Political Communication in the Electronic Age - Essay Example

Political Communication in the Electronic Age With the advent of the internet and massive computing systems that are increasingly smaller in physical scale, the world is becoming an ever-shrinking globe. National boundaries are becoming blurred as people in India begin working for companies in the United States and cultural groups are beginning to lose their sense of uniqueness as the world’s civilizations become more and more Westernized with the onset of full-scale capitalism. Computers are becoming smaller, more readily available and more affordable for those in even small, out of the way places. Technologies are emerging that place computers in the hands of children who don’t even have access to electricity, providing instead a hand crank to provide the necessary power to run basic programs. This begins to illustrate the importance the internet is taking on in the new interconnected high technology world. This worldwide establishment of the internet throughout most cultures and countries has revolutionized the way people live their lives on many fronts. With the introduction of the internet and communications occurring literally at the speed of light, new practices in modern living are evolving, such as e-commerce, e-trade and e-finance, creating a much more interconnected world even as we remain physically quite far apart. People are finding it possible to do everything they need to do from their own desktop, including receiving the news, interacting with others, working, shopping, banking, trading and any number of other activities. In addition, the internet’s content is relatively free of restriction which allows for the concept of free speech to be fully exercised and put to the test. This changing world of communications technologies, which has made such significant changes to the real way in which people live their lives, has ushered in a new political age as well. Through these various functions, it can be seen that the internet and the world wide web are changing the boundaries, functioning and meaning of the political process in contemporary society. The changing world of the general media The ability of people to connect with each other across long distances at practically the speed of light via the web has changed not only the way people communicate, but also the expectations they have for the retrieval of information. Email is free and instantaneous causing its use by businesses and individuals to grow at a phenomenal rate over the past decade. Few people write letters or read the newspapers anymore as these are seemingly archaic methods of communication and have the added disadvantage of costing money, regardless of how little this sum might actually be. “Nowadays, we think nothing of emailing our aunts in Germany and getting an answer back within minutes, or seeing the latest streaming video full of up to the minute news” (Boswell, 2006). Neither letter-writing nor newspaper delivery can provide the instant information that is today essential for businesses in the modern world to compete effectively and simply a fact of life that is taken for granted for most in the developed world. This fact alone has changed the way in which the politicians of the world must reach out to their constituency if they expect to gain support. People, the public at large as well as politicians, are now turning to alternative forms of receiving information, such as blogs, video blogs, webcasts, chatrooms and listservs. However, this introduces new challenges in determining just how to determine credible sources from noncredible and just how far the internet should be allowed to go in terms of free speech and expression. Decency, censorship, free speech, ethics One of the controversial aspects of the internet and instant posting is that the internet provides a means of gathering news that has not necessarily been filtered through the many regulations and restrictions imposed by national or state boundaries. By the same token, campaign messages, political commentary and so forth does not necessarily carry the sanction of the party or individual suggested. This opens entirely new areas in which crooked politics might take place as a variety of possibilities for slanderous messages remain equally plausible. This is primarily due to the fact that the internet itself is not regulated. As efficient and enormously informative as the web is, its content is not overseen as are other communications mediums such as television and radio. It is a groundbreaking new technology that has amalgamated societies of the world. With its inception, it has introduced the concept of truly free expression and the perception that nothing is taboo. Everything is exposed and available at everyone’s literal finger-tip. The Internet has no physical, ethical or moral boundaries. An example of how the internet can be easily used to further unscrupulous political agendas can perhaps be best seen through the analogy of pornography. Federal, state and local laws limit access to materials such as pornography but anyone, young or old can access this or anything else on the internet. A teenager cannot walk into a video store and rent an adult movie but can log on and quickly find many thousands of adult movies that can be viewed, downloaded and stored or even sold to other teenagers (Emmans, 2000). Although there are plenty of laws in many developed countries that govern children’s access to pornography, these laws are unenforceable and thus meaningless with the advent of the internet. If a hot topic such as pornography cannot be adequately controlled to any extent, there seems little a political party might not be able to successfully introduce. More than just the problem of pornography, it has become increasingly difficult for children as well as adults to distinguish between those media sources that can be considered reliable and those that are created by uninformed amateurs. This becomes even more complicated when informed posters are working to blow the whistle on well-established, sometimes even reputable organizations that have adopted unethical practices. An example of this can be seen in the reports of Paul Kenyon (2000) regarding the working conditions for many factory workers in Cambodia. While the information is presented globally on the web, it is in the form of a text document, which lacks the colors and formal organization of the respectable news station from which it was generated, the BBC. Although he is blowing the whistle on unethical practices being conducted by the multinational powerhouse Nike, catching them in the act so to speak with hidden cameras and confidential interviews with factory workers, would this report be seen as credible by the browsing public? And how would this report stand out against the many uninformed posts that have been made against this company from individuals who simply assume they know the truth, but have no proof of such? These are important considerations as it is how individuals filter through these various news and information sources that determine the way they view the world around them. This helps to illustrate some of the ways in which the internet has exploded the previous boundaries of politics as well as begun redefining the meaning of the process. How the internet is bringing about these changes The commonly used term ‘mass media’ encompasses numerous institutions and individuals that differ in method and purpose, but has usually played a large role in the shaping of political institutions. In general usage, the term has been considered to define groups who make up the communications profession in both the entertainment and news industries. “Mass media refers to those media that are designed to be consumed by large audiences through the agencies of technology” (Boles, 2003). This concept is brought into even greater focus in the definition provided by Brendan Richards (2000) in which he states mass media refers to “Specialist institutions such as books, magazines, adverts, newspapers, radio, television, cinema, videos which occupy a central and pivotal role in our lives.” It is significant that the earlier definition, that provided by Richards, focuses upon traditional print and film media while the later definition provided by Boles focuses upon the importance of the blanket term technology. This pervading interrelationship between the various forms of communication, including the high tech avenues of the internet, further support the concept that the political process must undergo some sort of change if it is to keep up with the modern world. The specific role of the media in society is often debated but what is not argued is that access to information is essential to the health of a liberal democratic society. Newspapers, radio, television and the internet allow citizens the opportunity to make informed choices and serves as part of the checks and balances of a society, a ‘fourth branch of government.’ Mass media is necessary as its existence ensures that those elected to public office are held accountable. For example, the Internet has revolutionized Canadian journalism and has already changed public discourse in that country. “Over the next 10 years, as a new political generation comes on-line, the Internet will probably surpass television as the main mode of communication. And with the Internet will provide an even greater ability for the public to talk back” (Ansolabehere, 2000). Reporters already have consummate access to government documents and databases, public and private libraries, and archives of newspapers and other publications through the power of the Internet. An effective media outlet must have editorial independence and serve a diversity of public interests uncontrolled by government or ideological influence. However, this easy access has proven itself disastrous for the Bush Administration in America as documents and ‘leaks’ have found their way out, often through the gaps left on the internet. Email messages have been used in court as convenient, time and date stamped evidence that knowledge was held at specific time periods and greater numbers of people are able to access the supporting documentation for themselves. As these examples illustrate, an adversarial relationship sometimes exists between mass media and the government regarding the public’s right to know balanced against matters of national security (Center for Democracy and Governance, 1999). Elected officials many times forget that the same democratic mechanism that allowed their rise to power is designed to monitor their progress. The media also serves to entertain and the line drawn between news reporters’ efforts to amuse and sources of entertainment attempting to inform is crossed continuously, increasing and confusing the methods by which the political process can be played out. Media acts as the link between people’s personal lives to events outside what they encounter in their everyday routine. Because of this connection, it serves as an important vehicle in the understanding of how society functions and strengthens the public’s involvement in those decisions that affect their standard of living. The media reflects and reports and, as some speculate, shapes collective societal thought, thus an understanding of these venues of information is vital to the understanding of our civilization itself (Hermes, 2006). At the same time that mass media is shaping societal thought, the ability of the Internet to allow average users to post their own views and comments has the effect of shaping mass media. As Paul Ford (2001) puts it regarding the advent of the internet into the general world, “it felt like we were being listened to, taken seriously, and understood. We had a voice, we lonesome dorks evangelizing the Internet to our peers and betters, trying to explain how gopher, FTP, and the nascent WWW was a radical reinvention of all knowledge.” These concepts are supported by Hassan (2004) and others who have traced the advent of the internet through such communication revolutions. The addition of the internet has ushered in an age of highly technologically produced mass communication and has made it possible for us to gain access to far more information than ever before in the history of mankind. The powerful influence and far-reaching access of mass media and its evolving effects on society is a subject of vital debate as the level of freedom the media experience dictates the level of freedom of the country, thus forming an integral link to the political process. Information is crucial to a complex and advanced civilization. Societies feed on an ever-increasing amount of facts to maintain and increase the standard of living. Determining which sites are informative and which merely fictional can have a significant impact upon the way in which an individual views the world. Realizing this, many are seeking reliable methods of discerning between ‘good’ information and that which is not based on truth, which does not always mean the simple searching for large, brand-name media outlets. Information has always been and is increasingly becoming a commodity that the public are willing to pay increasing amounts for. As society experiences ever increasing amounts of leisure time, it depends on mass media to provide much of its information and entertainment. Inextricably linked to this is the need for the political process to reach the people with accurate and reliable information in a format that induces confidence, something that has not yet been achieved. Blogs, Video Blogs, Webcasts, Chatrooms, Listservs Through such user-directed content as blogs, webcasts and listservs, the common man is now, for perhaps the first time in history, able to have some form of interaction with the major news mediums of the world and therefore to have a say in the political process itself. Noah Shachtman (2002) points out how it was internet bloggers that created such a stir regarding Trent Lott’s racist comments in America that brought the politician’s past to the attention of major news organizations who would, in all likelihood, have ignored them otherwise. “They kept focusing on Lott’s hateful past – until the national press corps finally had to take notice. … Lott’s bile is one of several issues that this burgeoning community helped push on to the national agenda” (Shachtman, 2002). The term ‘blog’ is actually techno-geek shorthand for ‘web logging’, and, as such, has a well-earned reputation for being merely an online diary for a variety of people. However, as has been noted by Shachtman and others, blogs have been taking on new meanings in recent years as internet use and knowledge grows among the general public. “Blogs can be used to make political statements, promote products, provide research information and give tutorials” (Ng, 2007). As such, blogs can be found written by politicians, musicians, novelists, sports figures, newscasters and other notable figures as attempts to not only share their opinions, but to promote their own personal agendas separate from the restrictive and uncontrolled traditional venues of newspaper and television. As might be imagined, video blogs add the elements of sound and video to the presentation, providing these users with the added credibility of a news-type presentation. “The potential for everyone to self-publish has the ability to revolutionize the world by sharing video across cultures and countries” (Clint Sharp cited in Dean, 2005). By turning to video, vloggers are able to bring multiple subjects to the screen rather than being concerned about the filters of mass media publishers. Other methods of internet communication have opened up the concept of communication as well. Through listservs, internet users have been able to post their questions to the world even from its earliest days. This process is almost like standing atop a mountain and shouting a question out to the great beyond. The only difference is, with listservs, users can expect to receive an answer if they’ve selected an appropriate forum. Their question remains online for as long as the server cares to host it, allowing users from all places and multiple times to respond while providing ample room for further discussion. Chatrooms build on this concept by adding instant responses to this text-based mode of communication. As users type in their thoughts, other users can immediately respond, having ‘virtual conversations’ in real time. Organized in community groups of shared interests, chatrooms have enabled internet users to share information on a wide scale without dependence upon more traditional methods of news media and without the wait typically associated with previous community-specific publications such as magazines and newspapers (Pack, 2003). For the first time in modern history, individuals in the general public are able to interact one on one with their elected representatives and participate first hand in the political process. There remain several inherent risks with this method of communication however, the most pressing being that of internet predators seeking younger internet users for harmful purposes (Sullivan, 2006) as well as the high degree of misrepresentation that can occur when practical jokers begin creating their own versions of political propaganda. This is only possible because of the close relationships that can form with frequent conversation and sharing of interests. Combining the self-expression attributes of the blogs with the interactive aspects of listservs and chatrooms and placing it all in streaming media, webcasts allow any average internet user to become their own interactive news program discussing whichever topics they choose and allowing other internet users to call or write in their responses and questions. Through this technology, “online meetings are interactive and collaborative. They’re in real time so there’s two-way communication via instant messaging or other software between a participant and the conference leader or across the team or group, depending on how you customize the meeting. You can instantly share content and visuals, watch and listen to presentations or ask questions and make comments – often simultaneously” (Krotz, 2007). In the political sphere, politicians have used webcasts to help launch campaigns or to advocate party affiliations. In this instance, webcasts demonstrates all three facets of the internet identified by Polat (2005): the internet as communication device as the politician makes his or her thoughts and ideas known, the internet as an information source as participants are able to gain this first-hand knowledge from the politician and also fact-check what is being said simultaneously and the internet as a virtual public sphere as participants are able to interact with the politician, asking questions or making comments that are posted for all to see. The American political race for the next President is a case in point, with several candidates hosting webcast presentations in which a large number of people are able to participate from the comfort of their own homes. As with the other communication technologies, webcasts have enabled the average individual regardless of their home country, business, vocation or interest to work around the national media chains and present their views in their own way, introducing a great deal more information into the general community than has been available previously. Conclusion With the changing format of the mass media as it is joined by countless numbers of individual voices from around the world, politicians have no other option but to participate in the new technology if they are to distribute their information, gain public support or open new dialogues with their constituents. The boundaries of the political process have been decimated by the influx of new technologies that allow anyone to put out their information, regardless of how well-founded or ill-founded it might be, at the click of a button. The problem of filtering out ‘true’ information as opposed to the media slant a politician might wish to place on a topic or the unfounded accusations and ravings of an individual seven times removed from the party can be expected to remain a problem for many years to come, creating a great deal of confusion regarding the meaning of politics. As more and more politicians begin utilizing the internet, the very function of politics is changing as well. References Ansolabehere, Stephen. (2000). “The Role of the Media.” International Information Programs. Illinois State University. Boles, Derek. (2003). “Language of Media Literacy: A Glossary of Terms.” Center for Media Literacy. Canada. Boswell, Wendy. (2006). “How the World Wide Web has Changed Society.” About the Internet. Accessed 13 April 2007 from Center for Democracy and Governance. (June 1999). “The Role of Media in Democracy: A Strategic Approach.” Bureau for Global Programs, Field Support and Research. 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(2005). “The Internet and Political Participation.” European Journal of Communication. Vol. 20, N. 4: 435-59. Richards, Brendan. (26 September 2000). “Glossary.” Accessed 13 April 2007 Shachtman, Noah. (23 December 2002). “Blogs Make the Headlines.” Wired News. Sullivan, Mike. (2006). “How to Protect Your Kids Online.” The Dangers of Chat and Instant Messaging. Security Software Systems. Read More