Social Media Practices - Essay Example

Running Head: SOCIAL MEDIA PRACTICES Name: Institution: Date: Social Media Practices Communication through social websites has significantly transformed political power balance The advancement of Contemporary media practices has changed from the traditional forms to a new form whose key elements are involvement and interrelation (O'Reilly, 2007). Today, the needs of society are defined in such a manner that almost everything is becoming digitalized. Everything is being extended across as much media as it is possible and this media is getting shaped day in day out after by everyone. Much of this media that this paper is referring to here has much to do with the internet and the online sphere. This is a confirmation by the statement made by Brucks et al “that the internet has become a part of our everyday life” (Brucks, 2008). The reason as to why the internet has become this popular is that today we are able to do the same things that we do in real life on the internet faster, more efficiently and cheaply. Social networking sites such as facebook, twitter, and myspace are some of the sites that are increasingly being used as tools of communication. The explosion that is social networking has brought with it many changes in the society both positive and negative. Today, people are doing things differently from the way they used to do them. But before delving into the issue of the impact of social networking and how it has transformed political power balance in the world today, the question that perhaps begs is “what is a social networking site?” A social networking site is a website where individuals are able to set up a personal profile which in most cases consists of personal information and the individual’s interests (Hawkins & Harris, 2012). However, according to Boyd and Ellison, although the main technology that is involved in social networking tends to be significantly the same across the board, the cultures that surround social media networking are diverse (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). This is in reference to political views, interests that users share and the activities that take place in those sites. Some sites hold up the sustenance of other social networks. From this description, it is clear that social networks are places where we interrelate and correspond with each other. We use them every day to get in touch with friends as well as relatives and also to create new relationships. The popularity of a social network is determined by the services and facets that it offers its users. According to “ebizmba”, a site that ranks social network sites on the basis of their popularity, facebook twitter and linkedin were the most popular sites by May 2012 (EbizMBA, 2012). One of the main characteristic features of these sites is that they offer a miscellaneous assortment of support and systems that enable individuals to communicate online. Through these means, they have been able to promote interaction between varying groups, enhance usability and participation and enhance the speed at which Globalization is taking place. Social networking sites can therefore be said to have contributed immensely to the growth of essential models of the contemporary “digital” culture. Social networking sites offer a variety of tools through which that are user-friendly and through which their users can easily interact and communicate as well as take part in various platforms be they social or political. For instance, facebook and myspace offer their users features through which they can create message boards, commonly known as groups that are in most cases based on interests and this has encouraged the formation of platforms where people with similar political or social interests can interact and exchange ideas. Groups, unlike “fan pages” (a usage that refers to follower based web pages) are multidimensional and encourage dialoguing. They are an equivalent of the clubs that are formed in the real world (Greenstein, 2009). These groups vary from fan groups, to community organizations to school groups and even political organizations. The basic common component of these groups is communication and sharing of information. Apart from the interaction component social networking sites give their users the power to respond and comment on posts by other people with reference to the availability of such features. Sites like YouTube offer the opportunity to share videos and comment on them. This aspect of allowing people to give feedback encourages multi-dimensional communication as opposed to the one dimensional feature of other blogs and sites of earlier days. It therefore goes without saying that social networking sites as Siegler suggests are often times a means of extension of day to day life (Siegler, 2009). Digital communication therefore does not pose any greater danger than real life communication to the individuals that take part in them. Many social networking sites operate on the basis on an increasingly viability of the divergent and transferable nature of technology. As Chris Bonk puts it, divergence and digital technology are inseparable and this has led to the digitizing of technology based communication such as that of social networks (Bronk, 2008). Communication services are also selling technology gadgets and services in a “stack”, meaning that they are providing a whole bunch of different services that serve various purposes as one. They are therefore congregating their business models and this has led to the incorporation of connection into a king of social networking site as well. Widgetbox (a website) has a wide range of applications (widgets) to select from which can also be used to access other websites (mostly blogs) through Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. The RSS feeds are the linkage that ties these sites to widgetbox. Social networking thus establishes a prolonged connection and a sense of belonging. Social networks and convergence technology together with the applications that connect them also enhance liberty and portability in the sense that they give people a chance to get access to information as well as to share that information with others anytime, anywhere. Through the creation and amalgamation in groups, people are also capable of coming together with other people who have the same interests. 2.0 Hypothesis In the year 2001January 17th during the impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada of Philippine, his congress loyalists cast votes to stop the impeachment process by setting aside evidence to exonerate him. In less than two hours after the judgment was announced, Filipinos who had been alerted of the court’s decision and who were worried that the president who was corrupt was going to go scot free without paying for his crimes congregated at the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in Manila. This protest was organized partly by means of text messaging that red “Go 2 EDSA. Wear blk.” After the text message dispatched, a crowd built up fast and for a few days more than a million people joined it. This case demonstrates the ability to organize enormous and quick reaction. About seven million messages were sent that week. The Philippine legislators were so alarmed that they overturned the ruling and let the evidence be presented and thus the fate of Estrada was reversed and by the 20th of the same month he was out of power. It was the first time in History that such a social media had helped in the impeachment of a National leader. The population of networked people in the world has grown from millions to billions in a span less than two decades since the 1990’s when the internet revolution began. At the same time social media have become a mode of existence for civil societies all over the world that are involving citizens, NGOS, software providers, governments, activists and telecommunications firms (Shirky, 2011). As the communication arena gets more intricate, more involving and more crowded, the network mass is gaining greater right to use to information, more opportunities and an improved means of assume joint achievement. This kind of increased freedom is able to change the picture of loosely coordinated political arena. The case of Philippine has been adopted in many other such cases after 2001. In some cases the protesters were successful and in some they were not. For instance, in Spain, protesters were able to hoist their Prime Minister in 2004 through text messaging after he had given false information on the Madrid travel explosions. The loss of power of the Communist party in 2009 in Moldova is another example in which text messaging, facebook and Twitter were used as media for coordinating mass action. The Catholic Church has been a target of numerous lawsuits all over the world because of allegations of child molestations within its jurisdiction. These lawsuits were instigated when “The Boston Globe’s 2002 sexual abuse in the church expose” went viral over the internet within a few hours. Some of the media organized activist protests that failed include the Belarus March 2006 protests which were organized partly by email against President Aleksandr Lukashenko because of alleged rigging of elections failed. Another example is that of Iraq when the Green Movement in Iraq organized an uprising using every technological means possible to protest rigging claims in a Presidential election involving Mir Hossei Mousavi, but this ended up in a violent crackdown by government forces. In Thailand, in the year 2010, the red shirt uprising ended up in a dead end when social media savvy protesters gathered in downtown Bangkok until they were dispersed by government forces in a shootout that left dozens of them dead. Much more recently in 2011, Uprisings rocked several Muslim African and Middle East Countries among them Egypt, Libya, Tunisia etc. Social media (text messaging, photo sharing, emailing facebook, twitter, myspace, etc.) use in politics can have a myriad of outcomes and attempts to define the effects of these attempts can sometimes be a discouraging and somewhat difficult task. Empirical works on the issue are also difficult to come by because the subject is too new and relevant examples oftenly too rare. Questions such as whether digital tools enhance democracy as put forward by Jacob Groshek and Phillip Howard are quantitative attempts. They might not hurt today and at the same time they might help in the long run. They however tend to produce very dramatic results in countries where the Government is always in danger of being constrained by a public sphere. Social media have become very important tools for coordination of political activities across the world despite the mixed records that have been discussed in this hypothesis. At the same time, many authoritarian Governments are trying to constrain access to them. In response to his, Governments that believe in democracy through the US State Department commits itself to promotion of internet freedom” as a unit entity of policy. For America to argue that the right crowd of people should be left to access the internet without restrictions is a plus for the society globally because it means that there will be a promotion of “freedom of expression” (Shirky, 2011). However the plan by the use to promote the interest of specific groups for their benefits within its boundaries might not be as effective for the world as it should be and failure cannot be without serious consequences. This paper will focus on the facet of social media to offer creative means by which political players’ institutions as well as the public have been able to use the digital technology platform and the features that the social media offer to interact with one another and how this has transformed political power balance as well as to what extend it has done so. Taking Canada, USA and UK and other countries as examples it will outline how social media is being used in the political field. It will also argue that social media use in politics has brought certain specific benefits which will be outlined herein as well as risks that have been accredited to the use of the social media for purposes of politics. The paper will also investigate the inferences that the use of digital technology might have on representation which is the core value of politics. 2.1 Politicians and Political Parties Social media have turned into valuable tools for politicians and political parties as well as organizations that have political affiliations as tools of broadcasting political communication, acquiring knowledge on the concerns and necessities of their followers and those of the entire public, as well as disseminating information, raising finances and engaging groups for support. Most of the time, these activities are carried out in privately managed social sites that permit politicians to communicate with the public and interest groups in ways that are not adjudicated or interrupted in any way. In Canada, many members of Parliament have accounts in popular social sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and Myspace and the content that is usually put out there in these sites varies from policy related content to official work of the politicians to features on their personal lives. The four main political parties that have representation in the Canadian Parliament also have accounts on Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and Myspace. They also have YouTube channels on which they share news video clips, adverts, and any other video clips related to the party as well as its officials are posted in order for the public to have access to them. The links to these sites are also shared on the main websites of the parties together with other features that are user friendly and members of the public that enable them to “bookmark” the pages as well as other features as well as share aspects of the party’s websites with other networks online . However each party’s website has its own features which are specific to itself. Social Media are also used as campaign strategy tools. The Barrack Obama Campaign of 2009 for instance that was branded “America For Obama (OFA)” was built on a database of about 13 million email addresses, a digital volunteer network that raised money for the campaign and a the public blog that actively took part in the campaign (Shirky, 2011). These features enabled the campaign to garner enough support at the grassroots level and encourage vast voter numbers. One media strategist who worked on the Obama campaign, said that the social media played the role of an establishment upon which the plans of the campaigns were built and that this establishment is the one that linked the participants of both off and online campaign (Shirky, 2011). For instance, the campaign participants that were registered under the OFA website were advised to organize fundraisings and drum up support in their localities. In a similar vein, the “get out the vote” campaigns that were run by both Barrack Obama and the then Republican Party Presidential candidate John McCain were mainly based on social media. The campaign utilized “wikis (websites that enable users to easily add content to a series of linked web pages using simplified Web markup language)” to obtain standardized contact information that would later enable users to share sets of supporter data as well as potential supporter data and to harmonize outreach agendas as well as synchronization of outreach endeavors. Other online based tools that were used empowered users to build online address books and send objective messages to their family members and friends asking them to support their candidate. In Canada just like many other countries across the world, social media have not yet been able to feature as prominently in campaigns as they have in the USA. In the year 2008, “Publicinsite”, a firm that deals in web analytics brought to the public light that Web based campaign strategies are very much in play in Canadian politics specifically in areas of “web design” the usage of “rich media”. However, the firm established in its report that social media use as well as the use of other is not yet web based tools have not yet been established as basic tools of trade in as far as campaign is concerned and especially with respect to the active mobilization of political supporters (Shirky, 2011) 3.0 The Politics of Pressure People involve themselves in politics through various ways among them voting and joining political parties as well as becoming actively involved in politics through other means such as membership of organizations, political groups and involvement. According to Alexander and Levine, we are in the age of pressure groups politics which are oftenly seen as the informal face of politics (Alexander & Levine, 2008). Many writers are of the opinion that groups might replace political parties since the numbers of groups as well as those that are involved in them seem to be on the rise while at the same time the numbers of people that are joining political parties seem to be dwindling everyday hence the rise in the number of pressure groups. Today, there are more than 7000 alliances of various figures and structures operating in the UK and half of these were formed after 1960 to date. The formation and operations of groups have also been associated with the development of new political styles and activism or the so called “new politics”. “New politics” can be said to comprise of sit-ins, express action, matches and acceptable protests. All these have proved to be of essence when it comes to approaching and winning a growing crowd of young people who are tired and disillusioned by the scenes that they evidence in conservative politics. Pressure politics is however a very challenging and confusing segment since they are quite different from each other be they local charity fests or multinational corporations or worldwide lobby groups e.g. the Greenpeace and Amnesty International. Pressure groups are also hard to categorize. Discussions also abound on the issue of the political power that pressure groups possess as well as which ones are more influential. Above all, there are queries on whether pressure groups have any values to uphold as far as democracy is concerned. 3.1 Case in study In the year 2005, “Make Poverty History Campaign” launched an awareness campaign that was partly coordinated through the social media to upraise as well as stress that the governments should take action to eradicate global poverty. “Make poverty History” campaign was a conglomeration of various groups among them trade unions, religious organizations campaigning groups and celebrities. The campaign aimed at pressuring the leaders of the G8 to drop the African debt and to introduce a fairer system of trade. The campaign got to its peak in July of the same year when the activities of this campaign coincided with the meeting of the G8 summit in the city of Gleneagles in Scotland. More than 220, 000 demonstrators converged in Edinburg to promote the activities of the campaign as well as its demands. More than 300,000 enthusiasts of the campaign sent emails to the then Prime Minister Tony Blair and the campaign was able to sell over9 million bracelets that were made from silicone and cotton. Live concerts were also part of this campaign and numerous live concerts connected to the campaign took place in about ten venues all over the world attracting over 100 bands and an audience of over 3 million who were viewing the concert through their televisions. The campaign organizers later declared that so many people had never come together before in the history of the world to demand an end to poverty. There is no doubt that “make poverty history” was able to bring the issue of poverty to the limelight of the world’s political agenda as well as the public attention, something that was not forgotten for the next few week even months. The question that one is bound to ask is whether it made poverty history. Well, it did not, but the campaign was declared a success since they were convinced that the campaign played a major role in persuading the G8 countries to promise a sum of 25 million US dollars on debt relief in Africa. This was obviously a drop in the sea when it comes to the issue of dealing with global poverty. The trading system of the world did not change much after the campaign and the 25 million dollars that make poverty history believed they had coerced the G8 countries to promise had been promised much earlier before the summit in Gleneagles Scotland summit (Sergeyev & Biryukov, 1993) The campaign ended up looking like a superficial reaction to the problem of poverty and criticism followed thereafter with people declaring that the strategy that “make history poverty” adopted were more of a “lifestyle” politics as opposed to objective political activism. The world of pressure groups is always at play in our day to day life. They are the churches that we have in the world today, trade unions, professional organizations, charity organizations, think tanks and so forth. Though some of these groups are focused on specific goals such as those of pressuring Governments, most of them exist for different reasons and only take part in political social media campaigns for secondary interests. The power of mass political protests or rallies has become the focus of spectators for some time now. Pressure groups have found their ways in to the social media arena as well but the greatest prospect of mass social media protests aimed at changing the political power balance lies in civil societies and the public. Governments such as the US government need to uphold the freedom of the internet as a goal that will be practiced in a neutral regime fashion and not as an object of putting into effect individual country policy aims. Progress should be assumed to be incremental in this effort and slowest in authoritarian state like Russia, Turkey, etc, which are authoritarian just as it should be and norms of cooperation are likely to change from time to time in specific networks within these individual jurisdictions from one kind of situation to another (Sergeyev & Biryukov, 1993). 4.0 Access to information versus conversation in the Social media political environment Today’s social media movements are have numerous inexhaustible means of structuring their views and harmonizing their actions. It would be impossible to describe such actions as the loss of Parliamentary power of the Moldovan communist party after 2009 general elections without talking about the role of online tools by the party’s opponents as mobilization tools. Authoritarian governments suffocate social media freedom among their citizens because they are fearful of the outcome of better coordination which is the result of political social media mobilization. Such coordination would be a threat to the ability of such governments to act without making mistakes (Shirky, 2011). In spite of this fundamental fact (that freedom of communication is good for political freedom), the tool of implementation of the “internet statecraft” is not without constrains. There is for instance the issue of outsiders not being in a position to understand the immediate neighboring circumstances that cause dissentions. External support is one issue that could cause misunderstanding as to the source of opposition and this could be misunderstood as interference by external elements. The better way of thinking of social media is to see them as long term tools of strengthening civil societies and the public sphere which should eventually lead to a strong democratic sphere. This does not mean that wayward governments cannot be punished by popular political social media movements rather it is to say external intervention in individual countries could do more harm than good. From this perspective, social media politics are a long haul in the game of politics and should be viewed as a means to an end and not an end by themselves. 5.0 Social Media tools are not a replacement of the real world action but a means to coordinate it The developing public sphere that this paper has discussed in depth is an entity where the opinion of the public relies deeply on both media and conversation and is the key element of the environmental view of the freedom that the internet offers. This view as discussed above defines political change as change that takes place only when there is sustainable distribution and implementation of thoughts. This belief is different as the one which the western countries hold as true as the source of democracy. Access to information is far much less important to political action than access to conversation and a public sphere is more likely to be influenced to greater heights by politically ungratified people. 5.1 Civil Society Social media is being used today by citizens to unite publicly, to sway the decisions of the decision makers and to hold governments and legislatures accountable for their actions. In the United Kingdom, a watchdog site that is associated with UK citizens online democracy known as “They work for you” is helping its users to follow the voting records, committee work of Parliamentarians as well as speeches. The site merges its own content with that of the Hansard society and heartens its users to contribute towards the realization of quality and the quantity of the information provided in the site. In Canada, sites like www.politwitter.ca and www.tweetcommons.com give citizens a chance to access twitter accounts of the Canadian representatives from one location. The sites also play the role of assessing the performance of individual representatives on twitter. They also rank the frequency at which specific topics are discussed by their users and rely on the information that such users give to make crucial compilations of information in an easy way. Apart from easing political failure to notice the efforts of public actors and institutions, social media are used to raise consciousness about certain aspects and engender sustenance for important causes. 5.2 Potential benefits of political uses of social media Social media can foster much needed pluralism in political dissertation Social media may be able to give citizens a chance to become more politically responsible Social media may build trust in public associations and figures It may help politicians to better dispense their duties to citizens and their governments as well as serve their needs of the public better It may slot in youths to be more useful in the democratic process 5.3 Potential risks of political uses of social media -Social media may make it difficult to control the image of the persons as well as organizations -Social media may fertile grounds for “mock lobbying” -Social media could pose a dilemma in as far as resources is concerned -Social media may lead to “Surveillance state” 6.o Conclusion The debate on political uses of social media and the effects of new technologies on representative democracies are at its core. Those that support it are of the opinion that these technologies support political responsibility. On the other side, those that are against it are of the opinion that these technologies waste too much time and have tuned the political arena into a game of marketing that is governed by individual interests and wealthy political players. It’s still too early to establish whether these claims are true and whether the benefits outlined in this paper will be realized or not. The only thing that is clear is that social media are becoming ordinary communication tools for politicians as well as institutions together with the citizenry. Time and experience are the only factors that will bring a solution to the current indecision on the benefits and destructions that social media practices can cause on representative democracy. 7.0 References Alexander, B., & Levine, A. (2008). Storytelling: Emergence of a new Genre. Educause review , 1-11. Boyd, D., & Ellison, N. (2007). 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Russia's road to democracy: Parliament, communism and Traditional Culture. Brookfield: Aldershopt. Shirky, C. (2011). The political power of social media: Technology, the Public Sphere and Political Change. Journal of Democracy , 1-12. Siegler, M. (2009). Location is the Missing Llink Between Social Networks and the Real World. Journal of Democracy , 11-13. Read More