In what way do new technologies affect democracy? A quick google search on the topic (ah, technology) turned up this article: “Social Media. Good for Revolution. Bad for Democracy?” My issues with the use of punctuation in the title aside, the article raises some interesting points, particularly in distinguishing between technology’s effect on revolutions in comparison to its effect on the creation, or the maintenance, of democratic structures.
There is no doubt that it does have an effect on revolution. Social media websites such as Twitter offer a global platform with which people can come together – internationally – to raise awareness and lobby support for a specific cause. Twitter has been so influential in this regard that in a Wikipedia search of “Twitter Revolution”, four possible options come up. A more recent example can be see with Kony 2012, a campaign that sparked the support – and the outraged, dissenting opinions – of people using Twitter and Facebook. Was the revolution successful? Well, I don’t think many people will forget about Joseph Kony for awhile. On the other hand, it gained massive momentum in its first 24 hours and then halted substantially.
One part of the article sticks out to me in particular, regarding the timing of revolutions in social media. This is particularly important when discussing the development and stability of democracies. As has been discussed in this class, there are a wide variety of competing theories regarding both what a democracy is, and how it came about. This is something of particular interest to me not only in political science (though it’s certainly an important discussion), but in popular culture and in various research topics. Malcolm Gladwell discusses this in his book The Tipping Point; that is, maybe the successful establishment of democracy is due to a variety of factors, the most important of which is timing. The dangers of technology may be their ability to instigate revolution, and potential intervention, before these factors are aligned. As the article argues, this accelerated process may cause instability in development of new governing principles.
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