Online Journalism: Theory and Practice

Week 14Lecture 1

Summer 2011

G. F Khan, PhDDept. of Media & Communication, YeungNam University,

South Koreagohar.feroz@gmail.com

Last lecture• Legal and Ethical issues related to the

internet• Protection of Intellectual Property • The Internet and Issues Regarding

Defamation• Whose responsibility is ethics on the net?

Online Politics &

Democracy

In this Class

What is Democracy?

Literary it means “people’s power”

Defining democracy is a political act (Saward, 1994). I.e. there is no one universal definition or model of democracy

However, we can say that: Democracy is a political system in which the supreme power lies

in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them

Politics: the activities and affairs involved in managing a state or a government.

and other areas e.g. business, academia, and religious institutes etc

History of Politics

Politics and interest in political activities has long history inform of Public Spheres

People use to set in public spheres such as, coffee houses and salons to discuss commerce, politics and their new lifestyles

Later, newspapers became a central aspect of this activity in terms of the political concerns and other important issues

Advent of Electronic media e.g. Radio and TV gave wider access to Political and social activities

Types of Public Sphere

According to John Keane (2004) following types of public spheres may exist Micro public spheresMeso public spheres and macro public spheres

Types of Public Sphere (1)

Micro:Micro public spheres tend to be small involving an

institution, a community or an association that may be advocating for certain interests.

E.g. political pressure groups or civic organizations that operate at a small-scale level.

Micro public spheres have the potential to transform to be large scale or even be national, depending on the availability of resources

The advent of the Internet has also further enhanced the capacity for expansion even at a global level

Types of Public Sphere (2)

Meso:Meso public spheres are large scale or

national and have the capacity to become international.

They tend to be political public spheres and generate a lot of interest and participation from the ordinary citizens who may seek the betterment of their Standard of living and general welfare.

Types of Public Sphere (3)

Macro:The macro public spheres are global in scale

and they may deal with issues that affect individual nation-states, but give them global publicity.

Examples include UN, Amnesty International, Green Peace, Human Rights Watch and many others.

What will be an ideal public sphere?

Ideal Public Sphere (1)

Where everyone has access to regardless of class, income, faith, gender, race and ethnicity

According to (Holub,1991) an ideal public sphere is characterized by:Participation and non discriminationAutonomyRational or analytical debate

Ideal Public Sphere (2)

Participation and non discrimination

This means that the public sphere must be an open forum for all.

If anything, a public sphere must thrive from the plurality and diversity of opinion thus creating a market place of ideas.

No one has advantage over other

Ideal Public Sphere (3)

Autonomy Public sphere has to be autonomous because

an autonomous environment is conducive for critical and rational debate, where people can employ full use of their mental faculties without fear and favor.

Ideal Public Sphere (4)

Rational or analytical debate:This is the root and essence of the public

sphere. According to Habermas, people in the coffee

houses and salons had loyalty to the authority of better argument against hierarchy and

Fear and favour were seen as an insult to rationality and analysis which are the muscle of a functional public sphere.

Thus Ideal Public Sphere has..

Interactivity or deliberative democracyOpenness and accessibility to allUnfettered freedom of expressionFreedom of information exercised

Given these attributes, to what extent the Internet is able to simulate an ideal public sphere?

From the coffee houses to cyber forums: Internet as a public sphereOpenness and accessibility to all Open platform and hyper-interactive medium.

Internet anyone who has access to a wired computer can freely express their views

Diversity and plurality of the voices on the net e.g. the websites of

Political parties, Christian, Muslims, Buddhist and others Civil society and government sites

The co-existence , plurality and diversity of these sites makes the Internet the biggest single public sphere

Internet as a public sphere (2) Autonomous and Independent public sphere

Through the usage of email, e-chats and webcasting to create democratic discussions between members, the Internet can also be regarded as a fairly Autonomous and Independent public sphere

Interactivity feature of the internet (using video, audio, and text) basis of ideal public sphere

Internet is a participatory public sphere.

Affordability Flexibility (e.g. you can edit your opinion) Worldwide reach

no time and distance constraints

Internet as a public sphere (3) Internet is a participatory public sphere.

What old media were not participatory. One way communication We may read newspapers and magazines, listen to radio and

recordings, or watch film and television but we cannot input our opinion

Old media a closed media: control by some giants e.g. government, cooperation

Old media does not serve communication, but prevents it They talk you listen, no opinion, no debate

But now we both talk and listen (two communication)

In Internet communication, senders can be receivers and receivers can be senders of information

Internet as a public sphere (4)Information and information access

critical and analytical resources for interaction in any public sphere

Hypertext and hyperlinks lead Internet users as public sphere participants to more information and related information

Information from the media, civic organizations, government, political parties and some international organizations is freely accessible to all Internet users

Internet as a public sphere (5)

BUTTo what extent does the free and

publicly accessible information is useful? Are the billed or password-protected

sites more informative than the free sites? And

How will it affect the participation in online public sphere?

• Politics by unconventional means• Facebook, twitter, cyword, personal blogs

• Heterogeneous and Diversity• Age, gender, experience, knowledge

• Loosely structured, fluid• Grassroots level

• E.g. ordinary citizens run and organizes online public movements

• Decentralization• No central control or authority

• Informality• Global coordination• Inter-group coordination

Internet and Social Movements

• E-democracy (a combination of the words electronic and democracy) refers to the use of information technologies and communication technologies and strategies in political and governance processes.

E-democracy

What are some tools of e-democracy?

Tools of e-democracy

• E-government• E-voting • Political Blogs• Social media

• E-government can be defined as practice of providing public services through ICT e.g. internet, mobile, telephone etc

Benefits of E-govt.:• Transparency:

• The posting of contact information, legislation, agendas, and policies makes government more transparent, potentially enabling more informed participation both online and offline

• Efficiency-makes government more efficient • Ease for citizens to get services

• E.g. ID card, Passport, birth certificate etc

• Easy communication with government • Participation in policy making

E-government

E-voting•Electronic tools for casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes

•Desire to increase participation

•Easily accessible

•Convenience for citizens

•Transparency-reduce bogus voting

•Problems?•Trust- can you trust machine to cast vote for you?•Identify theft

Political blogs• Easy communication with

government representatives

• Participation in policy making

• Election campaign

• Visible leaders

Problems related to internet as a public sphereProblems:

Social exclusion due to poverty, Prohibitive costs of cutting-edge technologies,Shrinking public and individual access due to corporate

profiteering, Counter surveillance technologies, Poor connectivity, Poor technologies,Lack of relevant content, Technophobia, Commercial intrusions like pop-up adverts, andVirus attacks

Critics to the internet as a public sphereSome scholars disagree with the whole

idea that the Internet can be a public Reduction in physical contact:

Reduce and inhibit the richest and most satisfying of human contact when we use it over short distances to replace meeting each other in real space.

Information integrity: Testing and reviewing information and

knowledge within online communities is still the important challenge to our democratic freedoms (Trevor Haywood, 1998)

Conclusion

• Tools for engaging mass participation

• Tools for coordinating globally dispersed people

• Internet as an Ideal public sphere

• But challenges exist that need to be addressed

• It depend a society’s and culture’s ability to cope and adapt.

Thank YouQuestions & Comments