Helen Margetts - The unpredictability of politics in the age of social media
Social media extend the range of participatory acts open to citizens. The result can be unpredictable leaderless mobilizations involving massive numbers of small donations of time and effort. And although the vast majority fail absolutely, a few succeed dramatically.
Why did no-one predict the Arab Spring of 2011? And even in the years that followed, why does each new wave of mobilization, from the Occupy Movement to Brazil to Turkey, seem to take political commentators by surprise? The Internet and social media are fingered in all of these events, but far more attention is paid to (sometimes heated and occasionally pointless) debate as to whether these new media provide a greater boost to democratic participation or to authoritarian regimes (see Natalya Ryabinska in a recent Eurozine article[1]). Meanwhile, across liberal democracies the political elite continues to bemoan the decline of politics and falling levels of civic and political engagement, particularly among the young, rendering themselves even more surprised by each new mobilization. Hence the need to better understand the characteristic of Internet-mediated communication that is making the difference to political mobilization and, to some extent, causing its unpredictability.
The rise of social media
People in both democracies and authoritarian regimes spend growing proportions of their lives on social media. YouTube receives four billion views a day, Twitter has 140 million users while its Chinese equivalent, Sina Weibo, has 368 million users and Facebook has 600 million users. Half of US and UK adults use a social networking service. Even in countries with lower levels of Internet penetration, social networking sites have become popular, with Facebook the third most popular news source across Arab nations and 12 million users of Facebook in Egypt alone.[2]
These platforms reshape the context in which growing numbers of people decide whether or not to participate politically and change the cost-benefit equation of participation. They were mostly developed for social use, but they all have the potential to host a wide range of political activities, such as receiving and sharing news, information and views; expressing opinions; discussing issues; co-ordinating activities; and matching individuals across political, geographical and economic boundaries.
And there is every sign that the swelling ranks of social media users are using these sites for political activities. In the US, data shows that 37 per cent of those taking part in social networking have used the sites to share political views, but among younger people (18-29) this rises to almost 50 per cent of US social network users, who say that they have used social media to discover their friends' political interests or affiliations, to receive campaign information, to sign up as a "friend" of a candidate or to join or start a political group.[3] The biennial Oxford Internet Survey (OxIS), the most comprehensive analysis of changes in Internet use in the UK since 2003, shows the rapid entry of new forms of participation in social media, such as contributing to a micro-blogging site (such as Twitter) or expressing a political opinion on a social networking site, which was carried out by 10 per cent of Internet users in 2013.[4] In Arab countries, the proportions are higher; more than 60 per cent of users of social networking sites (around one third of citizens in Lebanon, Tunisia and Egypt) say that they use the sites to share views about politics and 70 per cent use them for community issues.[5]
In addition to general social media sites, there are now a huge range of Internet-based platforms dedicated to political activity, which may be regarded as social media in that they allow users to generate content through some kind of participatory act.. read more:
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2013-12-12-margetts-en.html
Why did no-one predict the Arab Spring of 2011? And even in the years that followed, why does each new wave of mobilization, from the Occupy Movement to Brazil to Turkey, seem to take political commentators by surprise? The Internet and social media are fingered in all of these events, but far more attention is paid to (sometimes heated and occasionally pointless) debate as to whether these new media provide a greater boost to democratic participation or to authoritarian regimes (see Natalya Ryabinska in a recent Eurozine article[1]). Meanwhile, across liberal democracies the political elite continues to bemoan the decline of politics and falling levels of civic and political engagement, particularly among the young, rendering themselves even more surprised by each new mobilization. Hence the need to better understand the characteristic of Internet-mediated communication that is making the difference to political mobilization and, to some extent, causing its unpredictability.
The rise of social media
People in both democracies and authoritarian regimes spend growing proportions of their lives on social media. YouTube receives four billion views a day, Twitter has 140 million users while its Chinese equivalent, Sina Weibo, has 368 million users and Facebook has 600 million users. Half of US and UK adults use a social networking service. Even in countries with lower levels of Internet penetration, social networking sites have become popular, with Facebook the third most popular news source across Arab nations and 12 million users of Facebook in Egypt alone.[2]
These platforms reshape the context in which growing numbers of people decide whether or not to participate politically and change the cost-benefit equation of participation. They were mostly developed for social use, but they all have the potential to host a wide range of political activities, such as receiving and sharing news, information and views; expressing opinions; discussing issues; co-ordinating activities; and matching individuals across political, geographical and economic boundaries.
And there is every sign that the swelling ranks of social media users are using these sites for political activities. In the US, data shows that 37 per cent of those taking part in social networking have used the sites to share political views, but among younger people (18-29) this rises to almost 50 per cent of US social network users, who say that they have used social media to discover their friends' political interests or affiliations, to receive campaign information, to sign up as a "friend" of a candidate or to join or start a political group.[3] The biennial Oxford Internet Survey (OxIS), the most comprehensive analysis of changes in Internet use in the UK since 2003, shows the rapid entry of new forms of participation in social media, such as contributing to a micro-blogging site (such as Twitter) or expressing a political opinion on a social networking site, which was carried out by 10 per cent of Internet users in 2013.[4] In Arab countries, the proportions are higher; more than 60 per cent of users of social networking sites (around one third of citizens in Lebanon, Tunisia and Egypt) say that they use the sites to share views about politics and 70 per cent use them for community issues.[5]
In addition to general social media sites, there are now a huge range of Internet-based platforms dedicated to political activity, which may be regarded as social media in that they allow users to generate content through some kind of participatory act.. read more:
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2013-12-12-margetts-en.html
