Week 8: Big Politics - The Fate of the State
Who would have thought twenty years ago that we would ever be able to directly communicate with the current Prime Minister of Australia at the click of a button? The millennium brought with it the Web 2.0, and it was set to change the world as we knew it. It has opened up infinite possibilities and connected the world. If we consider politics in relation to new media and in particular social media, such as Twitter, Facebook and websites like WikiLeaks, we can see just how much politics has changed - and possibly predict where the 'fate of the state' is headed.
Like a moth to a flame, politicians have taken to social media as a shiny new tool that allows them to self-publish their bullshit and campaign without going through journalists or having to attend press conferences. Hurrah for politicians! Politicians now have Facebook and Twitter accounts, which (apparently) they update themselves and respond to comments personally, making voters feel more connected with leaders and feel more involved. From this the potential for citizens to effect change exists, such as by organising rallies or putting pressure on political leaders when enough people publicly express their opinions on policy.
Also, social media means the way we receive political information and news has changed, as we are firstly more selectively searching for and choosing the news we want to view, and secondly we are receiving our political updates via streamed and shared YouTube and other video clips, perhaps leading to a more diverse range of citizens engaging with politics, such as young people and lower socio-economic status citizens who would not typically read newspapers such as The Australian, watch political programs or watch news bulletins as frequently as those particularly interested with politics.
From this, we have seen a much more transparent government, where political updates, news and information is more readily available and instantaneous, is shared rapidly and is less likely to be manipulated or concealed before the world sees it. The reading 'Against transparency: the perils of openness in government' by Lessig unpacks issues surrounding the 'transparency movement' that the Web 2.0 has created, saying "Like the decision to go to war in Iraq, transparency has become an unquestionable bipartisan value". He goes on to describe how he remains pessimistic about the current state of 'naked transparency' despite the rest of the world taking to the idea of raw political information being available online to citizens without going via journalists. He is concerned that "The problem, however, is that not all data satisfies the simple requirement that they be information that consumers can use, presented in a way they can use it", and suggests that data made available directly to citizens online should be annotated and put forward in a way that it can be understood.
I agree with this that there are problems with transparency, but I would have to say my primary concern would be how this transparency is exploited by politicians rather than how consumers may or may not understand data or information without going via a media mogul. Either way, with the way that politics has been changed by new media in the past decade, while it is impossible to imagine what new technologies will bring, I think the next decade will see politics change more than we can anticipate, and I predict the gap between politicians and voters will close if not altogether.
Lecture word: Transversality
References:
Lessig, L. 2010. Against transparency: the perils of openess in government, New Republic, site accessed 28th April 2013, <http://www.newrepublic.com/article/books-and-arts/against-transparency?page=0,0#>