different ways of thinking and doing

Alternative Media, Politics, and the Internet, cont’d

One way is through what is alternative, autonomous, critical, or independent media

These media are found at the global, national, and local/ community levels

Often linked to social and political movements as a means of communicating the key messages from the movements, as well as communicating alternative issues and perspectives not found in the mainstream press

As a whole, however, general intent for progressive forms is to advance what we identified as a radical democratic approach

Alternative Media, Politics, and the Internet, cont’d

Alternative media tend to challenge dominant media in three important and overlapping areas: structure, participation, activism

As many of these media are not reliant on commercial means of revenue, they have traditionally struggled with both production costs and building vast distribution networks

Open source software

One motivating factor behind development of alternative media in Canada is high level of consolidation in the commercial media sector in the country