Politics in Information Systems - Essay Example

Politics in Information Systems Technology has Politics Technologies are political. They are shaped by social forces, and that is why they are important. Winner (1999:22) asserts that politics is “rearrangement of power and authority in human associations.” This definition makes it easy to understand how technology is political in terms of social order, social exclusion, power, and domination. Politics of technology makes us ponder what do we design, how do we design, and whoever is involved in the design of technology that it has such a profound impact upon all areas of life and society. Modern societies have opted to incorporated technology into every walk of life, for which it provides the designers with all kinds of technological structures. Technology has made life easier, while also making it harder for human beings to live without it. It has made huge impacts upon social ordering, making those powerful who have the resources to use technology, and making others weak in terms of influence. It is important to know while studying social ordering who is going to benefit from technological structures and technological designs. Some people are always going to be favored by the technological designs than the other. Here comes the concept of digital divide. Digital divide is a symbol of inclusion and exclusion of individuals in social ordering. It is the gap between the consumers who have an access to computers and internet and those who do not use computers and internet due to reasons like computer illiteracy, lack of finances, not having access to computers at all, or lack of “internet connectedness” (Loges, 2001: 536). The concept of social exclusion jumps in here as a significant effect of politics of technology. Digital divide is, at times, defined as the “gap among income, racial, ethnic, regional, or other groups in terms of differential access to the internet, where access is considered a dichotomous variable” (Garson 2006: 98). The policy makers make use of this definition while making public policies regarding the spread of information technology services. Consumers cannot afford physical access to the internet or computers, but also because they lack suitable competencies to use the information technology at its best. For example, a school may purchase high-end computer hardware and software for teaching purposes, but may lack teacher resources or staff competencies due to which the information technology services go unutilized. So, those schools that adopt technological advances in education are favorable for students, while those that either lack funding for technological resources or lack skilled staff get socially excluded when it comes to parents making choices for their children. Moreover, technology is inflexible sometimes, which gives rise to the dilemma of power and domination. For example, assembly line in factories requires human bodies to act in accordance with the machine within the boundaries of time and speed. This inflexibility makes those succeed who have the power of adjustment. Those possessing this power of adjustment enjoy domination over others. 2. Two Political Technologies/Information Systems 2.1. Marketing Information System Politics and marketing are inter-related. Political candidates best align themselves and their standards to the standards of their voters, thus, hiding their actual; personalities and morals. They advertise themselves in front of the candidates in the best possible fashion so that they get selected. Marketing does the same purpose for products. Companies present their production in the best possible manner to attract consumers. Marketing Information System (MkIS) implements softwares for the marketing department. It deals with activities related to compilation and investigation of marketing research information. It involves consumer response surveys, analysis of supply and deliverance of the product and an overview of profit. This information helps in marketing related decision-making (Marketing Decision Support System software, MDSS) like what improvements can be done in the product, should the cost be reduced or increased, should it be marketed through other types of media, and etcetera. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software applications, which deal with the relationship between consumer and organization, are used to increase the return on marketing efforts through analyzing the history of customer-organization interaction. CRM systems give an analysis of consumer behavior toward the product through market monitoring and research. MkIS also facilitates sales labors and customer service, and helps in the development of effective marketing strategy. “Political marketing bears a number of similarities to the marketing of goods and services. Consumers choose among brands just as voters choose among candidates or parties”, state Gordon, Moorthy and Soberman (2012: 392). MkIS is being used in politics to collect response surveys from the candidates which helps in making estimates as to the trends in the voter preferences for their candidates. This makes MkIS a political information system as it provides handy solutions to the marketing of candidates in the electoral process. Information from the political parties is collected, which may be in the form of primary or secondary data (Stensova & Starchon 2009: 321). Either the political party or the research agency gathers this sensitive information. “These agencies are surveying the politician’s credibility, preferences for the party, constituents’ preferences and sympathies towards the party. In addition, they are making electoral forecasts either ordered by the political party or for the purpose of informing the public” (Stensova & Starchon 2009: 321). Public surveys are conducted for the purpose of evaluating the voters’ preferences. MkIS stores all of this information, which is used for the evaluation of the candidates and also to obtain public opinion based on the information the information system provides them. This shows that the political infrastructure heavily depends on the marketing policies and marketing information systems, so as to make the public better informed about the electoral candidates and their choices (Cwalina, Falkowski & Newman 2011: 35). This not only empowers the public but also makes them better informed about the effects of their decisions on the stability of a government. MkIS provides better opportunities to the politicians to present themselves as favorable candidates in front of the public, and the public gets empowered by the provision of correct political information about the candidates. 2.2. Social Network Sites Social Network Sites (SNSs) are the websites that function like online communities of people who use the internet. There are a lot of SNSs which allow the internet users to take their membership for free and socialize with other members regarding hobbies, career, religion, fashion, politics etcetera. The users read the profile pages of other members, share views and ideas, give comments and contact them via their profiles. In short, an SNS is a great means of bringing people of same wave length together and socializing with the outside world. People create their profiles which are in fact their identities which may be real or fake. SNSs have redefined identity development in a way that people can now make friends which are even not their type but of the type of the new identity that has been created on the SNS profile. SNSs are a political technology as they are being used as sites of political agreements and disagreements among the users (Hendricks, Hendricks & Kaid 2014: 30). People discuss their political ideas by posting political images and status updates. There are long discussions in the comments section regarding the credibility of the shared political idea. Hence, people get to become familiar with what is happening in the political arena, and also get to know about each other’s political ideas. This makes SNSs an effective means of spreading political philosophies. Rainie and Smith (2012: par.2) write: Among the SNS users whose friends post political content, 25% always agree or mostly agree with their friends’ political postings; 73% of these SNS users “only sometimes” agree or never agree with their friends’ political postings. When they disagree with others’ posts, 66% of these SNS users say they usually ignore the posts; 28% said they usually respond with comments or posts of their own; and 5% said it depends on the circumstances. People find out on SNSs whether their political perspectives of their friends and family go in accordance with theirs or not. Many of them hide or block such friends who share too many political postings or disagree with them. Many just hit the like button, and many take time out to comment. This sharing of ideas is both advantageous and disadvantageous to the political parties and leaders. Although SNSs are not created with the idea of fostering political ideologies, still users use these sites as an effective means of sharing their political agendas. Patrut and Patrut (2014: 201) mention that more and more individuals are starting using social networking platforms to gather political information about their leaders and about electoral process. Political leaders are also using SNSs like Facebook and Twitter to connect with their party members and also with the public. This not only advertises their political campaigns and political ideologies, but also increases their chances of getting elected. Power and domination jump in here. Political leaders use internet as their powerful tool to assert domination over each other. Social ordering matters because some people have access to internet and SNSs while some have not thanks to digital divide. Hence, inclusion and exclusion of individuals occurs regarding the usage of SNSs which may affect the chances of political candidates getting popular in some regions while not in other (Rutledge 2008: 128). 3. Reflection It means a lot for the user and also for the designer that a technology is political. Politics is an arena where sensitive decisions have to be made, which requires the designers to design such information systems that provide accurate and reliable political information to the users in the most sophisticated fashion, so that they may be able to shape their thoughts and decisions effectively. A designer is very much concerned with the accuracy of his information system, since his sole purpose is to provide the users with the most reliable service at very low cost. For the users, it means a lot that the information system of the technology that they are using is political or not. Users can make informed decisions based on the information they retrieve from the political information systems. The MkIT information system mentioned in the paper provides accurate information about the political parties, gathered by way of public surveys. Public opinion gets shaped, and thus, the most favorable candidate gets elected. Social networking sites, as the paper asserts, help the political leaders to collaborate with their parties and with the public, thus, serving as a bridge between the leaders and the public. People also share their political ideas among each other, which enhances their political knowledge base. However, the concept of social ordering cannot be ignored. Digital divide has made divisions in the society as to people having access to technology and people having no access due to a myriad of reasons. This results in inclusion of some people in the decision-making process and exclusion of other. This inclusion or exclusion of people results in jeopardy in the modeling of political agendas and public decisions. Imagine if each and every individual in the society had access to technology, such as internet. In such a society where every individual is informed, a highly cognizant political decision is expected and obtained. But since technology is not available in some regions, or because there is lack of technology literacy, social ordering gets disturbed, including only a portion of people in the decision-making process. Nonetheless, political information systems are a means of asserting power and domination by the political parties, as candidates who use technology to strengthen and spread their election campaigns are more likely to win than those who refrain from using technology. Those candidates who manage to present a positive image in public surveys market themselves better and have higher prospects than those who fail in creating a positive image. Such is the power of technology in shaping public opinion. Technology is political, and serves a myriad of political purposes that has enhanced the political infrastructure to a great extent. Technological advancements have greatly improved the lives of individuals, despite some hitches that may get eliminated in near future as technology advances and reaches the doorsteps in all regions of the world. References Cwalina, W., Falkowski, A., & Newman, B.I., 2011. Political Marketing: Theoretical and Strategic Foundations, M.E. Sharpe, New York. Garson, G.D., 2006. Information equality and the digital divide. Public Information Technology and E-governance, Jones & Bartlett Learning, USA. Gordon, B.R., Moorthy, S., & Soberman, D., 2012. Marketing and politics: models, behavior, and policy implications. Mark Lett, vol. 23, pp. 391-403. Hendricks, J., & Kaid, L.L., 2014. Techno Politics in Presidential Campaigning: New Voices, New Technologies, and New Voters, Routledge, New York. Loges, W.E., 2001. Exploring the digital divide internet: connectedness and age. Communication Research, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 536-562. Matthews, D., & Schrum, L., 2003. High-speed internet use and academic gratifications in the college residence. The Internet and Higher Education, vol.6, no.2 pp. 125-144. Patrut, B., & Patrut, M., 2014. Social Media in Politics: Case Studies on the Political Power Or Social Media, Springer, New York. Raacke, J., & Bonds-Raacke, J., 2008. MySpace and Facebook: applying the uses and gratifications theory to exploring friend-networking sites. CyberPsychology & Behavior, vol.11, no.2, pp. 169-174. Rainie, L. & Smith, A., 2012. Social networking sites and politics. PewResearch Internet Project. [Online] Available at < http://www.pewinternet.org/2012/03/12/social-networking-sites-and-politics/> [Accessed 2 December 2014] Rutledge, P.A., 2008. The Truth About Profiting From Social Networking, Financial Times Press, New York. Stensova, A., & Starchon, P., 2009. The importance of marketing research within the political market. Selected Aspects of Political Marketing in Slovakia. [Online] Available at < http://ptks.pl/cejc/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/CEJC_Vol2_No2_Stensova_Starchon.pdf> [Accessed 3 December 2014]. Winner, L., 1999. Do artifacts have politics? The Social Shaping of Technology, 2nd edn (Chapter 2), Open University Press, USA. [Online] Available at [Accessed 10 December 2014] Read More