Internet in Politics the Impact Term Paper

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During the founding the nation, before mass media, television, and the dominance of only a few major newspapers in each major city of the nation, America was filled with many small newspapers that were the voice of countless individual factions. America again has returned to its fractious beginnings online. No longer are their two, coherent singular voices in American politics. or, in the words of one South Korean political news site, now every citizen is a potential reporter.

The Internet has, in a few instances...made a notable difference in terms of how [contemporary] campaigns were conducted and how individuals engaged in civic life at various levels" (Palfry, 2004). Even the Obama campaign has not had full control over all of the discourse generated on the Internet regarding the candidate. One wonders, however well-intended, if Barack Obama appreciates the sexy message conveyed about his campaign by the self-proclaimed "Obama Girl" on YouTube in her midriff-bearing, hip-swinging self-produced video "I've got a crush on Obama."

John Palfry has argued "the Internet provides tools that empower an individual to have a greater level of participation in the political process, if that person is already pre-disposed to be active in civic life" (Palfry, 2004). He also notes that even the formerly non-engaged, because of the ease of pointing and clicking, and generating their own online content, can find a connection in politics on the net they did not previously experience, and through the Internet's intensely personal format, those who felt alienated can create their own niche, unaffiliated with specific special parties or interests.

The Internet also provides a sense of control for those who feel powerless. Rather than merely consume political media, the Internet permits the individual to disseminate editorial material, unapproved of by the candidates, in an unedited form (unlike even a letter to the editor of a major newspaper).

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Yet this intense personalization, also suggests that one of the assumed positives about the political influence of the Internet, namely creating connections between like-minded people unrecognized by the system, might be doubtful. Because it is so personalized, the Internet forum can also create divides between bloggers, preventing people from rallying to a common cause, as they fall into division and fractious personalized debates with other bloggers that do not translate into concrete political action. Bloggers are just as interested in self-aggrandizement; the argument goes, as generating lasting change for the country.

No one has entered the media or political arena -- yet -- through the strength of the Internet alone, the way some candidates like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ronald Regan became famous solely because of cinema before they embarked upon their political careers. But the explosion of respect and reverence for the power of the Internet demonstrates how the cynicism of media scholars like Richard Davis was misplaced. Davis wrote in 1999 with great doubt about the Internet's potential to really change the fundamental power structure in America, arguing that blogs and webpages could not transform the consciousnesses of passive or politically unmotivated Americans. Davis argued that the politically active may like the Internet, but these individuals would have been mobilized to take action anyway. Now, even the most unmotivated sector of the electorate, the young people of America, have shown the ability of iconoclastic voices to use the editorial ease medium in entertaining, innovative, and yes, even provocative ways like Obama Girl. They have taken skeptics like David by surprise.

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