Lecture 7 summary

today's lecture focused on the relationship between Politics and new Media;

• politics and new communication technologies interact together
• Cyber politics: means the politics of the Internet that exists predominately on the Internet
• Edemocracy: the Internet's intervention in and contribution to real world politics that exists predominately off the Internet. Eg, political campaigning on the Internet and the governments use of the Internet to raise awareness and debate on issues to the people's use of new communication technologies to criticize the government and reveal their mistakes. In Edemocracy people use the Internet to intervene in standard politics. People can write a letter to their local members and their local members can respond. An example of this can be seen in the political sphere in regard to climate change, and the party changing their vote on the emissions trading scheme due to mass internet (emails) from people who oppose it.
• Example of this relationship is the Facebook "friends" connection and "Secondlife"which are examples of political structure in person to person relationships.
• the use of the Internet in politics was first used in the Obama campaign.
• As voting is not compulsory in the USA, new communication technologies is used to get the message out and get people to vote.
• an example of this is a CNN program that supposedly lists the person as the single defining vote that led Obama to not be in power and for Gorge Bush to remain for another 4 years. This is portrayed as being the case because that person did not vote.
• An example of this can be seen in the Kevin'07 and John Howard campaigns where Kevin Rudd used Facebook etc and stayed in touch with new communications technologies, whereas Howard put a video up on Youtube which looked outdated.
• Example of contemporary use of new communication technologies in politics is "Obama girl" video
• video's made on YouTube attacking the opposition with satire can become embraced by that attacked party as a funny joke, defeating the purpose.
• participatory or direct democracy: based on the ancient Greek model where all citizens have a right and a duty to be involved in all decisions made.
• the Internet could provide a return to the participatory approach where everyone can be involved in political processes.
• there is an issue with people not having the technology to do this.
• eg can be seen where politicians are "twittering" from inside the party meetings, which is a change from previously where mobiles were banned from use in the party meetings.
• introduced "transparency" into the party room, whereas before this sort of information would have been kept secret to stop the opposition from briefing the media on their take on the party's minutes.
• the Internet will show a new form of politics emerging , it is the future of politics.
• new technology allows people to work later, at home and at night if needed and wanted.
• "cyberpunk" is a form of science fiction based genre based on the possibilities inherent in computers, genetics, body modifications and corporate developments in the near future.
• Cyberpunk developed as a reaction against the safe spaces of movies such as Starwars.