In this post on new media and the election, I observed that young people’s adeptness with the tools of viral influence will be a driver in an increasingly citizen-driven government. This could be decisive in the coming election (though young people are notorious for being a letdown due to low turnout on election day).
The tools of social media are like all other tools, an extension of their users, for good or for ill. Madeleine Gruen at the Counterterrorism Blog explains how Online Social Networks Expand a Sense of Community Among Members and Supporters of Extremist Groups:
Certainly, the burgeoning presence of Islamist groups on popular social networks bears further investigation and evaluation. While it is easy to come into contact with numerous extremist groups in the cyber environment, Facebook and Orkut are a more viable method for groups to
come into contact with potential supporters, and successfully influence them. The social networks provide a cloak of legitimacy and credibility that stand-alone chat forums and web pages do not necessarily have, and they make it easy for Islamist groups to harvest new supporters from the existing members of the network simply by extending an invitation
of “friendship.”
Such is the rapid adoption of these new communication platforms that they “provide a cloak of legitimacy” to anyone who can organize an audience. Like the Obama campaign, these Islamic extremist groups are using the cover of Facebook and other social networking tools to convey their message, raise funds, and enable their support network to virally multiple. Ironically, they are also using the mantra of “friendship” as part of their cloak of legitimacy.
Of course, I am not making a connection between Obama’s and these Islamists’ “friends.” However, I do believe this points to a clear risk we all must look at carefully. In many ways, politics and the overall direction of society is now becoming more of a wild, wild west than we may want to imagine. There is a logic to its growth, but its direction is not well-known to those unaware of the principles of new media and its influence.
This reveals the importance of generational distinctions and how we communicate. The rise of new media especially impacts our older citizens, those who have learned the most about life from experience, but have not learned how to use these tools nearly as effectively as their younger counterparts.
This “influence divide” opens the door for a massive shift in voting and spending priorities to causes that may not best serve our society long term, and those proven voices of the older generations may have little say in the matter. Is that healthy for our society? Are you seeing this too?
I agree that overdependence on Internet use for political involvement silences people without access to the Internet. Any political movement that wants to involve all people, regardless of income, Internet savviness, job, etc, needs to make sure people can get involved in whatever way is easiest for them.
It’s a generational rather than a political thing. I think it’s important to be inclusive of people who aren’t comfortable with using the Internet, or who don’t have access to it, but it’s equally important to teach people the kind of Internet-savviness that lets them use the Internet to find the facts, rather than simply allow their chosen sites to feed them propaganda. Look at how the right-wing blogosphere were uniformly suckers for whatever lies the Bush administration chose to spread - repeating the same thing in the same words, often, without ever bothering to do a little research. Look at how pro-life websites feed the myth that being “pro-life” is about “saving babies” by making use of photoshopped pics of fetuses.
The Internet is a fantastic tool for finding out information. Sadly, it’s also a fantastic tool for feeding propaganda.
This “influence divide” opens the door for a massive shift in voting and spending priorities to causes that may not best serve our society long term, and those proven voices of the older generations may have little say in the matter.
The Internet equalises. You don’t have to know how old someone is when they’re writing online: all you know is their views, and how they present themselves in writing, how well-informed they are. Granted equal access to the Internet, the more able tend to win out over the less able. An older person who is accustomed to having their views listened to politely by people who respect them too much to quarrel with their grey hairs, may find online that their inability to justify their views means they cannot hold their own in an online debate.
I’ve seen this happen on many occasions, when a person who is used to assuming that “everyone knows” women shouldn’t be allowed to have abortions, or same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to marry, or “of course” Bush won the election in 2000 - suddenly encounters, via the Internet, people who not only have different opinions, but who are far better able to justify their views and argue their corner. This happens in general either with the fairly young (kids who have just got their first non-parental Internet connection, who have lived all their 18 years in a comfortable nest of people who take for granted the same positions) or the fairly senior - people who have just got on line, who are simply not used to having others argue back without deference.
I don’t think there is a solution for this.
But by the way, I’m truly unimpressed with the way you go “oh, of course I’m not saying there’s a connection” link between Obama and “Islamists”. There is an idiotic and widespread meme running around that Barack Obama is “really” a Muslim. It takes very little research to establish that these meme is untrue - indeed, it only takes following current news in 2008! - but the fact that it would be damaging if it were true, or that the people who pass it along think it would be, says some fairly hard things about US racism and bigotry. It is explicit in the US Constitution that no religious test may be made for political office: the President of the United States may be atheist, Muslim, Hindu, any faith or none. While Bush has misused his office to promote “Christian values”, in the US and elsewhere, the fact is: the US is a secular country, created deliberately as a secular nation to allow maximum religious freedom for all. Your reference to the meme “Obama is a Muslim” may not have been conscious, but it does your unconscious no credit.