Introduction
Undoubtedly, the internet is one of the greatest technological advancement ever witnessed in the modern world. It is associated with almost everything that affects the people, especially when it comes to flow of information. In fact, it has emerged as one of the things than people cannot do without (Chadwick, 51). With the internet, the world has been reduced into a single large society because the distance from one place to another has been reduced as people can communicate from wherever they may be in real time. Through the internet, new practices of human interactions in form of internet forums, instant messaging and social networking is now a common phenomenon (Gomez, 28). Almost all the customary communications media including film, music, telephone, and television have been redefined through the internet. To the end, the paper will be focusing on discussing the effects of the internet on politics in the society. To address this issue, particular interest will be placed on the political changes that have been brought by the internet, whether the society believe in politics, how the society reflect its belief in active participation in the relevant internet sites, the common areas of interest to the social class and the political community, and finally evaluation on whether the internet supports all political analysis in a good way.
Effect of Internet Politics in the Society
It is largely argued that the internet has gained new significance as a political instrument. In politics, the internet plays an important role in campaigns, governance and activism. Therefore, it has a great impact on the society politically. In any political setting, the society will always take sides basing on their political desires. A lot of updates are posted on the internet that eventually leads to political polarization within the society. At this point, like-minded people tend to cluster closer with their viewpoints. Political anxiety within the society if not well handled results to destructive acts such as violence and disagreements (Gomez, 31-33).
Political Campaigns
One of the areas where the internet has been applied, from a political perspective, is campaigning. Candidates in various campaigns perceive the internet not only as the cheapest mode of campaigning, but also as the best approach to reach many people at the same time. This approach has been applied in the United States in the recent past. For instance, in 2004, Howard Dean, in his presidential campaigns, used this approach to lobby for donations to support his campaigns (Davy). Before Howard Dean’s campaigns, various political websites had already been launched, the most popular being the liberal community website MyDD and Libertarian-leaning Instapundit. Particularly, Dean’s campaigns were supported by the MyDD (Davy).
Major advancements on use the internet in campaigning were observed in 2008, during President Obama’s campaigns. In fact, it is argued that technological innovations in general and the internet specifically, played a major role in success of the Democrats. The August 28 text from the Obama front is a point of reference. The message read: “Breaking News.Barack Obama has selected Joe Biden to be his running Mate!” (Davy). This later followed by creation of the Obama08 app, which allowed people to contact friends in various crucial electoral regions, in addition to other features. All these are illustrations on the role that the internet is has played in political campaigns not only in the United States, but also in other parts of the world.
Activism
The internet has gained popularity among the activists because the speed at which information spreads through the internet. In addition, most political groups utilize the internet to attain a new technique of organizing so as to undertake their mission (Chadwick, 74). In particular, this was observed during the most recent Arab Spring. Social medial websites, especially Twitter and Facebook, played a major role during the political revolutions in Syria, Libya and Egypt. It was reported that various classes of protesters used Twitter and facebook to communicate grievances, organize protests, and disseminate information. Furthermore, they used other sites, especially youtube to spread their propaganda, which further aggravated the uprisings. In fact, to deal with the political unrests, the affected countries were forced to cut internet services to limit spread of information and propagandas of the political activists.
Besides, the internet is used as a tool of communication, especially in countries where freedom of expression is limited. It is argued that the internet gives an opportunity for those who lack courage, or whose freedom of speech is limited, to communicate their beliefs and ideologies. This implies that individuals with certain views can promote them without fear of being victimized (Chadwick and Philip, 69).
Political impact of internet in the society
The question of whether different societies in the world believe in internet politics is relative in that there are several factors that determine the extent of the belief. Some of the factors that determine the extent to which people participate in internet politics are economic disparities among the different countries, as well as underdevelopment (Bryfonski, 95). These two factors can be attributed to the fact that a large number of the world population have no access to the internet and as a result their participation levels in digital technology remains relatively low.
With regard to the statistics on the ground, different regions access internet connectivity differently with a large number of North Americans being able to access the internet regularly. On the other hand only less than 1% of the population in Cambodia have the capacity to access the internet often which is also the case in Ethiopia. With this in mind, the society believe in politics with regard to the internet will depend on the vintage point of the researcher (Kalathil, 113). For instance, if the point of vintage of the researcher with regard to how people participate on political matters is in a country that has a good and stable economy such as the United States, the population participation with regard to political issue digitally would be termed as active.
On the other hand if the point of vintage of the researcher is in a country that is weak with regard to their economic empowerment, the issue would be different. This is because the people from these economically sidelined regions do not have access to the internet and therefore cannot interact or participate in the different internet sites that have political issues. The few people who have access cannot make a great impact since they are either not interested or have nothing to do with political issues (Selnow, 229).
A close look at the politics in Philippines show the exact scenario of the exact situation on the ground taking interest on participation of the public in political issues using the digital technology available. One fact worth noting is that of all the political parties that are mainstream parties present today in Philippines, none of them in the congress with the exception of a single party in the right wing that has a website. In Philippines, the internet is said to play hardly any role (Klotz, 115). The senators in the country run their home page accounts and it is the same case with the various government departments as well as humanitarian agencies. However a great proportion of the political class have been left out in the digital era and it is surprising to find out that most of the representative in the congress does not have email addresses.
This doesn’t imply that the political class in the country have a problem with the digital technology or that the people do not like communication among themselves. Their enthusiasms to take part in digital politics have been affected by the fact that internet connectivity in the country is relatively low (Katz, 201). With this in mind, it goes without saying that the internet may not have an impact on the population and the population hardly participate on political issue in an active way.
However in countries where internet connectivity is excellent, internet politics have the impact on the people and in most cases the population participate in political debates and other issue in an active way and they believe in internet politics (Davis, 59). For instance North America where internet connectivity is high people participate actively in political issues in all the relevant internet site by posting their opinions, comments, questions as well as their complains. South Korea is also known for their active participation on political issues and use of internet.
In countries where internet plays a role in the politics of a country, every person has an area of interest where they tend to incline towards. For instance the social community incline towards a certain way as well as the political class. Among the social community, they engage in politics in dating as it is one of their most preferred sites. Researchers interested with related issue have carried out research and revealed that politics of the day are common among most of the couple (Margolis, 78). Political preferences among couple are one of the most interesting things in that most of the couple share similar is political views.
The social community have some question they seek to answer with regard to political internet dating. One of the key questions is how people with similar political views manage to get to know each other and have long lasting fruitful relationships. It has been found out that having a common area where the two parties are compatible for instance in politics increases their chances of staying together for long. The social class is most interested with issue with regard to civil right in politic of the internet (Katz, 210).
The media which are part of the social community are especially interested with rumours with regard to political issues and social movements. The social class is very much interested with digital activism which occurs in internet politics. The social politics help in information diffusion to all their members which enable them to reach a great proportion of their supporters to give information to their political supporters.
The political community are much interested with political issue of the country in the internet. For instance most of the political class bother themselves with cyber space campaigns across the countries and politics of other countries. The follow to details the politics of other places and the influence they have on other countries as well as in their own country. The political community is also interested in other aspects for instance political donations as well as receiving the current political updates.
This is more especially during the period toward presidential elections in most of the countries in the world. It is also worth noting that the political class is interested much in areas of governance and progressive democracy in different part of the world (Davis, 79). The political community is also interested in finding out the political stands of different politicians especially when there are political unrests or leaders are about to make great decisions.
In as much as the social and political problem are different from time to time, there are times when both the political class and the social class experience similar problems. People in the social class face problems because they are under employment. This makes the problems that the two groups of people experience are quite different not unless they are in employment that is paid which is not common among the political community (Klotz, 115).
The political class in most of the cases is comprised of person of a high class social status unlike the social class where in most occasions; they are comprised of middle class income earners (Kalathil, 113). The two different classes experience different problems for instance political unrest in a country, or when essential services have been curtailed for the entire population in a country.
Does the internet support all the political analysis in a good way?
Undeniably, the question on whether the internet supports all political analysis in a good way has been one of the mast debated questions in the political field. Some agree that the internet support all the political analysis in a good way, while others argue against it. The internet however does the political analysis based on either certain facts of mere information received randomly. Although the internet political analysis should be based on facts, sometimes it is modified in certain ways to either please a certain group of people or even hurt the feeling of some people (Gomez, 49). Political analysis is sometimes based on information received from other unreliable sources, and such analysis is usually invalid thus ends up providing false information on either honorable politicians.
The internet plays a very crucial role in the political society. It acts as a link between what is happening to the world and the general society. Particularly, the linkage between the welfare of the society and the political arena is important because the people of the society are the citizens who are usually actively involved in the politics by either voting for the politicians or even advising them (Chadwick, 77). It is therefore important the society is made aware of what is happening in the political community through internet analysis. The internet also plays a significant role in analyzing politics. Analysis of politic done by the internet is vital because it make it easy for the society to understand what their politicians are doing, as well as what is happening in their local and regional politics (Gomez, 55).
Regrettably, political analysis is not always presented by the internet 100%, and the little information that is usually analyzed by the internet tend to lack some features of truth in them. As much as the internet provides a wide range of useful information about politics to the society, most of it contains a lot of lies and modifications that make the information look good or undesirable. In order for political analysis to be of immense help to the society and politicians themselves, it should be done based on facts and the information should not be modified whatsoever (Chadwick and Philip, 26-27).
A number of cases have been reported where various people have been wrongly implicated on the internet, such people are usually either mere people of the politicians. Nevertheless, the cases of politicians are the mainly focused cases because of their fame in the society as well, as their role in the society (Chadwick and Philip, 34). Updates on the internet are made on a daily basis concerning politicians and politics in general. Such cases may either be true or just lies. Some internet analysis is usually done in a way so that the information availed attracts the eyes of the internet users. The internet makes the analysis and avails to the society very fast and they therefore, do not allow adequate time to conduct an extensive research before uploading any form of information on the internet
Conclusion
As discussed above, the internet is one of the major developments from a technological point of view. From a political point of view, the internet has played a significant role in campaigns, activism, as well as governance. T the paper have critically analysed the impact of internet on the politics of the day in different parts of the world. In the paper, different regions in the world for instance North America; countries such as Japan and china have been evaluated to show how the extents to which people are conversant with politic through digital technology. Through the evaluation, the paper has shown that people believe in politics and participate in them through the internet only if there is internet connectivity. Regions where internet connectivity is present people are aware of internet politics and actively participate on political issues through their websites.
The paper have clearly demonstrated that people participation on internet politics depend on the point of view a researcher views the community in terms of internet connectivity. The paper further demonstrated that different classes that is the political community and the social class have different interest while engaging internet politics. The political class is interested in matters of governance, current political affair as shown in the paper.
On the other hand, the social class is mainly interested with civil rights as well as political dating through the internet. In addition to that the paper has covered issues relating to the problems experienced by both the social and political class as well as they common problems the two classes experience. Indeed internet impacts the community in political issues.
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