Is the Internet Making Us Less Democratic?
How is the Internet affecting our role as citizens?
Democracies no longer go out with a great flash but are rather slowly smothered by authoritarian tendencies.
The role of citizens in a democratic system has been studied at great length. Some have argued that the real opposite of leadership is not followership, but victimhood. When citizens begin to consider themselves victims of their circumstances, or victims of a certain system, they abdicate their role as “original leader”, which is their role as the primary source of legitimacy and sovereignty in any democratic system.
A reflection such as this one is more relevant than ever these days, as new challenges, such as a global pandemic, for instance, offer a chance to re-evaluate the systems we are living in and our relationship with them as citizens.
For citizens to properly play their role as “original leaders”, they should inform themselves well, vote during elections, participate actively in civil society, and hold those who govern accountable by refusing to re-elect non-performing officials.
All of these points represent the traditional fundamentals of healthy citizenship under the umbrella of a healthy democratic system, and they are still true today.
However, the reality of how they may be practiced nowadays has changed tremendously, in a way that necessitates new reflection into the ability of citizens to play their democratic role well.
One main factor is the Internet.
Concerns about the future of democracy within the age of the Internet have been getting media attention for a while. Though technology panic is not new, it does not mean that we do not have a duty as citizens to reflect on how it is changing the political playing field.
Citizens’ access to information has long been established as key to a healthy democracy. Access to information supports citizens’ role as decision-makers in a democracy, helps to decrease corruption, and generally protects against a monopoly of knowledge that slowly degrades into totalitarianism.
A sound and healthy access to information is the prerequisite for any political participation. Without healthy information, it is not possible to participate effectively in elections, to make an informed vote, to participate in civil society or to exercise any kind of pressure on elected leaders. Many studies have proven that greater access to information enhances the creation of more open and free societies.
However, in thinking of citizens’ responsibility to stay informed, it is impossible not to consider what information means in the digital age.
Since the time of the Ancient Greeks, technology panics have been a fact of social life.
When novels became particularly trendy in the 18th century, society became concerned about “reading addiction” and its association with immoral behaviour among young people. The impact of technology on political life is not new.
As television became more dominant in the 20th century, observers worried it was favouring charismatic electoral candidates over others.
While it is true that we have historically been able to get over technology panic, integrating technologies into our lives and using them to our benefit, it is also true that the pace of their development has never been so fast.
The Internet and Political Life
“The use of the Internet has led to more continuity than transformation of political systems” (Van Dijk and Hacker 2018, 205).
The debate on the relationship between democracy and the Internet (and internet-based technology) is a diverse one like many others.
In the early 2000s, there was a general feeling of optimism among scholars and a utopian expectation about how access to the Internet would democratise information and liberate the people by providing avenues for personal expression, promoting citizen activity, and reversing the decline of the public sphere.
This may have come as a natural reaction to some success stories in the 1990s, such as the Indonesian experience of how web-based publications helped to expose information on the corrupt Suharto government, eventually leading to its dismantling.
Two decades later, the conversation is less certain.
According to research conducted by the Pew Research Center in 2020, a significant number of technology experts participating in the study (50 per cent) saw a bleak future for the effect of the Internet on democracy. There are others, however, who believe that citizens will be able to adjust and become more aware of how to use this technology for their benefit. Another group argues that, overall, the Internet will not have a very significant influence either way on democracy.
Some opinions seem to emphasise both sides of the technology coin; they recognise that while the Internet and social media have the potential to contribute to stability and dialogue and to offer a nonviolent political solution, they can also be used by elites to manipulate, spread rumours, and polarize groups into extremism.
Others have put in question some early assumptions about the role of social media, such as the assumption that it would offer a cheap campaigning platform for less wealthy electoral candidates, making electoral races more equal. Some have argued that instead of acting as an equalizer, social media has mostly exacerbated existing inequalities among electoral candidates.
Several experts also emphasise that the effect of the Internet on democracy is entirely contextual. The Internet can range from being a very supportive tool for democracy to a very debilitating tool of control depending on the context in which it exists.
Moreover, in countries where autocratic rule still prevails, the Internet can act as a window to the rest of the world and play a role in catalysing a movement for change. It does not have the same impact, however, in countries with a more or less functioning democratic system.
The appeal of democracy seems to be stronger in countries still aspiring to reach it than in countries already enjoying some form of democracy. The effect of the Internet on democracy is more significant in less advanced democracies than in more advanced ones. And in even in such cases of less advanced democracies, the impact starts to increase at the beginning and then slowly starts to decline.
In most cases as well, digital media use has not led to an increase in voter turnout. This could be considered an indication that social media platforms do not, in themselves, guarantee more participation.
Despite all the diverse opinions about the impact of the Internet on democracy, even those more optimistic than others recognise that even if we eventually learn to use it for our benefit, the journey towards that outcome is one filled with challenges. Democracy is jeopardised by humans’ use of technology due to the speed and scope of reality distortion, the decline of journalism, and the impact of surveillance capitalism.
Information Overload
“Cheap, fast, and convenient access to information does not necessarily render all citizens more informed, or more willing to participate in political discussion” (Papacharissi 2002, 22).
The Internet has increased access to information, but it has resulted in an overload of information in big quantities and questionable quality. The overload of information that we suddenly have access to has often resulted in confusion and apprehension.
The majority of citizens are unable to distinguish what is relevant from what is not and often feel overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of information available out there. This potentially leads in some cases to apprehension and aversion to the information available online, or in other cases to acquiring false information and confusion.
Reality Distortion
One of the main topics to address when talking about information online is Fake News and reality distortion. Information manipulation may not be an entirely new thing. Misinformation and disinformation are present even in mainstream and traditional media, often controlled by the powers that be. Even Access to Information Acts and the mechanisms involved in them provided information that was often misleading, deceiving, and harmful.
With the Internet, however, the phenomenon has exploded.
While the manipulation of information may have previously been reserved to the elites, it is now in the hands of everyone.
One may even argue that mainstream media manipulation by the elite was relatively easier to identify. If a certain TV station or newspaper is owned or funded by a certain group it is likely to be biased in that direction.
However, online media phenomena such as deepfake and cheapfake– creating fake videos of politicians making a certain statement that appears real — have taken reality distortion to another level and have made it that much more difficult to identify the bias.
The implications of such fake information being circulated in a fast and uncontrollable manner are not insignificant. The spread of misinformation and disinformation sows confusion and insecurity.
Awareness of fake information being available online is not always met with a positive reaction of increased vigilance and scrutiny when it comes to online information. In many cases, increased citizen awareness of the potential for false information to be weaponised by certain groups in power has significantly affected their trust in institutions and in each other.
Unfortunately, Post-Truth politics is gaining ground on an international level. There seems to be a decrease in the prioritisation of seeking the truth, enhanced even more by the role of modern technology in allowing individuals to curate their own narratives, their own truths.
The 2016 U.S. elections are one notorious example of a debate on fake news. A study by Allcott and Gentzkow in 2017 revealed some interesting facts about the relationship between “fake news” shared on social media and the presidential elections. For instance, 62% of adults in the U.S. reported getting their news from social media.
Moreover, the most popular fake news items were shared more widely than the most popular mainstream news items and pro-Trump fake news was circulated more widely than pro-Clinton ones. In fact, in the database collected by Allcott and Gentzkow, 115 pro-Trump fake stories were shared a total of 30 million times on Facebook and 41 pro-Clinton stories were shared a total of 7.6 million times. To result in this total of approximately 38 million shares of fake stories, they estimate that these stories must have been opened and read approximately 760 million times!
Reaching a definite conclusion about the scientific impact of fake news on voting results is more complex than that. There are many more factors to consider such as to which extent are these stories believed by readers and are they read by people already radically supporting one candidate or another. However, the proliferation of fake news is large and growing even more. The need to be responsible and vigilant viewers and consumers of this type of news is not to be underestimated.
Social media platforms, especially Facebook, have been taking some new measures to fight this phenomenon, such as flagging some news items as unverified. While this might help in keeping things more transparent, it also raises a question about who then becomes the determiner of the truth.
Surveillance Capitalism
Tech companies collect data and then use it in so many ways, including selling it to the private and public sectors. And although we may still be horrified by how much “they” know about us, we have almost all accepted it as the price to pay for using these technologies that our lives have come to depend so fundamentally on.
Online data collection (and use), however, has opened new areas of concern when it comes to protecting democracy. Some experts fear that this practice is creating power imbalances by empowering the governing at the expense of the governed (whose data is subject to surveillance).
This has opened the door for the powerful to exploit digital illiteracy — the majority’s lack of understanding of how these digital mechanisms work — and wage information wars.
When major corporations are in control of search engines and design algorithms to collect data, they manage the traffic of information and prioritise what we see first. This has grave implications on individuals’ ability to inform themselves as citizens.
Plus, the more people believe their online activity is under government surveillance, the less willing they are to use Internet-based products for political purposes. This undermines the potential for the Internet to act as a force for positive political action.
Social Inequalities and Divisions
Some less visible repercussions may not be as easy to spot. For instance, the effect of the Internet on people’s trust in each other (mentioned above), has serious ramifications on their ability to organise political action. Moreover, people’s increased occupation with global issues through the use of the Internet has somewhat come at the expense of their involvement in local issues around them and local civil society.
So, What Now?
Whether the Internet has the potential to enhance democracy or not, for now, what is clear is that modern technology has a big impact on citizens’ ability to inform themselves, and therefore on their ability to perform all their other functions as “original leaders”.
While it may be true that human beings have historically proven to be able to adapt to technology and use it to better their lives, it does not mean that while we wait for this new technology to be normalised there is nothing to do but to sit cross-armed and observe.
If we are truly to use technology, and particularly the Internet, to improve our potential as active citizens, it is important to be vigilant and informed about how it is affecting our access to the fundamentals of active citizenship.
The responsibility lies on the shoulders of everyone involved. Governments certainly have a major responsibility in developing the needed strategies to combat disinformation.
We also need more digital education and literacy and greater awareness of the mechanisms we are using in order to increase citizens’ understanding of this issue and their ability to be attentive. We need innovative solutions to make sure that awareness develops as fast as the technology does.
There is also a significant ethical component not to be overlooked, both on the part of the suppliers of these technologies and their users. Human behaviour has always threatened democracy, but enshrining new values could help move away from this threat.
Thanks for Reading!
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