Task Week 9
What are the uses/limits of the internet in terms of politics and/or democracy? Should we rethink the nature of the political? What happens to the nation/state in the age of networks that have the potential to span the whole globe? What has happened to the idea of community in the age of networked digital media? Discuss with an example.
1. Democracy in the Digital Age by Anthony G Wilhelm
The key information in this book is details how social media and the internet are impacting on political participation in America. Although my assignment is not on political participation in America, it is infact on the impact of social media and it’s effect of political participation. A quote from the text as Wilhelm suggests is “that new technologies are threats to the progress as much as they are vehicles to the progress”. Wilhelm also suggests “that there is an appearance of progress yet a negligable advancement of the human condition”. The 4 main points of the digitally mediated political life that Wilhelm discusses are resources, inclusiveness, deliberation and design. This book helps my argument by clarifying the first part of the essay; being the uses and limits of the internet in terms of politics and/or democracy.
2. Digital Democracy: Discourse and Decision Making in the Information Age by Barry N Hague and Brian Loader
This text examines the impact of information and communication technologies and their consequences for political institutions, while also discussing the concept of an emergent electronic democracy. The book also details concepts such as democracy and cyberspace, and how they relate. This book differs from the previous book because as the first book outlined the pro’s and con’s of politics and democracy on the web; this text details how the internet should be used to create a better citizen-government interface, and then by detailing the digital media’s actuall effectiveness on democratic practice. This assists my argument by highlighting the emergence of unintended consequences when using digital media for democracy and political reasons.
3. Democracy and New Media by Henry Jenkins and David Thorburn
This book details how the internet is eliminating democracy from civic life to global through “giving people the access to information and expanding the arena of free speech”. This book assists my essay by detailing the tactics of political campaigners and how they circulate the messages and also by how topics enter the public discourse. This journal is relative to the other journals in its argument. This journal is of great help to my essay as it details step by step the introduction of the internet. A good quote from this text is that “the internet was created by society but the internet is creating society”.
4. The Web of Politics by Richard Davis
This book discusses how the internet is impacting on the politics in America. Unlike the other books which discuss some of the bad points, this journal discusses how the use of the internet and new media benefits the political parties. It analyses the effective tools that parties can use to broadcast their message. This journal assists in my essay as it differentiates the new techniques that can be used in campaigns as apposed to the old techniques through the introduction of new technologies. A quote from this text is “the future of American politics has been called an age of internet democracy”.
5. Hand Book of New Media: Social Changing and Consequences of ICT’s by Leah Leivrouw and Sonia Livingston
This book discusses the social change and consequences of new communication technologies. Most importantly, is chapter 3 - Politics and New Media. This chapter is the most usefull out of the whole book as it discusses directly the introduction of new voting techniques that have been implemented to gain a larger audience by politics. This book is similiar in its argument to the previous book as it details the benifits. A good quote from this text is ”that the diffusion of the new media, especially the internet, can transform the now devitalised relationship between political bodies and the citizenry they represent and gorvern.
