Hello. Today I’m going back to one of my first posts and exploring how the Internet opens up opportunities to seek out like-minded people when arguing politics and the effects of that. But this time, I’m also going to find out its effects on our democracy and our social systems.
The author says that the cause of not wanting to get involved in politics (or anything else, really) is that people are afraid of being alienated or viewed as separate from everyone else. The main reasons behind this early conclusion are: “1. Society uses threats of isolation towards deviant individuals. 2. Individuals experience fear of isolation at all times. 3. From fear of isolation individuals try to estimate the general opinion at all times.” And finally, the fourth point reflects the content of lots of political arguments: “4. The result of the estimate influences their behavior for all the publicity/public sphere and specifically through showing or hiding of opinions, for instance, by speaking or keeping silent.” People may be afraid to display their political opinions because while they may be fine participating in a controversy of opinions, they will probably not be so eager to create controversy among their personal friends.
It would seem that the Internet is a perfect way to get around these blocks. The anonymity that a few people use as an excuse to insult each other’s views can, with a little encouragement, work with the majority of the people to make a community full of so many different viewpoints that they can’t be sorted into few enough groups to create huge schisms. Even if people end up seeking and associating with people of their same opinions, they can at least encounter and listen to others with different views.
But we’ve seen how arguments in news comment threads go. Even if the participants seem eager enough to share their own opinions, we can still see them fight losing battles when they’re too stubborn to give up their own viewpoint and they can see that the other person is right (it doesn’t happen that often, but still). According to the article, the reason that people cling to their opinions even when they want to change them is that they’re afraid of being rejected by their communities because they showed an opinion different than the majority. Although most of the time people are unidentifiable on the Net and can only be clumped into vague categories, these people classify themselves and mentally put themselves into groups, and they fear being isolated from those who share their opinions, even if they’ve never met or talked to them before. Obviously, old habits from the ‘real world’ die hard in the ‘net world’.
The concept of ‘direct democracy’, where everyone contributes equally to the exchange of ideas, probably won’t be made reality simply because of human nature. It’s in our nature to want to satisfy people and gain approval, at least to some degree. Maybe political apathy isn’t caused by not caring at all about politics, but not caring about it enough to alienate people. Perhaps the unwillingness to challenge group norms is just a result of wanting to belong and to keep friends. Even so, there seems to be hope for making Internet communities at least a little more open to viewpoints that aren’t completely one way or the other. With this diverse Internet that’s growing all the time, there’s still a potential for breathing new life into the idea of the direct democracy.
Thank you for reading.
Referenced Article: Tamara Witschge, “Online Deliberation: Possibilities of the Internet for Deliberative Democracy.” U-topic.nl, October 2002. http://u-topic.nl/05links/02_Witschge_Online.pdf
