In Loveland and Popescu’s piece, there is a question of whether the internet is capable of fostering constructive debate and deliberation. They tied some factors into this debate, including socio-economic status and the risk of spamming and flamming as things that could be detrimental to the internet’s ability to host intelligent debating. The emotive content content was taken into consideration as well, which is certainly understandable, as people definitely can be passionate about their political beliefs. I think that their conclusion was thah while the internet definitely had the potential to foster positive interaction, that the lack of face-to-face interaction that is caused by the internet makes it not quite as effective.

Castells discusses how prople now, more than ever before, are using new forms of communication to push a message more quickly, and to a broader range of people. One example was of David Cameron launching a video blog via YouTube, which he used as the backdrop for discussing a political platform. In retaliation, Sion Simon posted a pofff of Mr. Cameron’s video blog. This “video battle”, if you will, brought much more attention to the issue than a plain news broadcast would have allowed. According to Castells, “it has become customary to post embarassing clips of an opponent, sometimes recording a direct hit on the targeted candidate”.

In Tufekci and Wilson’s piece, the title is self-explanatory…it gives insight on social media and political protests. Social media, as stated here, has become a new system of political communication. I have a few (several actually) Facebook friends, democrats and republicans alike, who express their political views openly on their accounts. I am admittedly relatively apathetic about politics. Truthfully, I probably keep up with more political events via Facebook and the political tirades presented there than I ever would by just watching tv or reading a newspaper. Based on my personal experience, it is definitely not out of the realm of possibility for social media to have an effect on protest.