This week I focused on the article of Kay Lehman Schlozman, Sidney Verba and Henry E. Brady because I have a different point of view. I think they are too pessimistic about the role of Internet. I really think that Internet -blogs and social networks- is very positive in helping citizens to participate in the democracy because I think about the future.
The article seems to suggest that political participation online isn't very serious -the authors give the example of the Obama's fan page on Facebook where the comments are not really interesting. Of course I agree with them, the improvement brought by Internet does not take place in Facebook, but I believe that Facebook can help us to participate in democracy. My example for that is the application that Facebook created for the 2010 elections. On the day of the elections, I guess that most of you noticed it, a special application appeared on the “home page” of the website where you could click to show to your friends that you have voted. I think this is a good example of how Facebook, without creating a very serious debate about the elections, can help the users to go to vote. It creats a “social control” so that you want to show the others that you vote, as every good citizen.
Of course I agree that this element only worked for the young who are the large majority of the users of Facebook. In their article, the authors explain that improvement of the political participation thanks to blogs and social networks can only be seen with the new voters, and that it doesn't affect the older population. I agree, but we have to think about the future: our generation that today tends to be influenced by blogs and social networks is going to be the next older generation, and I think that we will continue throughout our life to use Internet as a tool for political participation. Another argument that we can read in the article to explain that Internet is not a real tool to improve participation in democracy is that there is still a digital gap, and that many people don't have access to Internet. Moreover, it is not only a question of access, but also a question of time. Some manual workers for example won't have time to spend hours reading the news or using social networks. But here again, I think that we should have trust in the future: the access to Internet is going to be more and more easy as the technology improves. For example, a large majority of the Americans now have cell phone, and some estimations explain that in a few years, every cell phone will have an Internet connexion.
To conclude, I agree with the authors that Internet today seems to be a tool only for people who used to be active in democracy, and that the same inequalities remain. But I do believe that in the future the inequality of access will be reduced, and that the skills our generation learn today -using blogs and social networks as a way to participate- will remain in the future.
I agree that some types of online political participation can help advance a better citizenry. I agree with you in assuming that the Facebook application where you could show whether you voted or not might be an effective tool for reminding people and pressuring people to vote. However, I don't think that this is the most important aspect of political participation. I think the internet would be much more useful in creating good citizens if it facilitated and encouraged political discussion. Schlozman et. al. found that "people are much more likely to engage in political discussion offline than on the internet" (496) In my opinion, political discussions are a very important part of civic participation. It is through these discussions that citizens can discover what the relevant issues are, how different people are affected by certain policies, and what is in the best interest of the citizenry. I think that the internet has a great potential as a forum for such political discussion, but since people aren't using it as such we should be wary about how much the internet has affected political participation to date.
ReplyDeleteI think that the internet can definitely be a 'first-step' to offline political discussions. The example of Obama's fan page was pretty convincing that there isn't much political value on Facebook. However, Facebook also has additional campaign pages and activities such as the one going on now to End Violence Against Children. For this particular campaign, they are encouraging users to change their profile pictures to cartoon characters. There has been other campaigns for Domestic Violence and Breast Cancer Awareness Month in which women were sent messages encouraging them to write on their statuses what color bra they were wearing or where they like to leave the purse (i.e. "I like it on the floor"). Although, these acts may seem silly, they definitely evoke curiosity from others and eventually people find out about these social issues. I'm sure we are all aware of violence against children, but many of us are fortunate to not have to deal with it in our lives and never pause to think about it - these small campaigns at least remind us about the issues going on today and give us something to discuss offline. Maybe this doesn't push people to go out and search for ways to help or get involved, but maybe when an opportunity comes along they will be more inclined to do so after being primed by these Facebook movements.
ReplyDeleteSchlozman etal found that the internet is being used in a manner inconsistent with increasing political awareness and served only to reinforce the views of those who are predisposed to be active. Marion argues that blogs and social networks will take a more instrumental role as widespread access to the internet continues. I tend to agree with this, especially in the case of social networks. Facebook has made it so easy to post links and articles that peak our interest. And applications are becoming more refined to display the issues and posts that individuals will key in on. If anything the use of social networks, and the internet in a broad sense, will become apart of the culture. It won't be long before the vast majority of Americans have a smartphone with internet access, which will bring instant updates to a market that was previously untouched.
ReplyDeleteYou can't ignore the fact that a certain percentage of internet users fail to do anything political on their computer. But I would be willing to bet that everyone has THAT friend on facebook who posts every headline from their favorite news source. In some sense, I believe it will become inescapable.