We have explored how the media today is largely dominated by a few gigantic corporations and how news organizations have expanded in numbers, while losing the support and trust of the public. There are also many indicators that suggest that political news and media are still dominated largely by the political and business elites that have controlled and shaped political messaging for most of American political history. Politicians and political elites still appear to set the political agenda in many ways.
However there are many who are articulating a new vision about political discourse in America and across the globe. They argue that the tools of the internet are providing individuals and organizations new opportunities to get their messages out. Citizen journalism is changing the role that the public plays in political media, and movements from the revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria (to name a few) to the Occupy movement here in the U.S. have shown the power that the people can have through the use of the internet, mobile media, and social networking. In the case of Egypt, it even led the government to try to turn off the internet.
Are these examples of what political discourse will be in the emerging information political communication revolution or just exceptions to the rule that political communication will always be controlled by the small numbers of political elites? Is political power becoming more democratic as more and more citizens and organizations gain access and have the ability to cheaply and easily reach a global audience, or are they merely using new tools in an ever changing game of catch up, dominated by the political elites and drowned out by the noise of millions of voices online? What role will the media play in the democratic discourse and democratic politics of the future?
Feel free to respond to any of these questions and expand your discussion to events and politics outside of the United States. Please share important examples and add links if you think they are helpful. As much as possible please remember to respond to one another.
I think those examples are just exceptions and political communication, as far as reaching the masses quickly and efficiently, will always be controlled by elites. Reaching a mass audience consistently must inherently be controlled by a few, whether it's FoxNews or the most popular blog in the world. Whether good or bad, the less people involved in delivering a message the more consistent that message can be. If a thousand people start with the same message, it inevitably becomes more fractured and fragmented right out of the gate.
ReplyDeleteNow, the effects can be helpful or harmful and the deliverers good or bad in any case. But I think for a movement to emerge from the Internet it must have a basic cause for the masses to unite behind. This sort of phenomenon is very rare. With these new media tools, and the opportunity for thousands or millions to have their say in the discourse, a weak or undefined cause can easily lead to polarization and competing opinions, in turn weakening support. The message and it's goals must be unwavering and the cause must be popular and relatable if any real action is to be seen from new media activism. It can happen, but will never become the norm.
While I think that Robert is correct about elite control over the media will remain a stronghold (just look at the Big 6 in America), I tend to disagree about the benefits of a consistent media message for the public. Of course, in cases of emergency where the press is the resource that informs and controls what would be chaos (for example explaining what happened on 9/11), it can be beneficial to have an elite-controlled media that is dispersing information as it becomes available. However, when it comes to other initiatives that the media elite tend to ignore, causing the mass public to ignore as well, I think this becomes problematic, especially if it would otherwise be information that the public would deem newsworthy.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I do believe that political power could be more democratic if more citizen journalists had a voice. For example, in my class that I'm currently taking on public opinion, we read an article by Morris Fiorina suggesting that the media is part of a larger trend that makes America seem deeply divided when in fact we are only slightly divided. This is because while political elites are separated in terms of ideology by an average of 72 percentage points, the rest of us normal folk are separated only by 13 percentage points in terms of our positions. The media, which we've discussed tend to turn to political elites for news, presents an unrepresentative picture of this country, which could potentially be turned around by increasing and even encouraging citizen journalism.
While I'm unsure about whether or not citizen journalism would ever become the norm, I think the gains to be had by encouraging and welcoming this type of journalism into the norm would be nothing but beneficial for a country that is increasingly polarized by what the elite media puts out.
Is this idealistic? Maybe. But it seems to be the right direction to take a country that is dictated by an unrepresentative, elite media.
Ashley Surinak
I would agree with Ashley that at certain times, especially during times of panic, it is beneficial to have a more elite media. I think sometimes we need one voice or very few voices to limit the hysteria or nervousness of the public. In times of panic, like 9/11, citizen journalism may offer more information to the public, but there is no way to know if that information is true.
ReplyDeleteHowever, there are times when citizen journalism can be very beneficial. I think that it offers the ability for more news to be covered. The most elite news sources who's agenda is set by politicians and the elites in society do not have the time, or sometimes the ability with the connections they have to political elites, to cover some newsworthy stories. Citizen journalism allows for more people to have more access to more information. Because of this, I think that political power is becoming more democratic. More people are getting involved, so political elites are not the only ones that own the information.
I believe that there will be no change from the new way to communicate through social networks and citizen journalism on the internet. Just as people can work to create information and news that other might want to see or follow so can the major organizations. In order to follow citizen journalism I think there is also more of a “you need to go out and find it” nature compared to the big 6 feeding it directly to you. There is also the idea that most citizens are uninterested in political discourse and the news thus they will still believe what they are told and not feel the need to dig deeper as political science students at DePaul would.
ReplyDeleteAlong the same idea there is the need to build credibility. Major organizations are protecting profit and thus have more of a need and reason to be credible, bias aside, they are held to a high standard for facts and news. Individuals who make a blog are held to whatever they see fit and being interesting alone it what gains popularity and success. So if anything I think people will (or should) be weary of what people can say just because they want people to agree with them. The big 6 do the same thing, but there are codes of conduct and morals that they must abide with and they care about nothing more than to be able to continue and profit and thus will be more driven to follow such guidelines.
I know I always say we're looking at this from an out of date perspective or in some way we're framing this question and debate wrong. Here I go again!
ReplyDeleteI think we're looking at the controlling/influence of information in terms of written words online either via social media or too late too the game old world media trying to come online. Instead, we should be looking at the flow of information. I don't mean your Twitter feeds or what is published online via some news source. I'm talking about de facto censorship of the internet by the government.
I think governments are looking at the internet as some kind of wild west world. The internet has produced things like Wikileaks, a place to mock political elites, and start uprisings against the institutional power structures. This scares them to a large degree, since as of right now they can't control the internet.
Currently they are trying to control it by invading social media, but we all know their social media accounts are just a way for them to market themselves while we're connecting with others. Throw something in your face marketing is dying. Today, we don't even notice the number of ads on websites anymore. Websites today have to hide ads or make it look like a honest recommendation, which are always far from honest. We see political elites post on Twitter or Facebook and we're starting to do the same thing as we did with ads (overlook them).
People care less about the New York Times and other newspapers after their failures to inform the public. Remember, the NYTimes are the same people that stated there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq from "leaked information" by the government. They also held back a story about wiretapping during the Bush's second election. I'm sure there's much more we don't know about.
The political elite has a problem right now: something can go viral and push them out of power or start an uprising against the system. We're looking at the wrong aspect of elite controlled media, we need to look at elite controlled internet.
Take Net Neutrality for example, they will say it's for faster benefiting internet.. but faster access to who? Faster access to Wikileaks? Faster access to other sites that leak government secrets? Nope, faster access to the institutional elite media. All this done in the name of providing a service their customers are demanding.
Hey who doesn't like faster Netflix right?
To answer the general question of whether the web is democratizing the political process, it definitely is. Initially, the Internet served as a form of publishing; information flowed in one direction, from a writer or institution to an audience of passive readers. But democratization has opened up web content, allowing the audience to react and make changes through blogs, comment sections, etc.
ReplyDeleteThat now brings up citizen journalism, where essentially citizens do the same thing as the professionals, which is simply report information they feel like reporting. So in that regard, I agree that that shouldn't change the way we connect with others. It is people's individual's need to go out and obtain the news they want to hear which creates the chain reaction of various forms of reporting. I think it is already the norm and there are no signs of citizen journalism slowing down because of this. This does hurt the credibility or organizations with their audiences, but in the end people will simply take interest in what they want regardless, therefore instilling a constant growing of democratic politicking.
I am inclined to agree with the notion that citizen journalism is changing the role that the public plays in political media and the examples provided could very well be reflective of what political discourse will look like in the emerging information revolution. The internet is immensely powerful and influential and if we examine such potential become too threatening to the norms/traditions of society, it would not be too far-fetched to imagine our government, as they are so notorious for doing, impose greater regulations. Money is power. If technology advancements continue at this rate and threaten the few, but powerful political elites, they are likely to engage in a defense that will prevail. Even if it means turning off the internet somewhere down the road.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the internet is democratizing the political process. One of the ways that this happens is discussed in Chapter 16 of our book. Plain and simple, the internet allows us to participate and be engaged. Those of us who feel disconnected, cynical, and maybe even a tad hopeless about politics can engage and participate through the internet.
ReplyDeleteThe author of chapter 16 uses the term "citizen campaigning" to describe Obama's 2008, internet driven, presidential campaign. She argues that one of the reasons it was so successful was because the internet allowed for people that normally would not have have taken the initiative to participate in their political realities, to do exactly that.
"Citizen campaigning" leads to what she refers to as a "democratic renewal" because one of the fundamental principles of democracy is participation. In regards to campaigning, the internet allows for increased participation because it diffuses the power away from the centralized "war room" of the campaign office and out into the community where individuals can actively promote their candidate.
However, like anything, the internet has its pros and cons. A problem arises when we equate political participation with merely keeping up on political news and leaving a comment or two here or there, or maybe even getting into a brief textual argument with someone miles away, only to forget that the disagreement ever happened a day later.
I agree with many that political communication would still most likely be controlled by the small numbers of elites, I don't think that having the increase of public participants would make much different, but create more news in the media for the public, and there is nothing wrong with that, it just means that more people would get their voice. I also agree with what Matthew was saying on the idea that major media company or organization would have the need to build credibility, because the increase of news in the media would create competition. One of the pros I see here is that news organization would have to be more accurate with facts due to more information in the media and that they want to keep their credibility. The cons I see here is that as we talked about in class on Markus Prior argument that the public had become less inform or wrongly inform about the news because there are just too much information everywhere that could be hard to keep up. I think this is make the public very indecisive on what and what not to believe on what they heard in the media or from others, kind of like what Matthew said. Also, I think this will have an effect in election voting wise, because it will be hard to decide who to vote for if we don't know what to believe in the media.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy the first question because I feel that's a question that can be asked of any new technological advancement. We develop new ways of communication and we expect the very fabric of reality to either fall apart or to shift overnight, and when that doesn't happen, apathy sets in again. However, that is too simplistic of a way to put it. I believe that when social activism gains momentum in journalism's consciousness, it is because the movement has gone beyond the point of no return. The nature of the movement also impacts how far it'll go. People can just as easily do more than use a popular hashtag or they can just use the hashtag and move on. It depends on the urgency of the change that needs to happen. In the U.S., political activism is seen as an inconvenience, as people complaining and being too sensitive. With the internet and citizen journalism, communities of support and sources to educate on different issues are more accessible to people who look for it. It takes a lot for people to get behind a movement, especially when stakes aren't that high from a personal standpoint.
ReplyDeleteI'm also thinking a lot about the idea of people trusting elites versus the "thousands of people" as Robert mentioned above. I have the opposite sentiment, or at least a more conflicted one. I wonder if the trust has less to do with the fact that there was/is an elite that report important stories, or that the "elite" are the third party investigator. With something like Twitter where news breaks before any news station knows about it, why are we less likely to believe people who where probably present, who have personal experience? And shouldn't more perspectives provide different pieces to the whole? Different people experience the world in different ways and there shouldn't be a hierarchy of whose story is more valid.
I do believe that these examples are all part of a chain that will intertwine to form a political communication revolution simply because people are just fed up. Especially in Egypt where the divisions in political views does not factor into the idea that everyone wants a democratic chance to be heard. If anything, it would an advantage for them. Communication is such an impacting role in today's society and I believe that political activism both internal (within the people) and external (the internet) is crucial to gaining more people and not always believing that the political elites will always have the last word. The media is our way of seeing what is going on everywhere in the world, but ultimately, it is up to us to make the best judgement on how to proceed with the given information. Of course there is always three sides to the story, but at least we can judge ourselves as to what story fits right. Media plays a significant role because once we see what is going on, we can make the decision as to how to proceed in terms of involvement. There are times where I see what is going on, and then I want to get involved. That's why I like being informed about what is happening internationally because then I know whether it is something I want to take action in.
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