New Media and Democracy

Scholars and reporters have noted the democratizing effect of new media, meaning that new media help distribute power to the people through their personal and social characteristics. Many media scholars have commented on these changes as a positive and more active and participative alternative to passive media consumption.Eugenia Siapera, Understanding New Media (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2012), 55.Instead of the powerful media outlets exclusively having control over what is communicated to audiences and serving as the sole gatekeeper, media-audience interactions are now more like a dialogue. The personal access to media and growing control over media discourses by users allows people to more freely express opinions, offer criticisms, and question others—communicative acts that are all important for a functioning democracy.

A recent national survey found that young people, aged fifteen to twenty-five, are using new media to engage with peers on political issues.“Social Media Powers Youth Participation in Politics,” Newswise: The University of Chicago News Office, June 26, 2012, accessed November 8, 2012,http://www.newswise.com/articles/social-media-powers-youth-participation -in-politics. The survey found that young people are defying traditional notions of youthful political apathy by using new media platforms to do things like start online political groups, share political videos using social media, or circulate news stories about political issues.

These activities were not included in previous research done on the political habits of young people because those surveys typically focused on more traditional forms of political engagement like voting, joining a political party, or offline campaigning. Political engagement using new media is viewed as more participatory, since people can interact with their peers without having to go through official channels or institutions. But the research also found that this type of participatory political engagement also led to traditional engagement, as those people were twice as likely to vote in the actual election.“Social Media Powers Youth Participation in Politics,”Newswise: The University of Chicago News Office, June 26, 2012, accessed November 8, 2012, http://www.newswise.com/articles/social-media-powers-youth-participation -in-politics. Although the digital divide is a continuing ethical issue, new media have had a more positive effect on places that are often left out of such technologies. For example, although many people in developing countries still do not have access to dependable electricity or water, they may have access to a cell phone or the Internet through NGO programs or Internet cafés. Many people, especially US Americans, may think the days of Internet cafés (also called cyber cafés) are over. Although Internet cafés were never as popular or numerous in the United States, communal and public Internet access is still an important part of providing access to the Internet all around the world.Sonia Liff and Anne Sofie Lægran, “Cybercafés: Debating the Meaning and Significance of Internet Access in a Café Environment,” New Media and Society 5, no. 3 (2003): 307–12.

“Getting Plugged In”

Social Media and the 2012 Presidential Election

The election of 2012 has been called the “social media election.” Perhaps in today’s hyperconnected world of social media, we shouldn’t be surprised with the rate at which people took to their Facebook timelines and/or Twitter feeds to announce who they planned on voting for or to encourage others to vote for a particular candidate. In fact, about 25 percent of registered voters told their Facebook friends and Twitter followers who they would vote for.Alex Byers, “Study: Facebook, Twitter Users Divulge Votes Online,” Politico, November 6, 2012, accessed November 8, 2012, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83418.html. Candidates are aware of the growing political power of social media, as evidenced by the fact that, for the first time, major campaigns now include a “digital director” as one of their top-level campaign staffers.Steve Friess, “5 Social Media Questions 2012 Will Answer,” Politico, November 5, 2012, accessed November 8, 2012, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83343.html. These “social media gurus” are responsible for securing targeted advertising on outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Reddit (among others), which now have the capability to narrowcast to specific geographical areas and user demographics. The digital directors are also responsible for developing strategies to secure Facebook “likes,” Twitter followers, and retweets. Smartphones also present new options for targeted messaging, as some ads on mobile apps were “geotargeted” to people riding a certain bus or attending a specific public event.Steve Friess, “5 Social Media Questions 2012 Will Answer,” Politico, November 5, 2012, accessed November 8, 2012,http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83343.html.

Aside from new methods of advertising, social media also helped capture the much-anticipated Election Day, including some of the barriers or problems people experienced. People used YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook to document and make public their voting experience. One voter in Pennsylvania recorded a video of a voting machine that kept switching to Romney/Ryan every time the person tried to choose Obama/Biden, and before the day was over, the video already had more than two million views.Jeff Balke, “Projection: Social Media Wins Big in 2012,” Houston Press: Blogs, November 7, 2012, accessed November 8, 2012,http://blogs.houstonpress.com/hairballs/2012/11/projection_social_media_wins_b.php. People also used social media to document long lines at polling places and to share the incoming election results. The 2012 election was the most-tweeted-about political event ever with approximately 20 million tweets posted on election night and more than 11 million uses of the hashtag “#election2012.” When Obama’s campaign tweeted “Four more years” after he had been declared the winner, it was retweeted more than 225,000 times.Marisol Bello, “Voters Document Election on Social Media,” FreeP.com, November 7, 2012, accessed November 8, 2012,http://www.freep.com/article/20121107/NEWS15/121107005/Presidential-election-social-media-Twitter-Facebook-YouTube.

1. How did you and/or your friends and family use social media during the 2012 election?
2. What are some of the positives and negatives of the increasingly central role that social media play in politics?

Issues of ownership and control are present in new media as they are in traditional mass media. Although people may think they are multitasking and accessing different media outlets, they may not be. To help keep users within their domain, some large new media platforms like Facebook and Yahoo! create expansive environments that include news, social media connections, advertising, and entertainment, which allow users to click around and feel like they are moving freely even though they are not leaving the general owner’s space.

New media provide ways of countering some of the control and participation issues that audiences have typically faced as the lines blur between producers and consumers of media. The phrase alternative media is often associated with new media. Alternative media include a range of voices with diverse cultural identities and experiences, which counter the mainstream media outlets that are controlled by and include the voices and perspectives of more privileged people. Alternative media is very similar to and in fact overlaps with tactical media, which are more activist oriented and include dissenting and “radical” perspectives that challenge the status quo. From a truly democratic perspective, which is supposed to invite and encourage dissent, a plurality of voices, and civil debate, alternative and tactical media are welcome additions to the traditional media landscape that tries to diminish, rather than encourage, competing voices.

Blogs were the earliest manifestation of Web 2.0 and marked the beginning of the turn to more user-generated content and the democratization of information gathering and sharing. While “web logging” existed in various forms before 1999, that year marked blogging’s “big bang” as the software application Blogger made it easy for people who did not know HTML (the computer code used to build websites) to compose and publish their blog as well as link to other blogs and relevant content.Megan Boler, “Introduction,” in Digital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, ed. Megan Boler (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), 40. Just as then, today’s blogs provide information that varies in terms of depth, quality, and credibility. Blogs that are most relevant to our discussion of democracy are those whose authors engage in citizen journalism and/or gatewatching.

Blogs are an accessible and popular outlet for citizen journalism, which is reporting done by individuals or small groups outside of the media establishment as a corrective to mainstream journalism, which may inaccurately report or underreport a story.Megan Boler, “Introduction,” inDigital Media and Democracy: Tactics in Hard Times, ed. Megan Boler (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), 40. Citizen journalists increasingly play a part in shaping local and national discussions of news and have received positive and negative evaluations from mainstream media and audiences.

One corrective function of alternative media and citizen journalists is the gatewatching function. Recall that earlier we discussed the gatekeeping function of mass media through which reporters, editors, executives, and advertisers influence what content and how much of it makes it to audiences. Citizen journalists revised this notion to be more actively involved in the process, so gatewatching refers to a media criticism practice that seeks to correct or expand mainstream media reporting. These citizen journalists look for stories or information that will be relevant to their often smaller more niche audiences. Since many people use new media to access information, they seek out information specifically targeted toward their interests and needs. New media make this type of “micro media” a viable alternative to mass media. The citizen journalists then transmit that information to their audience through a blog or microblog, such as Twitter. In this sense, they act as gatewatchers for the mass media and serve the traditional gatekeeper function for their niche audiences. They may comment on how one media outlet covered a story while another did not or how one outlet used more credible sources than the other. They may also critique a media outlet for shallow coverage or overcoverage. Interestingly, the information generated by these citizen journalists increasingly influences the mainstream media’s coverage. Stories that may not have been picked up by a major media outlet now get covered after they receive much attention through new and social media. People in such cases may demand that major media outlets cover the story, or the outlet may choose to cover it on their own to capitalize on the popularity of the story.