Democracy and New Media - Article Example

Democracy and New Media of the of the Concerned May 20, Democracy and New Media Digital technology is fastaltering the way politics is conducted and disseminated around the world. The World Wide Web is actually a great source of access to the information hitherto not available to the common people like government policies and documents, the essential content and tactics associated with the political campaigns conducted by the political parties, the opinion of the voters pertaining to general and specific issues, the messages being circulated by the activists associated with political and social causes and the topics that constitute the crux of public debate at a specific time and place.

The new media has exponentially augmented the access to information and has dramatically expanded the scope of free speech. The global flow of information has enabled people around the world to test and contrast the archaic models of civic life with the emerging trends and influences. The pivotal question in this context is that is the new media ubiquitous and if it is so, does it have the potential to contribute to the cause of democracy at a global scale? I s new media contributing to democratic values in Castro’s Cuba or in war ravaged Afghanistan?

A general perusal of the history establishes beyond doubt that one or other form of media did play an essential role in the dissemination of political values and ideologies in the 20th century. Lenin’s smuggling of Iskra into Russia, nine decades ago is an apt example of the subversion of a regime through the usage of media (Leighley, 2003). The ground for the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1978 was possibly laid down when the supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini managed to smuggle audio cassettes into the mosques in Iran (Leighley, 2003).

Actually, in many cases, the media was able to impart an aura of credibility to the political content transmitted through it, thereby manifold increasing its effectiveness and impact. For example, when the B92 Radio Station in Serbia was banned by the Milosevic regime, it managed to remain on air by closely associating with the international news organizations like CNN, BBC and Voice of America (Leighley, 2003). The net result was that the coverage of B92 being transmitted into Serbia from outside began to be regarded by its recipients as more credible and authentic than before.

The recent Spring Revolution in the Middle East had an inevitable new media element associated with it. The same stands to be true for the recent uprisings in Indonesia. To a great extent it is true that though media has already been a part of most of the political movements, per se political movements are not caused by media. However, the internet tends to differ from the audio cassettes and Iskra in the sense that it is quintessentially a global media and is actually a many-to-many communication portal.

If used accurately, it allows people from anywhere in the world to communicate people from anywhere in the world that is not possible in the case of radio or television. In that context the new media is conducive to the democratic aspirations that it allows for a wide scale and global dispersal of values, data, news and information. New media inevitably has a negative side to it. It does allow for the manipulation of content and can be used by authoritarian regimes for propaganda purposes. Still it is welcome in the sense that it also allows the world to hear the voice of those who have been denied a voice.

References Leighley, Jan E. (2003). Mass Media and Politics. New York: Wadsworth Publishing.