Introduction
Since the popularization of the Internet, there has been a public debate on its impact on political life in countries worldwide. Some believe that this is a step towards liberalization; others see digitalization as the end of democracy. This essay argues that the Internet introduces the world to the new quality of liberal democracy degradation. The age of conventional media affected democratic society in a vertical way that is monopolized by the major stakeholders. Nowadays, the Internet is a horizontal platform that yet does not become Habermas’ public forum (Sunstein, 2001). As people limit their sources of information online, one can observe the degradation of discourse and the growth of populism as well as the radicalized population.
Main text
To begin with, conventional media like television and radio has always been indeed monopolized by the establishment, especially in the U.S. due to technical reasons. This situation is comparable to the Medieval Age before the introduction of printing in the 1440s. The church and the courts monopolized books, and the population had no chance to learn an alternative opinion on the essential matters of life. Television and radio become game-changing technology in legitimizing political decisions, even in democracies (Barstow and Stein, 2005). As Herman and Chomsky (1988) conceptualize it, information translated by the conventional media goes through five filters, which create agendas and messages beneficial for the ones at power. Hence, such media creates private space without the actual debate, which harms democratic principles.
As for the Internet, in its era population still cannot hear all the voices. The reason for that lies in the fact that people and media create communication universes, bubbles that filter the sources and opinions contradicting users’ believes. It is proved by the research conducted by Iyengar (2006), who examined media preferences of different parties sympathizers. That is why social media produce a reasonable number of online communities, oriented on specific groups with specific political interests like IAFF Union Firefighters for Trump or Black Women for Bernie Sanders on Facebook. Meanwhile, Sunstein (2001) emphasizes the crucial role of shared experience and empathy for a society living in a democracy. In reality, the Internet intensifies solidarity within the group of one’s choice, which makes them more confident about their position.
Furthermore, the Internet seems to attract more users to populist figures who gain their popularity by putting on a show online and articulating simple solutions to structural problems. Probably, the most widespread example is Donald Trump for whose election Twitter is sometimes blamed. His central premise to his voters was building up a wall separating the States from Mexico that presumably could solve the issue of illegal immigration. As a result, the American migration policy has seen several scandals with children separated from their parents and Muslims having no access to the country. However, the problem stays unsolved. This causes the degradation of discourse, which brings a society to less prudent decisions.
At the same time, the Internet serves as a platform for radicalization instead of the spread of democratic values. For instance, it has become the condition without which the rise of the Islamic State terrorist organization would have hardly ever happened. First, Facebook and Telegram were the critical mediums of jihadi propaganda. What is more, the efficient recruitment of foreign fighters who joined the IS from all over the world was only possible in the era of messengers and social media. Another vital example to draw one’s attention to is the Christchurch shooting that the far-right extremist who organized the attack was broadcasting in real-time on Facebook. The network had no chance to prevent such actions while the violent events happening on the video were seen by a reasonable number of users, spreading the idea behind the former. Social media become the space of glorification of violence and the spread of hatred and extremism. This tendency does not contribute to the flourishing of democracy: on the contrary, people are demonstrated that there are alternative means to act and to articulate their political agendas.
Turning one’s attention to the opposite camp, one could learn that many claims that the Internet is a democratic tool in the way it provides a platform for the ones whose voices could not have been heard without it. It seems that the antiracism movement in the United States would have developed faster if Facebook or Twitter was developed ten or twenty years before it happened. Now, the oppressed groups can find their voices, which leads society to greater transparency. Putin’s Russia is an illustrative example of how the Internet makes the actions of the regime more visible. Informal oppositional leaders like Alexey Navalny or Yegor Zhukov, who are not allowed to speak on TV, can reach their audience online. Police abuse and the violent oppression of the 2019 protests in Moscow are discussed online. In a way, all this pushes the country towards democratization.
While this opinion does have a strong foundation, such a scheme functions only when the state does not control the cyber platform. In the case of Russia, the Federal Security Service cannot ban publications on Facebook or even Telegram, at least, if the user does not fall in the definition of an extremist. The recent case of Antifa demonstrates the fact that if the state seeks to take away the voice of an organization, there are still means to do so despite the freedom opportunities the Internet is supposed to give to civil society. Moreover, even if a figure finds an opportunity to speak out online, it does not mean changes towards democracy offline as it is in Russia today. Hence, this argument works just until the state allows the marginalized groups to be seen, and the Internet, in this case, does not have much to do with democratization.
Another point to be made is that the Internet is claimed to stimulate competition in the political field. Hence, candidates become more electorate-orienteered, and this is indeed the power of the people. Even in Iran, during the presidential elections, candidates communicate with their electorate via social media. Recently, the state has banned Instagram, where the president has about 2 million subscribers. Even fundamentalist and conservative politicians who do not support the idea of social media popularization use them to reach the audience. This controversial example demonstrates that social media push candidates to use them as a political tool to keep or even grow the electorate.
However, this idea is also relevant for television. First, there is the classic example of John Kennedy’s victory in the elections of 1960. One of the critical factors of that outcome was his effective performance on TV debates with Richard Nixon. On a black-and-white screen, Kennedy wearing his bright blue costume, attracted the audience’s eyes while Nixon was in grey. Kennedy spoke more confidently even though, according to analysts, substantially, he lost the debates. Nevertheless, his popularity grew (Botehlo, 2016). Another example of nowadays can be found in contemporary Ukraine. In 2019, Vladimir Zelensky came to power as his primary opponent, Petro Poroshenko not only proved his orientation on the local oligarchy – not nation – but also appeared a pale non-charismatic figure in comparison to the present president. On the contrary, Zelensky, being an actor and an excellent speaker, gained popularity during the TV broadcast of the show Servant of the People, where he starred in the role of a down-to-earth, close-to-people president Holoborodko. These cases show that the conventional media are capable of creating the level of competition discussed above apply to the Internet.
Furthermore, some argue that social media enable societies of authoritarian regimes to transit to the democratic state. The Arabic Spring – the wave of uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa that started in 2011 – is a frequent illustration of such a thesis. For instance, the Egyptian Revolution is sometimes called the revolution of Facebook (Gerbaudo, 2016) as the protest and its actions were all coordinated in the community on that social media called after Haled Said, who was killed by the police. That is why during Algerian and Sudanese uprisings, the government cut down the Internet and blocked social media. Hence, it is evident that the introduction of social media in contemporary life contributes to the democratization of the world as the transit from authoritarian regimes becomes easier for protesters applying such means.
On the one hand, it seems evident that protest movements apply unconventional media to make their actions more efficient. On the other hand, even the classic examples of Facebook or any other social media revolutions do not draw the full picture. First, most of the Arabic Springs uprisings, including the one in Egypt in 2011, did not bring democracy and freedoms to the society, which was the reason for another revolution already in 2013. Secondly, it would be unfair to ignore the role of conventional media in the process. In 2011, the Qatari TV channel Al Jazeera agitated its audience to go out on the Tahrir square in Cairo, intentionally overstating the number of protesters there. To say nothing about the role of mullahs and mosques as the traditional agents and spaces for ideas exchange, including the ones that inspired the uprising in 2011. Therefore, while facilitating protest movements, social media cannot be fully responsible for them. Moreover, an uprising does not always aim for democracy and, in many cases, does not lead to one.
Conclusion
To conclude, it is evident that the Internet and social media popularization does not univocally strengthen institutes of democracy. It changes the nature of media influence on democracy, switching it from the horizontal form – established by the conventional media – to the vertical one. Meanwhile, Internet users are enabled to create information bubbles around themselves, which contradicts democratic principles of the need to consider alternative opinions. The contemporary rise of populism also has a lot to do with the digitalization of the public debate: voters end up choosing the candidates broadcasting their not-so-sophisticated political ideas effectively via social media. Furthermore, such platforms provide more space for the agents of radicalization who seek new followers of their ideas. Though some argue that the Internet changes the nature of political competition and protests and brings new opportunities to find one’s voice, in reality, such claims appear to be not so fair as conventional media were the initially game-changing tools for these tasks. Moreover, they are still successfully used.
References
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Botehlo, G. (2016). The day politics and TV changed forever. CNN: Web.
Herman, E. and Chomsky, N. (1988). A propaganda model. Manufacturing consent: The political economy of the mass media. Pantheon.
Iyengar, S. and Morin, R. (2006). Red media, blue media. Washington Post: Web.
Gerbaudo, P. (2016). Rousing the Facebook crowd: Digital enthusiasm and emotional contagion in the 2011 protests in Egypt and Spain. International Journal of Communication, 10, 254 – 273.
Sunstein, C. (2001). Exposure to other viewpoints is vital to democracy. Republic.com. Princeton University Press.