The Democratic Nature of Social Media

1. The Internet and International Relations
The Democratic Nature of Social Media
Presentation by David Quinn

2. “Information technology
(IT) has become an
Introduction essential tool for the
global circulation of
power, waging of war, and
imagining of peace”
Der Derian (2003)

3. Examples

4. The Philippines | 2002
• Protests by text messages to
mobilize & coordinate their
action
• TXT MSG traffic doubled to
over 70 million a day*
• Intensity of the protests forced
the Supreme Court to declare
the presidency void
*(NP Action, 2005).

5. Ukraine | (2004)
• Text messages played a role in coordinating young
Ukrainians in their ‘Orange Revolution’
• Internet was used to recruit volunteers, organise
campaigns, raise funds, report breaking news
• Protests led to a re-vote

6. Iran | (2009)
• Role of social media as a
communication tool in
coordinating and
publicizing
mass protests
• Twitter provided up-to-the-
minute updates from the
street level
• Global media forced to rely
on Twitter feeds
• Viral videos - Death of
Iranian woman caught on
camera phone spread

7. CNN

8. Iran | (2009)
• Government succeeded in imposing
restrictions on Internet use and TXT MSG
• Twitter proved virtually impervious
In less than a month ‘tweets’ about
the elections from approximately
480,000 users

9. State Department

10. • Impact of Twitter widely
heralded as victory for
democracy
Questioning
• Real impact on international
the Hype relations is still far from
understood
• Longer term impact less clear

11. Did Twitter fundamentally alter the
future of Iran?
or
Did it merely serve to function as a lot
of digital hot air?

12. Assessing the Democratic Nature
of the Internet & New Media

13. Democratic Nature of the Internet
Deeply embedded ideological belief:
– Regan (1989): “the Goliath of
totalitarianism will be brought down
by the David of the microchip”
– Barlow (1996): “act of nature…where all may enter
without privilege or prejudice according by race,
economic power, military force, or station of birth.”
– Hattotuwa (2009): “technologies that work in concert to
empower communities to better engage with
governance and democracy”

14. Democratization of the Media
• Decentralization of the media
• Media culture from passive to active
participation
• Increased transparency of information
• Questions over accuracy of information

15. Democratization of Power
• It diffuses and redistributes power and points of
centralization.
• Cannot direct one another by force
• Challenges traditional power of governments and
states.
• Enables different actors to produce deep global
effects.

16. Make Poverty History campaign

17. Democratization of Extremism
• Concerns about destabilizing externalities.
• Sunstein (2001) - Personalization of the Internet:
“breeding ground for extremism”.

18. However….
• Etling et al. (2009) -
infrastructure for
expressing minority
points of view.
• Beckman Centre for
Internet and Society
(2009) - “Very little
support for terrorism
or violent jihad in the
Arabic blogosphere
and quite a lot of
concern”.

19. Empirical Work

20. Best and Wade (2005)
• Measure the global effect of the Internet on
democracy over the period 1992 to 2002.
• Internet penetration explains “more variation in
the democratic development within a country
than does literacy rates and some of the
geographic regions”.
• But…acknowledge the degree to which the
Internet affects a nation is likely to be subject to
a large number of variables.

21. Limitations of the Internet &
Social Media on Democracy

22. Limitations in the Digital Divide
• 1.6 billion Internet
users worldwide.
• 70% live in the 24
richest countries.
• Developing countries
account for just 13.2%
• Half of all web pages in English

23. …but potential for expansion
• Mobile phones are critical
element in the dissemination
of information globally
• Mobile phone subscribers
• are increasing globally
• By 2011, it is estimated that
there will be another billion
mobile phone owners
• One Laptop Per Child
(www.laptop.org)

24. “For all their promise, there are
sharp limits on what Twitter and
other Web tools such as
Limitations Facebook and blogs can do for
citizens in authoritarian
societies...no amount of
Twittering forced Iran’s leaders to
change course.”
John Palfrey et al. (2009:1)

25. 1. Information hard to distil
2. Governments can limit
access to the Internet when
threatened
3. The demographics of online
communities
4. Authoritarian regimes can
also commandeer the
Internet for their own means

26. However, the Twittering
continues…

27. Conclusions
• This points towards an efficacy of the Internet
• Fear of larger economic and political
consequences = prevention of further
censorship
• Iran, Ukraine and the Philippines highlight the
ability of the Internet to be forefront of global
political change,

28. Conclusions
• Internet = powerful tool for fostering
democracy and development.
• Policy makers should not ‘organise’ or
‘control’ the Internet, but instead ensure
that people have the access and training
to effectively participate online.