Globalisation and the mass media

Extract

[...] Although China has opened up to the global Internet as a means towards becoming a global economic power, it is also facing the problem of the internet being a vast resource of information and news and a forum for the free exchange of ideas. Thus, China has shut down political bulletin boards and instituted strict censorship schemes that prevent people within China from accessing some Western sites such as news from CNN, the BBC, Reuters and The Washington Post. Similarly David Lyon consider that behind their ‘Electronic eye' made available by the introduction of the ICT, the states but also the individuals themselves -through voyeurism- create a ‘surveillance society' out of our democracies mots. [...]

[...] For example political parties have established ‘bulletin boards' on the Internet which permit the availability of information for public access, thus hoping to encourage and increase participation in a time of political apathy. Some states have even seen in the Internet structure a way to deal with the voting-abstention problem trough an electronic voting-system, enabling citizens to vote from their living-room instead of having to go to their polling station. For example, the State of Arizona during the 2000 elections have tried the online-voting system and has found a rise of almost 600% in terms of participation. [...]

[...] In history there has always been a ‘public sphere' where critical reasoning over issues of political concerns would be discussed - the Greek Agora or the Coffee Houses in the 17th and 18th Century Europe for example. According to Habermas the crisis currently encountered by democratic politics is due to the collapse of this ‘public sphere' since the traditional print media or media' producing a horizontal flow of news, do not allow any room for its audience to express itself. [...]

[...] Most of the Internet-enthusiasts have seen in the Internet the possibility to reinvent our currently ‘dying' democracy into a virtual and direct democracy, since within the World Wide Web, one belongs to a ‘cutting edge' democracy regardless to one's citizenship. Indeed, whereas participation in the political process is traditionally undermined by the problems of time, space and knowledge, a virtual democracy would resolve all these issues -since people would not have to gather at the same time and space, and since the internet provides a efficient source of information, people would have the accurate knowledge required in order to make rational decisions. [...]

[...] But if the technological structure of the Internet institutes instantaneous dissemination and radical decentralisation what might be its effects on the society, the culture and the political institutions? Will the Internet actually be able to decentralise and democratise the flows of communications between different communities? In other words, does the Internet create democracy? I. Internet Enabling the Renewal of Democracy: The Internet-Enthusiasts A. The ‘Information Superhighways' Howard Rheingold, whose book Virtual Communities was published in 1993 has emphasised the idea that the Internet would enable a phenomenon of renewal of the democracy within communities, especially virtual communities. [...]