Chapter 2: Background- Online Mediums and Political Participation
In 1981, Joel Chaseman (1981) captured the revolutionary contribution that each new mass medium brings to the public, their role to inform, to educate, and mobilise, but most importantly its contribution to establishing a society capable of reacting together as a people:
What a week this has been for America! Most of us have spent many extra hours watching television just to keep up with it – the inauguration, the hostages, the Super Bowl. The week’s events helped me understand how much we take for granted, most of all that we can react to events together, as a people (p.374).
Fourteen years later, in his book Bowling Alone, Putnam (1995) argues that the civic capital of society, core to the American democratic system, is disappearing. This civic capital, he argues, is what results in Americans forming into associations and organisations that increase their ability and willingness to cooperate and, when needed, face up to
government and hold it accountable. He argues that civic participation, when actively practiced, results in cooperation, reciprocity, trust, and solidarity, which develops a society that grows faster economically and cultivates better schools and individual productivity. It is this civic capital that Chaseman (1981) argued to be spread by mass media.
By the 1990’s voter turnout had declined by about a quarter of the population, reducing the level of political participation to a fraction from that of the previous generation (Chaseman, 1981). These signs extended to other aspects of civic engagement, including that of church groups, by 7% between the 1950’s and ‘70’s, and labour unions, from 32.5% in the 1953 to 15.8% in 1992 (Putnam, 1995). People had seemingly begun to lose interest, the result of reduced social interaction amongst a more dispersed people (Chaseman, 1981).
However, he noted a counter-development. Putnam (1995) identifies a surge in a new type of civic capital, associations with mass subscribers whose only real participation seemed to be the paying of a membership fee. He found that these associations were based on
common ideals, but not to each other. In other words, while the members belonged to some
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form of organisation, there was no certain level of real social capital as there was no
discussion, or interaction beyond being a potential mailing list for influential lobbyists. The results were ‘communities’ who did not have long lasting or strong ties.
This mass-public resurgence, although low in civic capital by appearance, was found to hold great persuasive weight when used by influential lobbyists. What is more, it began to show an online variant that has a greater reach and provides a set of immediacy tools that increased interaction capacity over time, especially through the accessing and sharing information (Smith, 2011b, 2011c). Online mediums showed the potential of managing a mass–public into a manageable space for potentially meaningful participation by online communities. This has gone quite counter to Putnam’s (1995) prediction that newer
mediums will lead to increased isolation, defined as an increased lack of personal interaction.
Online political information use in Political Participation
Civic capital has then arguably resurged in an online capacity. It has moved from its traditional foundation to online equivalents and more. This mobilisation power of mediums was already visible in 1835, when Alexandre De Toqueville (1981[1835]) (as quoted in Chaseman, 1981) emphasises this power of a newspaper to create the feeling for a person to be part of a larger group in society:
Only a newspaper can put the same thought at the same time before a thousand readers… in democratic countries it often happens that a great many men who both want and need to get together cannot do so, for all being very small and lost in the crowd they do not see one another at all and do not know where to find one another.
Then a newspaper gives publicity to the feeling or idea that had occurred to them all simultaneously but separate. They all at once aim towards that light, and these wandering spirits, long seeking each other in the dark, at last meet and unite. (p.438)
A century later Chaseman (1981) argues that the above quotation will still hold valid if the word “newspapers” is substituted for “television”. Television had become the new carrier of information to a potentially greater audience. This removed the strict direct association between mediums and physical transportation, but large physical devices and
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buildings were still needed. However, the role of television, as Putman (1995) argues, took on the role of an entertainment medium, making it less useful, a notion seconded by Caparini (2004). The information it provided was now either too short or not in-depth enough.
More recently online mediums have been identified as being the reinvigorating source for Toqueville’s statement. By substituting newspapers with the various types of online mediums, such as Facebook, online news, and even mobile phone information use, the statement regains its stature. 2010 statistics show that 75% of Americans are active internet users (Smith, 2011a). Of these, 54% accessed online news sources or participated online during the 2010 elections, while 23% used social media to connect to the election (Smith, 2011a, 2011b). Mobile phones add an additional new dimension with statistics indicating that 26% of Americans used their mobile phones to connect to 2010 US elections (Smith, 2010), from a mobile phones owning population of 83%, of which 35% of adults are smart phone users (Smith, 2011c) with mobile internet access (Miladi, 2011).
Social Media in US Politics
Social media made its US-campaign debut with the wide usage of social networking site “meeting.com” during the Howard Dean political candidacy campaign in 2004 (Wolf, 2004). A voter created a social media page for Howard Dean in order to garner support and funding. As the campaign progressed, the platform began to grow as more and more
supporters began to organise their own promotional and fund raising activities, which the Dean party decided to allow by minimising their direct role and so permitting direct political participation by the individual supported (Wolf, 2004).
Participation activities were also extended offline in a variety of ways. Volunteers went door-to-door, wrote and disseminated personal letters, organised and hosted meetings, and distributed flyers, all of this without ever being asked or ordered (Wolf, 2004), which suggests that social media inspired increasing levels of the social capital that Putnam (1995)
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found to be so distinctly lacking in traditional mediums, and by extension political participation that was in decline.
Critics, however, still found that this use of social media was insufficient and limited in its intent to merely garner funding, while neglecting to use the more interactive capabilities to more actively engage the audience (Hindman, 2005), which may have been the cause of the eventual campaign failure. These limitations were largely addressed by the 2008 Obama campaign, where communication links were opened directly with potential voters to
encourage feedback and direct communication. Obama used common internet platforms such as email, as well as social media such as YouTube, Twitter, and other online mediums such as podcasts, and webpages. All communication attempts were aimed to inspire direct participation with the audience, even allowing them to submit questions, to which the party responded in great explanatory detail. His campaign moved well beyond just using social media for fundraising. Steinfield, Ellison, and Lampe (2008) ventures as far as to argue that social media begin to bridge the civic divide. This, they argue, is a result of the online friend network, which will be discussed in more detail below.
Following the success of this campaign, companies like ‘Blue State Digital’ was found on the principle of designing interactive web2.0 applications catered for political parties (D'Aprile, 2009). This resulted in other online mediums use spreading to political parties in other parts of the world, including Israel and South Africa. This popularity persisted into the 2010 US election campaign, where research findings indicate that internet usage in general has an increased user-base who access online politics, with social media also being directly linked to political use (Smith, 2011b). The use was even found to have
extended to include the use of mobile phones and mobile internet (Smith, 2011c).
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A more recent example, the Arab Spring, showed that social media can also unite people against an abusive political authority. This democratisation role indicated the raw power of a communication mediums that is either difficult or impossible to censor. Events of the Arab Spring shows how mobile phones and social media collaborated to film and upload a current news event, which led to mass participation (Alterman, 2011; Harb, 2011;
Hounshell, 2011; Miladi, 2011; Tunisian, 2011; Van Niekerk, Pillay, & Maharaj, 2011).
On the 4th of January 2011, 26-year old university graduate Mohamed Bouazizi had had enough of ill treatment suffered at the hands of police and set himself on fire in a public marketplace in protest. A bystander filmed the event with a mobile phones camera,
uploading it directly to YouTube from where the event went through the fast dissemination process of social media. The result was the triggering of repressed tensions that sparked country-wide violent protests, quickly gaining additional support locally and internationally.
In response, the Tunisian president began to make a series of reform promises, sacking ministers, and making job creation promises, none of which succeeded in calming down the population. His final resolution was to flee the country, marking the end of his rule with minimal bloodshed (Harb, 2011, Hounshell, 2011, Miladi, 2011, Tunisian, 2011).
However, this is not where it ended. The governments of Egypt, Yemen, Libya, and Syria were quick to shut down all mediums to stop the spread of the uprising across their borders, but shutting down the internet failed, and information of the uprising and its success crossed the borders and the uprisings spread (Gandelman, 2011). This resulted in regime changes in Egypt, where the president resigned, and parliament dissolved, and also in Yemen.
However, Libya and Syria dissented into full-out civil war (Abouzeid, 2011, Harb, 2011).
Throughout social media continued to be a source of information for the local and international communities, with Twitter indicated as a major information source. Battles and
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atrocities were filmed on mobile devices, tweets and comments were used to disseminate information, and information was shared unchecked. Social media became the voice of the people who were deprived of all traditional outlets, and mobile phones became the mobile centres for civic journalism (Alterman, 2011; Harb, 2011; Tunisian, 2011), as well as to supply traditional journalism (Hounshell, 2011). This was also the primary source of information that informed the international community of what events were transpiring.
Arguably, this was also the cause of the pressure that led to the eventual involvement of foreign military forces and the United Nations Security Council (Van Niekerk et al., 2011).
Van Niekerk et al., (2011) argues that social media served as a command and control platform to conduct coordinated anti-government activities, while also serving in a diplomatic capacity. Social media had become more than an information source.
US Federal State Use and Policies
Social media then understandably inspires mixed feelings in any government, even democratic ones. At the same time, it shows the capacity to peacefully support a democratic election, while also violently supporting anti-government movements. Regardless, the US federal government understands the worth and need of social media in supplying information to the public, while also permitting direct interaction. The Hawaii State Senate social media use policy (2012) identifies the importance of providing timely information, and states that social media performs this duty best:
The Hawaii State Senate supports the use of social media for authorized Senate committees to enable Senate members and committees, Senate staff, and citizens, to communicate and obtain information online in the timeliest manner in the
performance of legislative functions. (p1)
The Washington State Senate, however, takes a cautionary approach. While
recognising the advantages, the policy also recognises that just open access to all cannot be
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allowed. Their policy thus employs limitations of use based on their own ethical standards (Policies Related to Legislative Use of Social Media, 2012):
The Senate recognizes that such technology should be made available to both its members and the public, and opportunities for public communication through emerging media should be explored and utilized. With this in mind, the Senate generally recognizes that the technology or medium being utilized for
communications should not be the sole controlling factor in determining the propriety of a communication, instead, the nature and content of the communication, itself, should be used to determine whether it is appropriate under applicable ethics and Senate guidelines. (p1)
Such limitations of use indicate awareness of the mass consciousness element of social media, where ethical standard try to limit the spread of a false consciousness. Justin Roux (2012), senior vice president of Communications at Luvata, comments that social media hold the capacity to do more than just post random photos and events of a ‘soft news’
nature: “the audience have become authors, and they are the strictest of critics.” He identifies that there is an inherent risk in an audience that produces content. His biggest fear is that a mass audience will base decisions on stereotypes, and form a false mass consciousness based on an overtly sensationalistic approach, far removed from educated and critical thinking. He asks whether this is truly the elements of a preferred democracy and whether we should “…
trust the Twitter generation to measure right from wrong?”
From this perspective, the US governments and politicians have good reason fear the complete freedom of expression associated with online mediums, which are protected by the 1st Amendment that has already resulted in the failure of all past legislative attempts to regulate internet content (Rappaport, 1997). The most recent policy attempt in the US is the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), which is by intention a policy written to stop online piracy.
However, critics note that this would give unprecedented power to government to “shut down whole web domains on the basis that it believes them to be associated with piracy -- without a trial or even a traditional hearing (SOPA: Washington Vs. The Web, 2012).” The policy is
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found to put at risk free speech and job security of online mediums, simply by association of the website at risk of violation. For a social media website, where content is uploaded and distributed by the individual, such legislation places its very existence at risk, simply because it’s inevitable (SOPA: Washington Vs. The Web, 2012).