Does Internet Help Spread Democracy
Does the Internet help spread democracy?
How invention of the Internet changed the world? How it contributes to the spread of democracy? Does it have any impact on it? These questions are under debate till nowadays. In this paper, I will try to express my viewpoint on this dispute.
To begin with, let briefly look at the Egyptian revolution which was held in 2011. It was the first revolution where social media and Internet played the crucial role. ” After 30 years of living in a “fake democratic system” under Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian people had had enough” (Pritamkabe, 2011). After fake election in 2010, people, especially young generation, decided to make a protest in order to create a real democratic system. “There was no freedom of assembly in Egypt, and protests or political activism was banned” (Pritamkabe, 2011), but social media helped people to band together .Using Twitter and Facebook, people were discussing and organizing protests against the government. Government was not happy about this and later it shut down access to the Internet for 5 days. It made situation even worse and people started to show their disappointment on the streets. A lot of videos were posted on the Youtube and the whole world could be aware about the following circumstances. All in all, the new elections were held and citizens had an opportunity to elect the new president. From this revolution, we can see how much power Internet has nowadays and that this type of media can provide actual and not fake information for other countries.
One of the key elements of democracy is the good governance that means that government should focus on public interest and act in behalf of its citizens. Everybody would agree that due to the Internet, it is easier to access information you need. It enables governments, political parties and other political organizations to interface with citizens and present their ideas that lead to an increase in political participation and stimulate democracy.
How invention of the Internet changed the world? How it contributes to the spread of democracy? Does it have any impact on it? These questions are under debate till nowadays. In this paper, I will try to express my viewpoint on this dispute.
To begin with, let briefly look at the Egyptian revolution which was held in 2011. It was the first revolution where social media and Internet played the crucial role. ” After 30 years of living in a “fake democratic system” under Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian people had had enough” (Pritamkabe, 2011). After fake election in 2010, people, especially young generation, decided to make a protest in order to create a real democratic system. “There was no freedom of assembly in Egypt, and protests or political activism was banned” (Pritamkabe, 2011), but social media helped people to band together .Using Twitter and Facebook, people were discussing and organizing protests against the government. Government was not happy about this and later it shut down access to the Internet for 5 days. It made situation even worse and people started to show their disappointment on the streets. A lot of videos were posted on the Youtube and the whole world could be aware about the following circumstances. All in all, the new elections were held and citizens had an opportunity to elect the new president. From this revolution, we can see how much power Internet has nowadays and that this type of media can provide actual and not fake information for other countries.
One of the key elements of democracy is the good governance that means that government should focus on public interest and act in behalf of its citizens. Everybody would agree that due to the Internet, it is easier to access information you need. It enables governments, political parties and other political organizations to interface with citizens and present their ideas that lead to an increase in political participation and stimulate democracy.
References: Pritamkabe. (2011.02.27). Internet and Democracy. Available: http://pritamkabe.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/internet-and-democracy/ Last accessed 9th April 2013. Haider, A. (n.d). Contribution of Internet to a democratic society. Available: http://is2.lse.ac.uk/asp/aspecis/20090139.pdf Last accessed 9th April 2013. A short definition of democracy. Available: http://www.democracy-building.info/definition-democracy.html Last accessed 9th April 2013.