The Impact of the Internet on Culture, Politics and Society - Essay Example

The Impact of Internet on Culture, Politics and Society The impact of internet on human beings is ever increasing as it positively and negatively affects our daily lives in terms of how we communicate, conduct business, interact, and work among other aspects. The internet is rapidly becoming a natural part of people’s lives, and many people access it, including children who today grow up with the internet (Bargh and McKenna 2004, p.574). Internet has been noted to be one of the greatest technological inventions in human history since it affects almost all aspects of our lives. The internet refers to electronic communication networks that link many host computers all over the world (Kaminow 1997, p.280). Undoubtedly, the internet is increasingly one of the irreplaceable means of communication, for instance, it enables individuals to keep in touch and bring different people together, allows arrangement of meetings over the net among others. Truly, the internet has transformed various aspects of our lives over the past few years, and it has also transformed the whole world into a global village. In the contemporary world, life without the internet is impossible and unimaginable because almost every individual in the world depends on it either directly or indirectly. Despite the diversity that the internet creates, the internet does not create a freer and equal world. This paper discusses this claim with reference to culture, politics and the society at large. The internet has positively influenced culture and the spread cultural values, for instance, it play a leading role in promoting a better understanding between cultures and cultural identities to emerge and communicate with each other. It promotes uniformity and homogeneity more than diversity (Porter 2013, p.62). The internet forms a common background for cultural exchange and individuals from diverse cultures are able to interact via the internet and share idea, values as well as their cultural practices. Societal members are able to easily access any information from the internet and learn about anything they desire. In addition, the internet allows cultural exploration, that is, different cultures can easily explore other cultures and understand other cultural perspectives using the internet. Actually, a person can learn about any culture by using search engine to have an access to available information about the desired culture. Before the invention of the internet, individuals used to travel to a particular society in order to learn about their culture or look for a book that has information about that culture, and these ways were time consuming and very expensive. More so, the internet allows individuals to learn about the beliefs of a particular culture prior to their experience especially if they are interested in visiting the place and this is very important as it helps in avoiding culture shock. Furthermore, the internet has led to increased cultural communication as it allows information to freely flow form one network to another. Information from a certain culture can be posted on the internet and be easily accessed by another culture. Therefore, internet has enabled different cultures to communicate with other cultures through instant messaging, blogs, Facebook, and MySpace among other devices. However, cultural information accessed through the internet is not available for all societal members. Not everyone on the society can easily access internet and explore it so as to get any information they desire. Therefore, as the internet promotes cultural diversity, it restricts others especially the disadvantaged societal members from understanding other cultures. The exploration of cultures via the internet has led to decreased cultural uniqueness because individuals find other possible ways of living. With the easy accessibility of the internet, individuals can earn about themselves and other people and adopt idea from others leading to changes in ways of life. An individual from a given culture may like and embrace what other cultures do and start practicing. For instance, globalization has promoted the spread of western culture all over the world with people embracing the western lifestyle including how they communicate, dress, and their food among others. This implies that the internet does not help in creating a freer and equal society because portraying western culture as a superior one is unfair because there is need to understand and acknowledge others cultures in the world. The social and digital media have greatly changed politics and some argue that the internet has led to increased political polarization. Political scientists are interested in knowing the role of internet in politics as it is believed that internet influences the reshaping of modern politics (Park 2007, p.6). The internet allows candidates and voters to easily connect and it also made it possible for citizens to have an access to any information concerning the governance process and share their opinions concerning the subject. Candidates can create their own social networking cites especially during campaigns to be able to connect to voters and keep them informed, post campaign ads, and organize meeting among others (Park 2007, p.7). This has enhanced the degree of participation of interested citizens in politics. The internet has allowed voters to be active in governance process and be aware of the activities undertaken by the government. There is a lot of information in the internet which will help in enlightening individuals about their rights. They are able to air out their views and interests and demand their involvement in the decision making process. Therefore, the internet promotes participatory political culture where citizens have the right to participate in the political processes, share their opinions and contribute in the decision making process. The internet is an effective tool for activists as it helps in mobilizing and disseminating information even in those countries limiting political freedom (Klotz 2004, p.210). On the contrary, the internet has led to increased digital divide, that is, it has widened the gap between those who can access the information online and those who cannot. This in turn has encouraged oppression as those who cannot have an access to the information available online are more likely not to be aware of their rights and can therefore be exploited and oppressed easily. Moreover, this will prevent interested citizens from airing their opinions and participating in the political process. Therefore, not all citizens will be able to be in touch with the candidates and elected representatives as they may not have an access to the internet. In addition, the internet has led to increased spread of democracy as a popular political system worldwide. Furthermore, the internet has transformed the society as a whole as it has changed almost all aspects in the society including the way societal members interact and communicate, conduct business, learn and work. The internet as a form of technology enables individuals from different parts of the world to connect and keep in touch without necessarily interacting physically and so it has really revolutionized how individuals interact in this globalized society. Due to the development and advancement of the internet, social networks such as MySpace, twitter, chat, and email among others have emerged and have changed the nature of social interactions among people. Today, many of us rely on these social networks to keep in touch with other people especially friends and relatives. More so, these social network sites enable individuals to access or share information, meet new friends and carry out business transactions through video conferencing. Most people including children spend their leisure time exploring the internet, download movies, video games among others. More so, people do join virtual social network through which they can discuss various aspects of daily life, and develop friendships and interact as if they are living in the real life. Some services provided by the internet such as webcam enable individuals to communication with relatives and friends from a distance. More so, people are able to send and receive e-mails instantly, and so, internet has enabled the international companies to manage their economic operations without experiencing a lot of challenges. Internet is very useful to many multinational companies as it enables these multinationals to provide necessary information on different products. More so, today, the internet is the heart of mobile banking and so, banking sector entirely depends on internet. In addition, many educational institutions use the internet for publication of different circulars and posting results, the students also use the internet for study purpose. More so, individuals are capable of accessing a huge amount of information on any topic through the internet. This makes learning easier and students benefits a lot by using the internet for conducting research and doing their homework. In addition, the internet has also led to easy access to information, for instance, online reference books and dictionaries among other academic materials found online have helped individuals no to go to the bookshop or libraries in order to do their research. On the other hand, the internet has negatively affected the society; firstly, the social networking sites have led to increased cases of crime such as identity theft, hacking, stalking, piracy among others. Secondly, the internet has led to increased exposure to explicit material such as pornography. In conclusion, the internet has helped in creating a diverse world but it has not helped in creating a free and equal world. The world has become interconnected due to the growth of the internet, first, the internet has enabled different cultures to interact and allowed individuals from different cultures to learn, understand and acknowledge other cultures. However, it has also led to cultural homogeneity more that cultural diversity. More so, it has promoted one culture, western culture as being dominant and suppressed other cultures in the world. Secondly, the internet has significantly transformed the political process as it has created a platform to allow average citizens to freely air out their views and participate in the political processes, but it has also promoted digital divide as some people have easy access to information online and others are not. More so, the internet has greatly transformed the society in all fields including education, business, work, and communication and interaction among others. Individuals can easily interact with others from different parts of the world through social networking sites, conduct business, and access learning materials form the internet. However, it has promoted immoral deeds in the society as it has led to increased access to sexually explicit materials, fraud and piracy as well as violent videos among others. References Bargh, J.A., and McKenna, K., 2004, The Internet And Social Life, Annual Review of Psychology, 55:573–90. Kaminow, I.P., 1997, The Internet and Society, Optical Fiber Technology, Vol. 3, Issue 4, pp. 279–299. Klotz, R. J. 2004, The politics of Internet communication. Lanham, Md, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Park, H.L., 2007, Internet Effects on Political Participation: Digital Divide, Causality, and New Digital Divide, ProQuest. Porter, D., 2013, Internet Culture, London: Routledge. Read More