The internet is the centre of focus for today’s generation in terms of information flow from one place to another. Politics has not been left behind in the utilization of the information super highway. Dittmer, Fukui and Lee (2000, 3) define politics as “who gets what, when, how and at whose expense”. Based on this definition, politics is a process through which distribution of public goods and services is appropriated.
To influence the distribution of national goods and services, one requires ability to influence the public to be aligned to certain principles or interests. However, in order to influence masses one requires a way of reaching out to the people with information. This paper explores the application of electronic media in politics, democracy and government. The aim of the paper is to identify the advantages and disadvantages of using the electronic applications, such as Politics 2.0, in politics.
Traditionally, television, radio, and newspapers were the only reliable medium of reaching masses. With advance in information technology, the internet has become a vital tool of passing out information to the public within a short period of time and at a low cost.
This has been dubbed the electronic era, abbreviated as the e-era (Bidgoli 2004, 25). Virtually all sectors utilizing the electronic information flow have acquired the “e” letter which stands for electronic. Terms like e-politics, e-government and e-democracy have emerged as a result of the new technology that facilitates information flow.
Conventionally, the public elects political representatives who pass laws and promulgate policies on its behalf. E-democracy is the new way of politicking that allows the citizens to participate directly in democratic governance processes (Abramson and Morin 2003, 19). In this new dispensation, citizens are not alienated from the policy and law formulation processes. The general public or citizens are able to directly influence or add their voice to debate on given laws or policy issues.
E-democracy can also be understood as the new way of actively advocating for democracy within nations and across the globe. Through advances in information technology, information is widely shared via the internet. Democracy related information is generated by such actors like democracy conscious citizens, media, political organizations or a government and streamed via the internet (David, Trevorrow and Halpin, 28).
E-democracy encourages higher interaction between the ruled and the rulers. The citizens participate more directly in the politics by supporting their preferred candidates or policy issues. Social networking plays a critical role in advancing e-democracy (Bidgoli 2004, 142). Through social networks, individual citizens can drum up support for their preferred political candidate or law or policy. Moreover, e-democracy aims at improving voter turn out or participation in the voting process.
E-democracy is most efficient and effective where government processes have been made electronic (David, Trevorrow and Halpin, 11). When some or critical government processes are made electronic, an e-government develops. E-governing entails provision of government services through the web.
This implies using the web services to bring together different government agencies to one platform. Making government processes electronic enhances transparency and accountability among the government employees (Abramson and Morin 2003, 22).
IT has unparalleled properties of providing highly interconnected communication channels, ways of processing information and data management (Bidgoli 2004, 6). Internet business or e-commerce is being adopted all over the world. E-commerce is viewed by many around the globe as a more convenient way of doing business.
In the public sector, e-government is being adopted very fast as a convenient way through which governance can be executed. Applying IT in governance has opened numerous opportunities for raising management standards and improving the quality of service provision to the public (Abramson and Morin 2003, 21). IT improves management quality by reducing bureaucracies, improving performance and simplifies administrative procedures (Mayer 2008, 48).
Several governments have an integrated online system that contains all services that the government provides, when and where the citizens can access the services. During Clinton’s rein, the federal government put up an online system detailing all resources the federal government could offer. This online resource, which was unveiled in June 2000, can be found at www.firstgov.gov (Abramson and Morin 2003, 12).
Politics 2.0 found wide usage in the USA in early 2007. This was in anticipation of the 2008 elections. This software generally changed the way of politicking by taking much clout from traditional media. Much political discourse became streamed through websites and blogs. Politics 2.0 was aimed at changing the interaction between voters, media and politicians. Internet campaigns were the most popular tools of mobilization during the 2008 presidential campaigns that saw president Obama win the elections (Chadwick 2009, 23).
Politics 2.0 has many Pros or advantages. Foremost, as an internet application, it enables much interaction between the voters and candidates (Mayer 2008, 81). Since adoption of Politics 2.0 in the USA, greater interest in democratic processes was generated. President Obama, it can be argued, is the first president to have widely employed to his advantage e-democracy processes (Chadwick 2009, 27).
Many people participated in democratic discourses on social networks and other e-forums. Furthermore, Politics 2.0 has also enabled voters or citizens to easily create and get support for petitions or given causes. With Politics 2.0, democratic actors easily generate and facilitate sharing of detailed material on democratic issues.
Internet campaign unlike other channels such as radio, and television, gives a political candidate a permanent online advertisement that can be accessed by supporters anytime anywhere. “The 2008 presidential candidates used the internet to create a permanent online presence through websites, chat rooms, forums and social networks such as MySpace, facebook, YouTube and brightcove” (Johnson 2008, 87).
However, all good things have their flipside. One of the cons associated with Politics 2.0 is that it increases pressure on elected officers. It requires that politicians continue attending to the citizens they were interacting with during campaigns even when under pressure of new offices.
E-politics apparently does not clearly show a distinction between political campaigns and governance (Mayer 2008, 97). This could result in a situation where political campaigns take centre stage and run for the whole regime. The internet gives political candidates a permanent presence on the web.
The permanent presence means politicians permanently engaging the electorate in permanent politicking at the expense of formulating and implementing policies (Mayer 2008, 101). Furthermore, making politics e-intensive is likely to reduce interest in conventional representation. When citizens have a forum through which they can voice or push for their interests, representation becomes challenged (David, Trevorrow and Halpin, 113). The work of the elected representative becomes confused.
Additionally, like all internet based processes, managing information security is a big challenge. Wrong information easily spreads to the wrong recipients. The internet can be used to widely spread propaganda about a candidate in a very short period of time (White 2007, 33).
Voters can be made to shift their support from one candidate to another by a mere negative message about a candidate posted to the web. Senator Allen George who had in 2004 won the Virginia election with confidence suffered a big blow in 2006 from his call for the “macaca moment” (Johnson 2008, 98).
Videos of the macaca moment by Senator Allen were uploaded on YouTube and viewed by many viewers. This incidence shifted the support he had from the voters making him lose the election. In the case of e-governance, the security of information posted on government web portals has remained a point of concern (White 2007, 42).
Finally, it is worthy noting e-politics and e-governance is driven by an emerging technology which is not known or well understood by all. Relying on it fully would mean sidelining those who are not trained from accessing government services (White 2007, 39). To avoid sidelining any citizens, parallel processes are set in place.
There are e-processes and conventional processes. This two line way of governing is efficient and effective but may prove expensive in the case of some processes. It is like having two lines of production running when only one would be efficient enough.
In conclusion, the internet has changed politicking especially in the developed nations. E-democracy allows citizen’s participation in policy formulation by giving opinion on the policy through the web (White 2007, 24). E-governance means that the government is executing it functions electronically.
This shift has its advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, the shift has led to higher participation of citizens in governance issues. On the negative side, electronic applications like Politics 2.0 pose information security challenges especially where high stake politics is the case (White 2007, 27). The adoption e-governance and e-democracy as enabled by applications like Politics 2.0 is laudable but has to be approached with the necessary precaution.
Reference List
Abramson, Mark and Morin, Therese. 2003. E-government 2003. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Bidgoli, Hossein. 2004. The Internet Encyclopedia. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons
Chadwick Andrew. 2009. Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics. New York: Taylor & Francis
David, Griffin, Trevorrow, Philippa and Halpin, F. Edward. 2007. Developments in E-Government: A Critical Analysis. Amsterdam: IOS Press
Dittmer, Lowell, Fukui, Haruhiro and Lee Peter. 2000. Informal Politics in East Asia. New York: Cambridge University Press
Johnson, Dennis. 2008. Routledge Handbook of Political Management. New York: Taylor & Francis
Mayer, William. 2008. The Making of the Presidential Candidate 2008. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
White, Jay D. 2007. Managing Information in the Public Sector New York: M.E. Sharpe