Week 5

Reading Diary: Week 5

 The Internet, Public Spheres, and Political Communication: Dispersion and Deliberation

The changes caused by the new technologies in the media have an influential affect on the political communication. The demographic processes are also threatened by this. The opinion of the public spheres is no longer created through deliberation. It is built through communication systems whose major aim is to retain control of the dissemination of the flow of information.

In his article for “The Internet, Public Spheres and Political Communication: Dispersion and Deliberation”, Peter Dahlgren firstly outlines the three main analytic dimensions: the structural, the representational, the interactional and then gives us as an example authors such as Blumler and Gurevitch who summarized how the Internet destabilized the traditional system of political communications in terms of:  the increased sociocultural heterogeneity, massive growth in the media channels and outlets, etc.

The whole idea is about the impact of the Internet on the political communication which could be considered as both positive and negative. The expansion of the technologies as a new method for interaction is seen as a potential challenge to the traditional media parties and there is a “notable gap between the communication in the public sphere and institutional structures for binding decisions found in the global arena” (Dahlgren, 2005) Besides all the negativism he states: "Destabilization can thus extend political communication through horizontal civic communication, as well as through vertical communication between citizens." (Dahlgren, 2005, pp 151)

Deliberative Democracy need to be complemented with the civil cultures and emphasizes on the suggestion that the communication and interaction amongst the citizens is of a great importance.

I believe that Internet does cause some negative consequences on the public spheres and political communication but it is not fair to underestimate and ignore the positive aspect as well. “Even though the online sphere of political communication clearly has hierarchical patterns, the Internet seems nevertheless to offer better opportunities for non-institutional actors to achieve public visibility than newspapers” (Koopmans, Ruud., Zimmermann, Ann, C, 2003, Internet: A new potential for European political communications?)The decline in citizens` political engagement is one of the most serious problems facing the Western democracy because of the socio-cultural changes in the age of digitalization. Meanwhile the Internet gives us the opportunity to find more information regarding the government and the political issues as well as enhancing democracy.

If taken for further research I would like to create a small focus group of young people aged 18-26 in order to identify the level of interest about democracy and political communication among the “future generations”. Also I am interested in what will happen to our societies and government if there wasn’t such kind of Internet and communication technologies and how we can define democracy in the digital world?

Referencing:

Koopmans, Ruud. Zimmermann, Ann. C. 2003. Internet: A new potential for European political communication? Working paper

Dahlgren, P. 2005. ‘The Internet, Public Spheres, and Political Communications: Dispersion and Deliberation’ Political Communication, Vol.22 Issue 2 Pages 147-162