Digital Democracy Many Important Revolutions and Transitions

Digital Democracy

Many important revolutions and transitions in power have occurred in non-democratic countries in the past several months, sparking a great deal of debate regarding the role of social media and contemporary technology in empowering populations to demand change. The matter of the critical mass with regards to public opinion and its impact upon international attention and intervention is central to the discussion of digital resources and communications supplanting rights and privileges of democratic freedoms. It has been widely promulgated in democratic nations, such as the United States, where digital media are protected by free speech laws, that the internet has the ability to enhance communication freedom in places where governments have made efforts to restrict social and civil liberties.

In an article for Foreign Policy Magazine, Evgeny Morozov termed the belief of democratic nations in the internet's ability to catalyze democratic revolution the Internet Freedom Agenda. Key to this agenda, which is not unique to America but manifest particularly vigorously by its government officials, is the hopefulness in the ability of the internet to collect and develop a critical mass of discontent to swiftly and almost bloodlessly topple repressive regimes. Of the United States, Morozov states, "The State Department's enthusiasm for technology has surpassed its understanding of it (2011)." His concern is that the professed support of democratic government's of the use of the internet for perceived dissident activities, even just in the support of unrestricted access, reinforces the idea of its revolutionary potential to those in power. "To governments already nervous about a wired citizenry, this sounded less like freedom of the Internet than freedom via the Internet: not just a call for free speech online, but a bid to overthrow them by way of cyberspace (Morozov 2011)."

A critical moment in Morozov's view in the relationship between democratic countries, tech companies, and nondemocratic countries was when the State Department developed specific and powerful connections to tech companies to rapidize the use of current technology. Federal agencies began to include internet and technology executives in democracy promotion teams, conferring a sanctioned status upon these industries and media. This draws attention to their revolutionary capacities and, according to Morozov, was the impetus for countries seeking to maintain order and control over the population to federalize and censor internet access. In the Internet Freedom Agenda, the power of the internet is in the hands of the citizens abroad who use it for the purposes of creating their own revolution. Morozov believes that democratic countries, especially the State Department in the United States, has no direct role in this effort. All efforts to promote digital democracy have failed and have ultimately caused more repression than created more freedom.

The study and analysis of the sociological and political role of social media, the internet, and new media was the topic of Clay Shirky's book Here Comes Everybody. He makes the comparison of the printing press to the internet, claiming that as the printing press allowed for the dissemination of individual perspectives, the internet has catalyzed the development and dissemination group consensus and action. The internet allows for the sharing of information and tangible intellectual resources in a way that allows for it to replace many brick and mortar and/or centralized institutions (Shirky 2008). The financial aspect of the internet is in and of itself more democratic and accessible than these formal institutions and Shirky argues that more dedicated attention to issues "whose costs are higher than the potential value (Shirky 2008 31)." While originally Shirky's thesis positioned the power of the collective efforts of groups using the internet for political change implied that this form of collected power pushed only for objectively good expansion of freedoms, Shirky later amended this theory. Shirky conceded that the collective efforts for political and social change usually trended toward the expansion of freedoms, but the resurgence of conservatism in the last decade as well as the activism around contentious personal and civil rights indicates that collective action is subjective.

Another consideration lacking in the original book that has been taken up by reviewers and incorporated into the digital democracy discourse in its wake is demographics disenfranchised from participation in the Internet Freedom Agenda. People lacking access to the internet include people who live in chronic poverty, a powerful reality of many people living in countries with repressive governments. The internet is also a relatively new technology and generationally, younger persons have better knowledge and access to its use than more aged populations. Finally, the internet, as a medium which primarily relies upon written text, is not fully accessible to illiterate persons and populations. These are three populations, which are often overlooked, regardless of a country's democratic status. This is indicative of the fact that the internet is not able to function as a democratic tool for everyone and that it has the potential to exacerbate disparity as well as alleviate it.

As social media-mediated revolutions have occurred in Libya, Tunisia, and Egypt this year, it has become important to re-examine both Shirky and Morozov's perspectives. In the case of each of these instances of mass unrest, it is true that the international media looked on a daily basis to the reaction of the Obama White House. Despite Morozov's pronouncement that the consecration of the internet as a promotional tool in democratic transition is a death knell for its utility, the international community looks for the reaction of the international superpowers to legitimize revolutionary activities. The replacement of the institution is not as total as Shirky positions, as it is still important for external democratic institutions to affirm the validity of social-media catalyzed mass revolt. Without this validation, the tenor of the rhetoric slides towards the collective action being seen as a riot rather than a revolution.