Ian Bremmer's Essay 'Democracy In Cyberspace'

In Ian Bremmer’s essay, “Democracy in Cyberspace,” he elaborates on the usage of technology in the modern era and how the internet has progressively impacted the world on a global stage. He states how countries have adopted the internet to further influence their political policies and expend the reach of their ideology and how technology has been used to start rebellions against authoritarian states through the means of social media. Bremmer goes on to state how the statement given by Walter Wriston, the former CEO of what is now Citigroup that, “ information technology has demolished time and distance,” may not comply with the same terms of progression that Wriston had once thought technology to been capable of. (1) The theme of technology
The need of change is seen clearly when observing the differentiating political policies on the internet. The United States having been the birthplace of the internet is one of the countries discussed in terms to political policies from which Bremmer interprets to be the spread of democracy whereas the complete opposite is true when reflecting on the actions the Chinese government has taken in order to filter the spread of ideas, values and policies. A similar need for communication is transparent in the revolutions that took place from 2001-2009 in response to which Bremmer stated, “there seems to be plenty of evidence to support the idea of democratization of communications.” (1) The revolutions involved the Philippines, Ukraine, Lebanon, Columbia, Myanmar, Zimbabwe and Iran used forms of social media which included Facebook, Twitter, text messaging, picture messaging and emails in order to spread the message for rebellion and share their stories. From there Bremmer goes back to the words of Wriston which stated, “Information technology is a long-term process, cyberspace is a complex place and technological advances are no substitute for human wisdom,” from which the notion for the basic human social need is evident.