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claim that will support an argument that a person, thing, or event caused another thing or event to occur.The general topic we will be exploring in this essay cycle is technology’s effect on communication (reading, writing, etc.). You can choose the specific technology (cause) and outcome (effect) you wish to explore. For example, you may want to research and write about the ways computers have affected teaching strategies, the ways in which social networking sites have affected communication in relationships, or even the ways in which the internet has affected how we read. The individual topic is up to you, but remember: your chosen area should be specific enough that you can fully address the topic in 5-6 pages. Goals: Critical Thinking LevelsUnderstand and remember the historical material.Understand, remember, and apply guidelines for standard English.Analyze the information and sort causes or effects into logical categories for your analysis. Analyze the audience, packaging your information so that your readers can follow it.Analyze and evaluate your research material: Choose credible sources and extract applicable quotations, paraphrases, or summaries to support your analysis.Understand, remember, and apply the appropriate mode (organizational pattern, assignment requirements). Understand, remember, and apply MLA format and documentation guidelines.Evaluate writing by critiquing your own and your peers’ workLength: Five-Six (5-6) typed pagesAudience: College-level who have some familiarity with topicsFormat: MLA, with MLA documentation, parenthetical documentation, and a works cited page.Sources: You will incorporate at minimum 3 sources in this essay. I encourage you to use one of our in-class essays from this cycle as one of these sources (Baron or Carr). Unless I have approved other options, these sources must include the following:§ One or more academic essays from a scholarly journal§ Two or more other sources of your choice (a book from the library, an online news article from a reputable source, etc.).
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Social Media and Political Activity: Considering the Implications
It is impossible to completely predict all of the different effects that one phenomenon will have on another. This is especially true when one of the phenomena in question is as deep and complex as political activity and the other as new and fluid as social media. Because the phrase “political activity” is vague and could be used to describe any number of different actions, in the context of this essay it will be defined as any action that is intended to concern both a federal or local governmental body and one or more of its citizens. The meaning of “social media” is somewhat standard, but to avoid any confusion it will be defined as any form of media that facilitates real-time communication between two or more people. Many reputable scholars have devoted a great deal of time and other resources to the study of the interaction between social media and political activity. In a recent article entitled “The Political Power of Social Media”, Clay Shirky, Professor of New Media at New York University, discusses the different effects that social media has had on national and international politics and the varying degrees of success that it has created (1-12). In examining some of the more United States-centric effects of social media on political activity, Michael McGrath, the editor of The National Civic Review, discusses the effects of social media on political participation within minority groups in an article entitled “Technology, Media, and Political Participation” (41-44). Finally, taking a more cynical approach to the interaction between social media and political activity, Evgeny Morozov, a contributing editor to Foreign Policy, takes a closer look at the role of social media in political revolutions and how authoritarian governments are adapting to the rise of social media in an article entitled “Technology’s Role in Revolution: Internet Freedom and Political Oppression” (18-21). While these three articles all look at the interaction between social media and political activity from differing perspectives, they all lead to an overlapping set of conclusions. While the core components of political activity have not been changed by the effects of social media, the scope of its occurrence has. These changes are pressuring non-democratic governments to acknowledge and respond to the opinions and wishes of their citizens more than ever before. As a result, authoritarian regimes are now adjusting their policies and actions with social media in mind.
While social media has influenced many aspects of society, at its core, political activity has remained unchanged. Clay Shirky observes that, “Just as [Martin] Luther adopted the newly practical printing press to protest against the Catholic Church, and the American Revolutionaries synchronized their beliefs using the postal service that Benjamin Franklin had designed, today’s dissident movements will use any means possible to frame their views and coordinate their actions” (4). The inventions of the printing press and postal service did not change the definition of political activity. The printing press and postal service are simply different means of sharing information. The same is true for social media; it too is just another vehicle for communication. Political activists have obviously been sharing information since long before the invention off the printing press, the postal service, and social media. To show this idea in a modern context, Evgeny Morozov emphasizes that, “The [Middle Eastern] revolts were driven by people who were politically oppressed” (19). He admits that, “The fact that new media and blogs were present probably set a different tempo to the revolts. If the internet were not around … [t]he revolts themselves would be taking a different shape, and they may have happened three to six months later” (Morozov 19). The point here is that the causes of the Middle Eastern revolutions had nothing to do with social media; the revolutions would have happened with or without it. So, while social media has indeed changed many facets of society, political activity has remained relatively the same. These same revolutions would have occurred, have occurred, with or without social media. What it has done, though, is speed these revolutions up.
While the core values of political activity have not been altered by the effects of social media, the scope of its occurrence certainly has. In the words of Clay Shirky, “As the communications landscape gets denser, more complex, and more participatory, the networked population is gaining greater access to information, more opportunities to engage in public speech, and the enhanced ability undertake collective action” (2). The acts of accessing information, engaging in public speech, and undertaking collective action are vitally important to political activity. So as social media usage continues to increase, so too will the opportunity for political activity involving those with access to social media outlets. In addition to increasing the intensity and ease and opportunity for political activity among political activists, social media also gives political organizations the opportunity to spread their messages and gather support from people who might previously have been uninvolved or difficult to mobilize, like African and Hispanic Americans (McGrath 41-4). The prominence of social media in the everyday lives of everyone, regardless of wealth or socio-economic status, allows groups of people who may have lacked the interest or ability to engage in political activity before to finally get involved. While increasing the volume of political activity or the number of politically active citizens does not fundamentally change what political activity is or involves, these changes do have observable effects on some forms of government.
The effects of social media on political activity are pressuring non-democratic governments to acknowledge and respond to the opinions and wishes of their citizens more than ever before. Clay Shirky discusses how the Chinese anti-corruption protests held after the May 2008 earthquake in Sichuan contributed to such pressure:
The protesters were parents, particularly mothers, who had lost their only children in the collapse of shoddily built schools, the result of collusion between construction firms and the local government. Before the earthquake, corruption in the country’s construction industry was an open secret. But when the schools collapsed, citizens began sharing documentation of the damage and of their protests through social media tools. The consequences of government corruption were made broadly visible, and it went from being an open secret to a public truth … From the government’s perspective, the threat was not that citizens were aware of this corruption, which the state could do nothing about in the short run. Beijing was afraid of the possible effects if this awareness became shared: it would have to either enact reforms or respond in a way that would alarm more citizens. (7-8)
The Sichuan protests put the Chinese government in an uncomfortable position. If they chose to enact reforms as the protesters demanded, then they would lose whatever profitability the corruption was providing. More importantly, however, they would begin to lose their ability to act without oversight. If, on the other hand, they simply ignored the protesters, then they would risk losing legitimacy in the eyes of their people if the protests became too widespread. The third option, imprisoning the protesters or instituting a violent crackdown, would risk the loss of legitimacy to an even greater degree than the second option because the very same social media tools would allow cell phone video footage and other documentation of such a crackdown to be shared quickly and easily. Evgeny Morozov comes to a similar conclusion when he says, “Normally a regime that fights its own corruption has more legitimacy with its own people. From that perspective, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the internet is making the government more accountable, but I would say that it is making local officials more responsible” (19).
While he questions whether social media is making governments less corrupt as a whole, the fact that it is at least making an impact at the local level means that it is assuredly applying some pressure to corrupt regimes. To deal with these situations, some non-democratic countries have begun to adjust their policies and actions with social media in mind.
The rising pressure on non-democratic governments to be more responsive to their citizens has caused these governments to begin adjusting their policies and actions to synch up with the reality of being an authoritarian regime in a world riddled with social media outlets. The Russian government, for example, has implemented the policy of embracing social media as a way to distract its young citizens from political affairs completely (Morozov 20). Evgeny Morozov observes that, “The Russian authorities may be on to something here: The most effective system of Internet control is not the one that has the most sophisticated and draconian censorship, but the one that has no need for censorship whatsoever” (20). The Russian plan is ingenious because it bypasses all of the dilemmas that go along with governmental censorship. Of course, the downside for the Russian government is that political information is still available to their people if they decide to go looking for it, and there is still for political discourse. The Chinese government, on the other hand, is stricter in its social media policies and equally as clever. Clay Shirky relates that, “The Chinese system has evolved from a relatively simple filter of incoming Internet traffic in the mid-1990s to a sophisticated operation that not only limits outside information but also uses arguments about nationalism and public morals to encourage operators of Chinese Web Services to censor their users and users to censor themselves” (10). The fact that the Chinese system filters its social media traffic at three different levels by itself probably provides a level of censorship comfortable for the Chinese government. When you add on top of that the fact that the Chinese government has convinced its people that accessing and discussing anti-government ideas makes them bad citizens, it becomes difficult to imagine any revolution attracting the support of the majority of the Chinese people. So while the rise of social media and all of the information sharing that goes along with it may seem intrinsically good for the idea of democracy, non-democratic regimes are not standing idly by while social media tries to loosen their grips on the countries that they occupy.
Even though it is absolutely true that the fundamental essence of political activity has not been changed by the effects of social media, saying as such might give people the wrong idea. Social media has had far-reaching effects in the realm of political activity, putting vast amounts of political pressure on non-democratic governments to become more like their democratic counterparts. So far, the non-democratic regimes have managed to parry the blows aimed at them by social media. But social media is a relatively new commodity, and it is almost assured that all of its effects have yet to be realized. It is hard to ignore the thought that authoritarian regimes and social media are very much at odds with each other, and only time will tell if they will be able to continue to exist together for an extended period of time.
Works Cited
McGrath, Michael. “Technology, Media, And Political Participation.” National Civic Review 100.3 (2011): 41-44. Academic Search Premier. Web. 31 Oct. 2011.
Morozov, Evgeny. “Technology’s Role In Revolution: Internet Freedom And Political Oppression.” Futurist 45.4 (2011): 18-21. Academic Search Premier. Web. 31 Oct. 2011.
Pautz, Hartwig. “The Internet, Political Participation And Election Turnout A Case
Study Of Germany’s Www.Abgeordnetenwatch.De.” German Politics & Society 28.3 (2010): 156-175. Academic Search Premier. Web. 31 Oct. 2011.
Robertson, Scott P., Ravi K. Vatrapu, and Richard Medina. “Off The Wall Political Discourse: Facebook Use In The 2008 U.S. Presidential Election.” Information Polity: The International Journal Of Government & Democracy In The Information Age 15.1/2 (2010): 11-31. Academic Search Premier. Web. 31 Oct. 2011.
Shirky, Clay. “The Political Power Of Social Media.” Foreign Affairs 90.1 (2011): 28-41. Academic Search Premier. Web. 31 Oct. 2011.
