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It’s a widely believed theory that the Internet, social media and other online tools and technologies can serve to undermine authoritarian regimes and help to spread democracies. As I wrote before, technology represents the ‘democratization of information’ - by which regimes no longer have a monopoly on knowledge. By reaching people who might never have known of other possibilities, the In
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Comments
08.18.09
This is a really important thing to thing to talk about because if traditional media crumbles, and real journalists lose their jobs, who is going to report the news the way it's supposed to be reported?
I talked to a fellow Journalism grad the other day who was moving over to a more blog-like platform in order to stay ahead, but she was REALLY adamant about not being called a blogger and I think that this post proves that there's a good reason for that.
Journalists are given positions of authority because they went to school to learn how to report what's happening in the world accurately and unbiased. At the same time we have thousands of voices in the social media sphere sharing their views, but how can we trust that they're telling the truth?
Does anyone see this as a problem? What kind of problems might there be with mixing in real Journalists with personal bloggers?
08.18.09
Thanks for the response, Ryan! I think you bring up some really important points. Although social media and Twitter is really helping to push forward journalism, I think by putting news in the hands of the people and making news really BY the people, I think there's some loss of quality control there.
I think there is a huge potential for misinformation - stories are told by bloggers and Tweeters who are sometimes biased or sometimes uninformed or lack the whole story. Many bloggers and Tweeters aren't going after the full, objective story. Instead many blogs and articles are skewed towards one direction, in the opinion of the blogger.
While this is great for the blogosphere, maybe blogging leads to more misinformation and therefore cannot become as credible a source as mainstream news and journalism. Like you said journalists went to school for a reason, and they have jobs for a reason.
08.18.09
Hi Akhila,
I saw the FP article too, but I don't think it's necessarily true of non-autocracies. In fact, I wrote a whole article about why Twitter has actually helped democracy in Brazil:
http://riogringa.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/07/twitter-in-brazil-a-virtu...
In Brazil, Twitter is helping raise accountability, aiding transparency, and bringing constituents closer to their representatives, as well as helping to spread an important movement to oust corrupt leaders from the Senate.
With this in mind, I think it depends on the type of government and how Twitter is used.
08.18.09
Akhila, I really like the part about lack of information or mis-informed. I think this largely can relate to blogs as well. People can automatically denote they're an expert on a subject through blogging and digital journalism.
Of course, there are certain ways people gauge influence, but just because there's a Twitter profile that talks about democracy and has a good amount of followers...how do I know it's valid?
This is a great post!
08.18.09
@Rachel, I do have to agree that it can be useful in non-authoritarian regime, but I still think there's a huge digital divide. Honestly, in much of the "global south" - internet connectivity still sucks. The majority of the population, often poor, still lacks access to Twitter or much less any type of Internet.
Brazil may be a country, like India, where development is quite rapid. It's one of the emerging giants. But perhaps in even smaller, poorer countries, and those in which there is autocracy and conflict, Twitter can't really penetrate yet.
08.18.09
@Grace - That's totally the good thing AND the bad thing about social media and Twitter! It means that people like you or I, simply by writing a lot about a topic semi-intelligently, can convince people that we're "experts." But how many blogs out there REALLY are accurate and written by experts?
When you start thinking about the more influential bloggers, the line gets blurry. Yes, they are experts..but at the same time, they're expressing an opinion. They aren't journalists.
So where do we draw the line, and how can we find truth?
08.18.09
Akila, you're right, there is little use right now for twitter in some ares of the world. What they do need, however is cell phones with text messaging capabilities, to communicate first with each other, for economic and social reasons.
As far as what is authentic and authoritative, I think we are responsible for doing our research, there is much,even in some what decent newspapers, that is suspect. I take for example Ezra Klein, who writes about health care policy, among other things for WAPO now. He is really not an expert on anything and though smart he doesn't offer much substance, policy and exonomic experts cringe at his columns - at least some of the time - and some of his opining is severely lacking in back knowledge. I used to read him in college when he was at AP, and as I got older, and started to understand a little more, not only about policy, but substance, he was one of a few reads I had to take out of the substance column and ut in the fun column.
Bloggers are not held to the same ethics at journalists, but neither are media pundits, and we listen to them, so it's fair to say some bloggers are as good as some media pundits. Opining on the news is not hard, anyone can do it. It is journalism that worries me, and not being a journalist I see a shaky road ahead for awhile, and it does scare me a little.
@Ryan, this might interest you if you haven't seen it.
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=168638
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