The Role of Journalism, Mass Media and Communication in Politics - Term Paper Example

 Journalism, Mass Media And Communication Introduction The politicians have mostly used and utilized digital tools legally and illegally with the aim to chase political goals as hacktivists. Hacktivists are online activity of special kind that does not generally obey order. This is to mean that in the digital world, they portray civil disobedience. This idea of hacktivism can be applied by the politicians to the view of digital activists. Online civil disobedience is also encapsulated on this. For various political reasons, activists may behave disobedient in the digital world. These online activists exercise their basic right to freedom of expression and assembly. Politicians can raise various issued or inform the public on certain issues that are happening in the ruling government that may be heating the public. Issues like corruption in the government may be raised by the politician’s with out being identified through the internet so that the public might provide their opinion. The unique feature of anonymous is the fact that it dose not poses a political opinion that is uniform with the apparently omission of the idea of the internets absolute freedom. For instant, no payment is to be allowed in the opinion provided, no censorship and filtration. There is decentralization of communication over abroad supply of the channels of communication, this includes, mailing list, image boards, and the channels of IRC. Since there is the distribution of information and the people participating are having an opinion that is diverse, there can not be a spokesman or a leader. In short, both the non-digital and the digital protest can at the same time come from anonymous (Slobbe & Verberkt, 2012). The anonymous statement should always be questioned because there are higher possibilities that the statement might not be true. The main method of anonymous entails a target specification and the use of DDoS method for taking it down while asking for more participants on the internet. The politicians can also form an assembly in the internet to discuss various ideas or to have the public opinion on certain issues. It has been witnessed that the legislators of the Dutch consider a group of people as a manifestation that express their wish or emotion publicly concerning a political or a social subject. The constitutional court of the Germans came into a consensus that an assembly should be defined as a gathering of people in an orderly way while taking part in the provision of opinion that may contribute towards building of the nation with the aim of manifestation or discussion. This perception will further build the idea of digital assembly. Hence, the expression of opinion, visibility and collectivity should be considered as requirements (Slobbe & Verberkt, 2012). One of the main requirements of an assembly is that it should be visible. The visibility will enable it to make a difference between an action where the opinion of publicly expression goal prevails and the action where there is prevalence in the goal of hindrance. The same is evidence in an assembly that is digital. Hence, the citizens should be in apposition to identify the issue that is to be expressed by the public (Slobbe & Verberkt, 2012). A part from being public, in an assembly, what should also prevail is the goal of collective opinion and expression. This is to mean that the assembly that is digital should be both socially and politically motivated and not to be aimed at for instance, the campaigns of smear. The power of the assembly is mainly based on its collective character. Is a given decision is rejected by a large number of people, there is a higher possibility for the group to be heard as compared to when an opinion is opposed by an individual person. However, in the world that is digital, automation is easily affordable. Thus, a person could act in a way that he or she is a group of people. As a result, the collective requirement prescribes the principle of one man, one vote. Also a given proportionality between the participants and the target size in the assembly and the assembly impact is vital. In short, the assembly needs a given mass that is critical for its effect to be felt (Slobbe & Verberkt, 2012). In the current of today the main group that is intensively utilizing the internet is the university students. They are also the main source of strikes that are evidenced in the current world of today. The education of today must involve the body and mind. It should be more than learning, teaching and writing. Unless education moves out of the school, university and collages education will still be powerless. This is mainly because the entire existence of education has become the political subject of social engineering. It is evidence that the education of today has been greatly politicized (Brian Holmes, 2012). It is vital for the politicians to also understand that there is no such a thing as mass email campaign. Mass email is usually a single tactic, one element of the entire strategy of campaign with the interest to influence the public decision makers. When is placed in the campaign context of the border, most of the concern of clicktivism are declared debatable (Karpf, 2010). Issues of surveillance and privacy Internet is also a way for protests and it is being utilized for the online mobilization and the decency act such as website cloning or defacement, online petition, mail-bombings and net strikes. The use of the term electronic advocacy is the utilization of high technology to manipulate the process of decision making or the utilization of technology with the aim to support the effort of policy change. Most of the hackers who use the internet to take part in the online protest belong to the movement of global justice, and raise issues like free access to information; this is mainly right to privacy and free software (Della Porta & Mosca 2005). CMC has enabled the campaigns in internet transitional to be conducted against corporations that are multinational like Microsoft, Nike, De Beers, and Monsanto, run mainly through online petition. Online petition international mobilization has also denounced certain breach of human rights and put pressure on the government against the removal of death penalties. This campaign extended to be bigger and was no longer centrally controlled; it was changing in a daily basis in relation to goals and networks, and was not easy to turn off and on (Della Porta & Mosca 2005). Creation of website was the tactic utilized by online activists. This was mainly with the domain name such as http://www.whirledbank.org that mocks international organizations and their activities. At the sometime, fake websites is formed using the name of organizations that are international for example http://www.seattlewto.org, and the intention is to attract users looking for the website of the office (Della Porta & Mosca 2005). Another type of proliferated online protest net strike in the current years among the organizations that are radical as a real conflicts virtual practice through StranoNetwork . Networking striking is composed of several people simultaneously connecting to the domain that is same at the time that is prearranged, with the intention to jam a website that they have considered as their target and with the intention of making the website impossible to reach for people who are interested to reach them. It motivation and mobilization is always communicated in earlier to the site of which the net strike will be made. A net strike can be compared to the physical strike that is experienced when a group of people blocks the rood hindering any passage of a car. When a net strike is in progress, the channel of communication is activated by the online protestors; this is mainly a mailing list or a chat-line, in order for their action of protest to be coordinated. A net strike was carried against the website of WTO at the time of protest in Seattle, preferably connecting online and offline environment. Some group’s desire net striking to online petition because the online petition needs the construction of a database composed of information that is personal that is mainly considered as a threat to the person’s privacy (Della Porta & Mosca 2005). Like the net strike but not frequently used is the mail bombing which entails sending of the mail to a server or a website until it gets jammed or overloads. This type of online action was criticized. The criticism of this action was mainly because its final success is not dependant of the force of argument but on the bandwidth or the computer power available to the attacker as compared to that of the victim. For the mail bombers to keep to their privacy, they use software that is special as cryptation that will help in hiding their identity (Della Porta & Mosca 2005). The use of the media and online platforms for political discussion Mass media has become a vital foundation of information on political and separation between media and politics in currently becoming blurred. Most of the time, media is more interested in the entertainment than in the analysis. The political sphere that has been mediatised can also be easily understood, by the utilization of Bourdieu, as an area in which types of capital are acquired and sought. The notion of David of media capital underscores the political mediatisation by showing that the politician that are determined currently need skills of news management and policy construction that are technical. Vital social capital comes from the political journalists and the party hierarchy but not from the colleagues. Furthermore, the symbolic capital is obtained via a more systematic and rehearsed approach that focuses on the mass media. Nevertheless, the concentration on habitus by Bourdieusian as a source of capital is not enough for the essential reflexivity understanding in the adaptation of situations that are unfamiliar and rapid change and the mediatisation account do not attend to citizens (Manning & Holmes, 2014). The engagement of the public with the politician is always mediated and most of the citizens always emphasis on the politicians capability to communicate well, however, this kind of debates majorly focus on the type of information that are obtained by most of the people about the politicians and politics, instead of what the people make on such information. Likewise, the personalization of politics works majorly on political actors that are professional instead of how the political information is interpreted by the public and how they engage with the information. Also, these shifts emotional dimension are mainly overlooked with relation to politics. The main aim is for the view of affinity to be developed so that it can assist in understanding how the public, with reference to the available mediated information, evaluate politicians and politics (Manning & Holmes, 2014). How the citizens relate to and learn politics is destroyed with the mediated association with politics that stresses the commentary of media on politicians and politics, and the politician’s media performance that is embodied. There exists a hope that the politician somatically and experientially reflects the electorates towards themselves. Though not like some descriptive representation accounts these does not frequently extend to sexual, cultural diversity, gender and ethnic representation. This happens through various means and may comprise of evoking their experience as a spouse or a parent, through the accent of the region, or the use of bodily compartment or the vernacular. During the Britain’s election campaign of 2010, the newness, increased coverage of media and the plain speaking of Nick Clegg who was the leader of the Liberal Democrats helped him to gain some support from the public. These presentations were about showing a person’s experience, credibility and skill for the work with authenticity that is convincing. The subtext is that, the politician understands the citizen because he or she is like them. He or she understands the troubles that the citizens are going through and he or she is well conversant with the problems of the citizen’s residents and he or she can make their lives better. However, it is well understood that the disengagement and the dissatisfaction from politics is deep rooted. The similarity between the polity, citizens and politicians very rare, with pope always feeling confused and lack of similarity between their concerns, lives and those of political agenda and elites(Manning & Holmes, 2014). The politicians need to understand that the internet is always considered as sign for globalization, and a means of communicating idea and the movement of capital at the global level. Like globalization, the internet provides an opportunity as well as challenges for social movement. Like the innovation of the earlier technology, it has widened political communication, and made it easier. In relation to increasing range and the communication speed, it provides the new movement with the postal system, fax, printing and telephone represented for movements in a far and a past that is more recent (Della Porta & Mosca 2005). A social movement strategic dilemma has always been represented by communication. The mass media are important source for attesting the existence of a movement: a movement that is lacking the coverage of the media is in the eye of the public, non-existence. The communication of Media-spawned affects diverse people in a different way and this has forced the social media to come up with a communication strategy with the aim of pleasing there own constituencies while increasing the support and sympathy within the opinion of the public. In a comment which still relevant up to today, Michael Lipsky identified the media role as a selector of protest information, with the protests that are violent always more attention while at the same time it is being stigmatized. Also, the media are only not projectors, with a lesser or grater degree of accuracy of the identity of the protestors, but also the basic interaction partners (Della Porta & Mosca 2005). Communication that is computer mediated mainly the internet provides the social media with a chance to communicate messages that are uncensored and that has an attempt of influencing the mass media. Social media have basically created a communication media of their own. These includes radio stations that are self managed, houses for publishing and journals that were mainly oriented inwards. The internet has extremely increased the possibility for coming up with alternatives and forming the border between the outwards and inwards- oriented communication more permeable. The difference of CMC from the traditional media is that favors disintermediation: movements directly present themselves to the general public with costs that are low mainly facilitating resource-poor actors. Some of the observers positively emphasizes on the ability of CMC to form a new complete, arena that is pluralistic for political communication open to social actors whose traditional media access is not free or wide. The identity that is individualized distinctive of a society that is networked identifies organizations that are of creative form through the internet. A part from making communication easy, some effects can also be witnessed in the internet on how movements arrange themselves by the development of loose ties and heterogeneous campaigns that are ideological. In facts, movements with organization forms that are that are non-hierarchical and polycentric are theoretically favored by the internet (Della Porta & Mosca 2005). Bibliography BRIAN HOLMES, (2012). A movement Without Demands. Web accessed June 22, 2015. DELLA PORTA, D., & MOSCA, L. (2005). Global-net for global movements? A network of networks for a movement of movements. Journal of Public Policy, 25(01), 165-190. KARPF, D. (2010). Online political mobilization from the advocacy group's perspective: Looking beyond clicktivism. Policy & Internet, 2(4), 7-41. MANNING, N., & HOLMES, M. (2014). Political Emotions: A Role for Feelings of Affinity in Citizens’(Dis) Engagements with Electoral Politics?. Sociology, 48(4), 698-714. SLOBBE, J., & VERBERKT, S. L. C. (2012). Hacktivists: Cyberterrorists or Online Activists?. arXiv preprint arXiv:1208.4568. Read More