Blogging: democratic fuel or fire?

The internet is often described as a democratising force, however Kawamoto (2003) argues that “In a world of electronic information systems, communication becomes commodified and privatized; rules and regulations are driven by an increasingly powerful private sector; technologies can be used for surveillance and control; and democracy and diversity suffer…” despite technologies ability to give everyone a voice and platform in which to speak their mind. 

“Technology is often viewed as a key driver of change in the electoral debate” (Olorf and Moe, 2011) and twitter is a widely used source of technology when it comes to political discussions. Due to Twitter’s short and sharp micro-blog style it allows for everybody to participate and understand, despite their political knowledge or lack there-of.

According to Olorf and Moe (2011) blogging for political purposes does, purely in quantitative terms, contribute to the broadening of public debate, therefore having a democratising effect, however due to evidence being anecdotal at best, cannot be proven to have any effect on outcome of an election.

In 2010 twitter was examined in respect to an election in Sweden, over all a total of 99,832 tweets were analysed and while the study could not say whether twitter had any effect of the outcome of the election “a relationship between twitter and mainstream media” (Olorf and Moe, 2011) was uncovered…so is twitter and blogging a democratising force or merely re-enforcing the status quo?

One would hope that in a democratic country such as our own that Kawamoto is wrong, and I for one believe he is. The internet is a place where people can have their voice heard, make a difference no matter how big or small, a blog may just sway one vote or it could change the world (Julian Assange anyone?). No matter how small a difference, there is no denying the internet is a place where differences can be made and people have the power. to make them.