Here is a link to my Op Ed in Sunday’s Commercial Appeal: http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/2012/nov/04/kevin-gallagher-the-case-for-obama/

It’s worth a look, if only to see what kind (not) things people have said about me.

Also of interest:

Psychologist Sherry Turkle was on Fresh Air talking about how mobile technology is suppressing the healthy emotional development of today’s youth.

http://www.npr.org/2012/10/18/163098594/in-constant-digital-contact-we-feel-alone-together

And:

On The Media discusses Hurricane hoaxes and reporting in the Twitter age.

http://www.onthemedia.org/2012/nov/02/hurricane-hoaxes-and-confused-reporting/

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.

In just a few days America will hold one of the largest and freest expressions of democracy in the history of the world.  An event whose validity and sanctity hinges on anonymity and the absolute prohibition of deliberation.  You go into the polling place, make your statement by voting, then leave.  No discussion, no debate, no responding to other people’s votes and no one observing how you vote.  For all its potential problems, there are few, if any exercises in democracy that will have as many participants engage in the process with a minimum of corruption, coercion, or intimidation.

The tone of and findings of the Tufekci and Wilson article seem to fit more with the readings of last week (acknowledging that this is week two of civic engagement and new media). What I mean is that the underlying conclusion is that new communication technology is a facilitating tool rather than an instigating tool.  It enables participation or lowered resistance to participation to those that were excluded or discouraged previously (like women), and made communication and dissemination easier for those already engaged in the process.

The Loveland and Popescu was irritating in its overt ideology and naive assumptions.  “…to foster liberty without allowing it to become license” is a trite platitude but does not inform the discussion of democracy or media theory.  Not only do the authors fail to acknowledge the realities of democracy in practice, they assume that not deliberating publicly is somehow not fulfilling your civic obligation.  “Rule and patterns of behavior need to be reinforced…”  So, what you are really saying is if we don’t do it your way, we aren’t doing it right.  Perhaps most disturbing of all is the clinging to and preponderance of the myth of power of deliberation.  While deliberation has been shown to have a moderating effect on group outcomes (meaning neither too bad nor too good), there is little evidence to support the idea that deliberation generally improves the quality of those outcome.  A deliberated policy is no more likely to succeed than one derived unilaterally.  It is only less likely to be a catastrophic failure, or a spectacular success.  Ok, I’m just griping now.  I’m going to take my opinion and go home.

But before I go, two more things: Gerodimos findings about youth and online civic participation seem to mirror the finding of other studies about youth and civic participation off line and generally.  And, I don’t think Castells is describing a new phenomenon such much as increase in scope and awareness of a the phenomenon.

Empowered by communication technology in the age of digital contents, the communication media reach has been expanded ever before. The emergence of new communication methods concurrently influence the culture and technology of the network society, creating what the author called, “mass-self-communication”.  Consequently, the birth of “active audience” was inevitable (Castells, 2007).

The intriguing aspect is that the author posits a noncompeting relationship between mass-self communication and conventional media because new media can facilitate content distribution of conventional media and generate additional traffic for the contents. Nevertheless, it is rather a narrow-scoped idea because it assumes user-generated contents are inherently inferior.

Wilson (2011) introduced an intriguing concept, a fragmented heterogeneity. While network society increases information dispersion and user-content creations, we cannot assume that the audience base for certain information expands because each audience only accommodates their highly personalized preferences with customized media channels. Although the size of pie got bigger, media channels may only be able to grasp smaller piece of the pie of audience for their media content consumption. Previously, mass media news was the primary source of information. Whatever contents came out of TV news and reputable newspapers were considered to the truth. However, due to more active and fragmented audience, they no longer accept mass media contents blindly.

While new media can disburse information in a global scope, reach a bigger audience base, and accommodate highly personalized preferences, it may not function as it is speculated, or it is simply, “not there yet”. Loveland and Popescu (2011) investigated the occurrences of political deliberation in the online environment. Although similar political deliberation could occur in the online setting, they found that the deliberation qualities of online interactions were debatable. Given the lack of interactive communication and reciprocal norms of discussion, the authors speculated that anonymity of online communication and immediacy of communication might be in blame for hindering face-to-face like deliberation process. Nevertheless, while I succinctly agree with the authors’ attempt to quantify research question, the study did not account for indirect effect of online forum. As much as people define their political views from deliberation, they can also shape their views progressively via passive evaluation of others’ views. While active participation is not necessarily a critical indicator of deliberation, the whole premise of the study assumes that active, interactive, and reciprocal participations in organized manners are antecedents for optimal deliberations.

On the other hand, Gerodimos (2012) investigated youth civic attitudes and found that young people are still willing to engage with civic websites in an exchange for meaningful engagement. The benefit of civic action should be tangiblized, the purpose of action must be clear and relevant, the action should not exhaust their resources, and the clear-cut directions should be given. Hence, their preferences on interactive communication on website and visual media usages are not coincident.

Communication is no longer one directional. Content creations are no longer the God-given privilege for established media industry (Castells, 2007; Wilson 2011). For example of Egypt’s example, social media functioned as an information source that even oppressed government could not control (Tufekci & Wilson 2012). Interactive element is slowly becoming a norm, and mass-self communication can virtually counterbalance geographical limitations. Abundant contents are created by users and shared contents are no longer limited to certain digital mediums or formats. Anything can be shared in a global scale.

The Gerodimos article was important to me in a scholarly way but also in a practical way. It went beyond a communication theory and discussed how a component of new media in society has concrete applications in bettering that society. Essentially, it got me thinking about what are the underlying motives to engage in helping make society better, and how I as a citizen can proactively engage others based on the findings in Gerodimos’ article.

Upon reading this study, I thought back to my days as a boy scout. Countless service projects, merit badges, trips to shelters, first aid kits, cleaning parks, raking leaves, and other activities comprised my experience in the Boy Scouts of America. Being a scout was something that all of my friends did. Having grown up in a heavily religious community, scouting was very much a social expectation (of course scouting flourishes in non-religious communities as well). It’s just what everyone did. It’s what my dad and grandparents did. The benefits of friendship and the feeling of inclusion and personal worth were intertwined in scouting, and the bi-products were positive contributions to society, or civic engagement. In this way, Gerodimos’ article rings true: 1) My friends were actively participating in scouts or civic engagement, 2) I had leaders that showed me a need in the community that I did not previously know existed, and 3) I was instructed in how to meet that need. As I saw my friends meeting that need, meeting the need myself allowed me to engage with friends and engage in the community. Often, I would see how my contributions benefitted others.

My experience in civic engagement, however, had nothing to do with new media. And it begs the question (as Gerodimos’ article asks), can new media like the internet produce greater civic engagement? Based on my experience as a youth in Boy Scouts, I might extend the question to: Can already existent civic engagement organizations adopt new media to further their causes? I would like to know if or how the Boy Scouts of America has incorporated new media into its program as a means to encourage those outside of civically-inclined social circles to participate in civic engagement programs like scouting. If, like we talked about last week, young people communicate with their peers to a great degree on smart phones, how then can new media serve as a means to fulfill young people’s objective of contributing to society through organizations in which they are already engaged? How can visual material as stated on page 227 be incorporated to inspire and motivate young people to participate in service to the community? One idea that comes to mind: if adults know a need in the community and can somehow capture it on video and send it to his/her scouts’ phones, would that motivate the youth to participate?

In this week’s readings, Castells writes about world powers changing as they are challenged by globalization, deregulation, and today’s “crisis of political legitimacy” (2007). Certainly the access to information provided by the internet, and more recently the influence of mobile internet access, has changed some societies. While the internet can neither be blamed nor praised for the fall of dictators as of late, it can certainly be lauded for its part. Tufekci and Wilson explore this future in their piece on the protests in Tahrir Square during the political upheaval in Egypt in 2011. As an American who has never known anything other than freedom of speech, it really hit me that “for many people, the online sphere might have been the only context in which they encountered dissident content” (2012). While they did find that traditional face-to-face exchange was effective in spreading the word about protests, the information presented about the behavior of those present as citizen journalists was intriguing. Digital media and mobile phones were allowing citizens, potentially participating in political protest for the first time, to post real time documentation of the events. Although not mentioned in their article, I would like to read some research on empowerment of individuals who have cameras connected directly to the internet. Does having the ability to share what is happening around them embolden them to take actions they wouldn’t otherwise?

Mobile internet has produced something of a third eye for all of us. We can now access in a moment what we used to either have to memorize or look up later. With a mobile phone, nothing has to be out of sight, out of mind. However, what is on our mind is influenced by “old media”. The 24 hour news machine still influences what is on our collective minds. Sandy is the obvious example this week, and we’ve even been caught up in fake Instagrams of Sandy’s destruction. http://mashable.com/2012/10/29/fake-hurricane-sandy-photos/. Castells reiterates this point again citing, “What does not exist in the media does not exist in the public mind” (2007). However, with these faked images of Sandy, and other internet entities going viral, aren’t we taking part in this creation of what is on the collective societal mind?

At the heart of our readings these past two weeks has been one main question, does the internet affect our engagement in the civil/political process? We may have lowered the cost of accessing political information, but it still seems that those who are utilizing the internet for political knowledge or participation are those that would have sought it out regardless. Wilson confirms this by quoting Coleman, “Political participation is to a large extent driven by affective motives” (2004). Even those who do have genuine interest in the political process and seek to engage in political interaction online tend to lose their civility in the process. In their piece, Loveland and Popescu concluded that, “Online interaction is thus less prone to be polite, which could also explain the lack of positive reinforcement” (2011). Is it any wonder that those of us who aren’t particularly interested in politics are driven further away from the polls as we are exposed to callous exchanges both on TV and the internet by those that are engaged in the process?

Of the five articles we were assigned, three of them stood out the most to me. I was most intrigued by Tufekci and Wilson (2012), Gerodimos (2012), and Castells (2007). Tufekci and Wilson (2012) looked at how social media impacted participation in the 2011 Egyptian protests. To me, what was most interesting about this article was the risks that the researchers must have taken in obtaining the data. I’m sure that most of us remember some of the violent scenes we saw on television, and although it is an interesting article, I’m just not sure if obtaining the data was worth the risk. That being said, it is impressive to have so much data from such a historic event. The article states that 1,200 individuals were surveyed. It is amazing how this much data was collected during such a chaotic event. The article found that social media use did appear to positively impact first day protest attendance. The article also discussed how individual attenders worked sort of like reporters in taking their own photos and videos of the event, and then displaying these findings for others to see over the Internet. The study found that most who did this used Facebook. It was also interesting to read about how the Egyptian government tried to stop the information spread by shutting down the Internet. However, information continued to spread as a small amount of people were able to find a way around the government’s actions (Tufekci & Wilson, 2012).

I also found Gerodimos’ (2012) article to be interesting. This article looked at the willingness of young people to engage with civic websites. The most interesting findings to me where the two tables that displayed civic motivators and de-motivators. For example, one civic motivator was coded as “feeling I could make a difference or that my voice counts” (Gerodimos, 2012). I think that most of us can probably relate to this one. Why would we be motivated to do something if we did not feel that it made any difference? I think that this qualitative work can help future studies in this area.

As previously stated, I also found Castells (2007) article to be interesting. Although I may not agree with everything in the article, I found one quote early in his article to be very informative. Castells (2007) stated “the fundamental battle being fought in society is the battle over the minds of the people. The way people think determines the fate of norms and values on which societies are constructed” (p.238). We can see this battle taking place everyday. This is especially true as we come upon next weeks presidential election. Each candidate is trying to influence how voters think, and therefore, the voters are being infiltrated with a myriad of political messages.

References:

Castells, M. (2007). Communication, power and counter-power in the network society. International Journal of Communication, 1, 238-266.

Gerodimos, R. (2012). Online youth civic attitudes and the limits of civic consumerism. Information, Communication & Society, 15, 217-245.

Tufekci, Z., & Wilson, C. (2012). Social media and the decision to participate in political protest: Observations from Tahrir Square. Journal of Communication, 62, 363-379.

The first article, “Social Media and…Tahrir Square” by Tufekci and Wilson highlights the activism that can arise when using SNSs, pointing out how sites like Facebook get the word “revolution” associated with them. The possibilities for communication represented by these websites represents a threat to the authoritarian style of government that exists in the Middle East and provides a space for a rallying cry from protestors and disseminators of “citizen journalist” media. A quarter of the participants heard about the protests from Facebook. Another quarter used Facebook to distribute their documentation of the event.

In “Democracy on the Web…” Loveland and Popescu seem a little disturbed by the opportunities for engaging in meaningful exchange on Internet forums. Using the website of an American northeastern newspaper as their model, they found that anonymity inherent to Internet forums creates problems of mutual respect and accountability. They also found that discussion becomes less of a conversation and more of a place to state one idea and withdraw, or suffer the asynchronous effects of Internet inter-communication. There is an evident longing in the article for a forum style that approximates the face-to-face style of discussion.

In “Playing with Politics…” Wilson, analyzing within an Australian context, considers online impersonation of political figures through Twitter. In class, we’ve discussed the notion of famous figures having their assistant tweet for them, but the notion of mimicking a public figure raises the stakes considerably. What’s interesting is that the “fakers” by necessity must be well informed and up to date on current news and identity quirks so there is a level of accuracy to the representation. The corruption of the real political figures as “brands” gets a moment of consideration, but I think the inherent revolt and humor in this kind of faking is a wonderful inroad to considering our increasing dependence upon digital identities and what this means in terms of individuality.

The attitudes toward  civic  websites in British youths are assessed in the article “Online Youth Civic Attitudes…” by Gerodimos. The findings are not too surprising, with political discourse generally coming off as “inaccessible” and “intimidating.” And paired with what Gerodimos considers a “lack of efficacy” in today’s youth, there needs to be a push toward connecting with them. Gerodimos finds that the information needs to be practical and straightforward (if such a thing is possible in the political sphere), and the appeal needs to be direct and emotional, utilizing empathy and visual stimuli. With the inclusion of such factors, the “misperception” of civic websites seemingly held by British youth can begin to be ameliorated.

Manuel Castells, who I’m glad to be reading again, considers the nature of power relations within an ever-advancing system of mass communication in his article, “Communication, Power and Counter-power in the Network Society.” I’m inclined to agree with lines like, “What does not exist in the media does not exist in the public mind, even if it could have a fragmented presence in individual minds” (Castells, 241). The media exists as a “space where power is decided,” (242) not held. He refers to the “personality politics” of political leaders, which relates back to the notion of branding identity. When it comes to a cynical public choosing a political leader to support, “they choose among all the immorals the kind of immoral that they find more akin or closer to their interests”(243). More relevantly to this week’s consideration of inspired activism, Castells emphasizes the current “culture that emphasizes individual autonomy, and the self-construction of the project of the social actor”(249) with the allowances of current technologies.  The “autonomous communication networks” are no longer confined but exist within a “global space of flows” between mediums and destabilized spaces. This guy is awesome.