“The belief that ‘revolutions’ in communication technologies will lead to radical social and political change predates the Internet, of course.”
– Albrecht Hofheinz
Albrecht Hofheinz is an associate professor at the University of Oslo at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages. In his article Nextopia? Beyond Revolution 2.0 for the International Journal for Communication (2011), he explains that new media is consistently thought of as a revolutionary technology, as was the telegraph, telephone and television. The main difference between the Internet and its various platforms, is that it allows there to be more communication between peers and strengthens more critical attitudes towards established authorities and is essentially less limited by space and time. Clay Shirky, a prominent writer in residence at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute, further distinguishes the Internet from other technologies since “members of the former audience… can now also be producers and not consumers” in his speech How Social Media Can Make History (Shirky).
This exploration will draw attention to the debate surrounding social media in relation to the advancement of democracy. Twitter and Facebook, specifically, have become a way to share instantaneous updates of protests, including the Arab Spring. Yet, members of media and political science academia have been questioning whether the use of social media was the true reason for the success of Arab Spring movements. Media outlets constantly reiterate that the Internet and social media have the ability to democratize. Hillary Clinton expresses that the Internet enhances democracy along with saying that counties that ban websites have “opportunity costs for trying to be open for business but closed for free expression – costs to a nation’s education system, political stability, social mobility, and economic potential” (Clinton). Instead, Kentaro Toyama, who works in the field of technology and international development and a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley finds a paradox in popular logic by pointing out “we have free speech online because we have free speech offline, not the other way around.”
The argument on the concrete effect of social media is linked to how people are informed of news and it can be related to the notorious democratic theory debate that Walter Lippmann and John Dewey had in the 1920s. Lippmann, author of Public Opinion published in 1922, argued that democracy does not work because humans are driven by self-interest and therefore the elite should govern and citizens should be mere spectators. In relation, to journalism and information distribution this is how most of the popular media outlets worked throughout the 20th century, and still do. Dewey responded to Lippmann’s claims with his book The New Republic, where he proposes that human interaction through communication makes democracy flourish (Rosenstiel).
This conceptual debate leads into the conversation scholars have on the power of Twitter as a micro blog used for micro-journalism, during demonstrations and political movements. Rune Saugman Andersen notes that:
“Citizen micro-journalism documents a situation through the collective whispers of a large mass of unknown reporters, rather than in the authoritative voice of on photojournalist or newspapers supported by recognized sources of credibility.”
The power of citizens to control their own information and be quicker than daily newspapers gives them an advantage over traditional popular journalism. However, micro-journalism requires no peer editing or verification and can therefore be an unreliable news source and the “rise of social media… has raised new questions about such “old media” values as the balance and interplay between speed and accuracy” (O’Connor, 124). Fact checking is non-existent within social media, even if there are comments questioning accuracy, thus sensationalism and hysteria can be profuse on Twitter. It can be disputed, however, that popular media’s journalism and newspapers are too slow and may not even be privy to the information that must be reported.
Through social media, particularly Twitter, masses are the source for news outlets. This phenomenon occurred most notably in Iran during the 2009 Green Movement. International reporters had little to no entry into the country where protests erupted in favor of Moussavi, the losing candidate whose following thought the election had been tainted by corruption. Wolf Blitzer, a head CNN anchor, used Twitter to “complete a view of what was unfolding in Iran” (Ems, 723). Andrew Sullivan from the Atlantic Monthly described tweets as the “raw data of history, as it happen… respected journalistic medium” (Ems, 723) Overall, the influence comes from having the information and disseminating it when one is present in the events. This led the international community to start calling the Iranian upheaval and those that followed, including Tunisia and Egypt’s revolution, the ‘Twitter Revolution’. But, what was the real impact of social media on the success of these movements?
The ultimate goal of the Arab Spring was to diminish the control that their government regimes had over their rights, in essence to democratize. The use of Twitter to lead to this goal is not simple and entails a complex relationship. The “Twitter conversation about the Iranian protests occurred mostly among those in the West, and most likely was not used by Iranians to organize,” (Etling, 10) thus it is less of a tool for rallying and more of a tool for deliberation.
Within academia, there is an enthusiastic campaign to associate social media with the success of the Arab Spring, the ‘Magic Bullet Theory’. This theory “asserts that messages delivered through the mass media powerfully and directly influence the public,” (Berenger, 51) while really the connection between political changes and Twitter should be taken with some skepticism and analysis. For instance, there are 231 million people in the Middle East and North Africa, while only 23.8 million use Facebook and other social media outlets as shown in the Middle Eastern Internet Statistics (Miniwatts). Plus, the use of social media and the devices to record these incidents is exclusive for the elite, and therefore does not represent an entire movement and does not represent an entire population’s political sentiments.
The false representation of political interests is a recurring theme within the employment of social media for thes broadcast of events. The Muslim Brotherhood, during the Egyptian revolution in 2011, tweeted, as shown below:
The U.S. government discerned this incongruity, yet this incident shows how the communication tool can be used to manipulate the image of events when seen from the outside. The proliferation of messages can create a certain idea of circumstances as can also be seen during the recent Israel- Palestine conflict. Celebrities started supporting Palestine and Gaza’s cause was elevated because the massacre of children was tweeted through photographs. On October 14th 2014, the United Kingdom recognized Palestine diplomatically, although symbolically, mainly due to the popular opinion that was amplified by Twitter’s #RecognizePalestine (Castle). Ironically, @UKParliament and @DavidCameron have tweeted nothing about the decision. So, what is the role of Twitter in civil movements?
In this particular example, the international community started supporting the Green Movement; they did this by making their profile pictures a green tint. The Iranian government continued to filter and censor the information being diffused through Twitter, in order to hinder the force of the protests. The United States government reacted by having Jared Cohen, a state department official, directly contact Twitter to “delay scheduled maintenance of its global network, which would have cut off service while Iranians were using Twitter to swap information and inform the outside world about the mushrooming protests around Tehran” (Landler). This strategic move by the U.S. government demonstrates how social media affects geopolitical affairs. More than that, it shows how the U.S. government “[uses] new media tools to exert power over their adversaries” (Ems, 724). P.J. Crowley, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs, would state that members of the American government “are proponents of freedom of expression,” and that “information should be used as a way to promote freedom of expression” (Landler). Nevertheless, the argument that social media improves the chances for open communication is somewhat hypocritical, especially when pertaining to the United States’ decisions on its use. During the G20 summit protests, Pittsburgh police and the FBI arrested Elliot Madison for anarchy because he was using a communication tool, Twitter, to warn protesters of where the police was.
Ultimately, the politicians seem to still be in power by having control over information and the use of social media because they can open or close the flow of information as they wish, as if it were a faucet. Lindsay Ems, who writes for Sage Journals on Twitter’s place in the tussle: how old power struggles play out on a new stage, describes this dynamic perfectly:
“The free flow of information made possible by Twitter in Iran helped the Obama administration achieve its diplomatic goals. In Pittsburgh, limiting the flow of tweeted information by arresting users… helped it achieve its goals.”
The theory of technological democratization is one lens for which to follow that says that citizens’ access to the Internet will “restore and revitalize the public sphere,” (Berenger, 47) – cyber-optimism. Yet, it is contested by the theory of critical political economy proposing that the Internet “mimics the status quo and perpetuates the socio-economic machine that divides societies”. UNESCO’s New World Information and Communication committee supports this notion by deeming the Internet as a means to perpetuate “inequality between the information-rich global North and the information-poor South” (Berenger, 49).
Social media as a means of amplifying issues around the world ideally assists democracy and international politics. There is not much proof for the correlation between the use of social media and the advancement of these political arenas. Even though, Christopher Kedzie has done empirical research on how democracy is associated with information access and not economic development, it is mostly focused on email. The Internet’s operations have surpassed electronic mail through social media, so the research is not as valid. Kedzie’s results proved his hypothesis that democracy has a linear relationship to information access. Now if that translates to social media is still an unanswered question and how people can exploit that is another.
Works Cited
Berenger, Ralph D. Social Media Go to War: Rage, Rebellion and Revolution in the Age of Twitter. Spokane, WA: Marquette, 2013. Print. Used the following chapters: Introduction by Ralph Berenger Citizen ‘Micro-journalism’: How #IranElection was exploited in Politics and Newspaper stories by Rune Saugman Andersen The Role of Contemporary Media in Political Transitions: Searching for a New Paradigm by Katharine R. Allen Conclusion
Castle, Stephen, and Jodi Rudoren. “A Symbolic Vote in Britain Recognizes a Palestinian State.” The New York Times 14 Oct. 2014: 1+. Print.
Clinton, Hillary. “Conference on Internet Freedom.” Conference on Internet Freedom. The Netherlands, Hague. 8 Dec. 2011. Humanrights.gov. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.humanrights.gov/2011/12/09/secretary-clinton-on-internet-freedom-transcript/>.
Ems, Lindsay. “Twitter’s Place in the Tussle: How Old Power Struggles Play out on a New Stage.” Sage Publication (2014): 720-31. Sagepub.com. 4 June 2014. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/36/5/720.full.pdf>.
Etling, Bruce, Robert Faris, and John Palfrey. “Political Change in the Digital Age: The Fragility and Promise of Online Organizing.” Digital Access to Scholarship Harvard (2010): n. pag. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://dash.harvard.edu/bitstream/handle/1/4609956/SAIS%20online%20organizing%20paper%20final.pdf?sequence=1>.
Hofheinz, Albrecht. “Nextopia? Beyond Revolution 2.0.” International Journal of Communication 5 (2011): 1418-434. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <file:///Users/karenkandelman/Downloads/1186-5349-1-PB%20(2).pdf>.
Kedzie, Christopher. “Site-wide Navigation.” Communication and Democracy: Coincident Revolutions and the Emergent Dictators. Rand Corporation, 1997. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.rand.org/pubs/rgs_dissertations/RGSD127.html>.
Landler, Mark, and Brian Stetler. The Washington Post. N.p., 16 June 2009. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/world/middleeast/17media.html?scp=1&sq=%20Mark%20Landler%20and%20Brian%20Stelter%206/17/09%20twitter%20%20&st=cse>.
Miniwatts Marketing Group. “Middle East Internet Usage Statistics, Population, Facebook and Telecommunications Reports.” Middle East Internet Usage Statistics, Population, Facebook and Telecommunications Reports. Miniwatts Marketing Group, 31 Dec. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats5.htm>.
O’Connor, Rory. Friends, Followers, and the Future: How Social Media Are Changing Politics, Threatening Big Brands, and Killing Traditional Media. San Francisco: City Lights, 2012. Print.
Rosenstiel, Tom, and Bill Kovach. Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect. 3rd ed. New York: Three Rivers, 2014. Print.
Shirky, Clay. “How Social Media Can Make History.” Ted@State. 14 Oct. 2014. Ted.com. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.ted.com/talks/clay_shirky_how_cellphones_twitter_facebook_can_make_history/transcript?language=en>.
Toyama, Kentaro. “Twitter Isn’t Spreading Democracy- Democracy Is Spreading Twitter.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 11 Nov. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2014. <http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/11/twitter-isnt-spreading-democracy-democracy-is-spreading-twitter/281368/>.