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How have social media affected democratic processes across the world?
Posted by on July 31, 2020 at 11:06 amSo last year I had to write a paper for a course on Big Data, and I decided to focus on how the advent of Big Data has affected power relations in societies across the world. Thankfully, there’s quite a lot of content out there exploring this idea, particularly with regards to how social media user metrics can be used by public and private institutions for various means.
Anyways, I’ve been thinking about it recently, and I was wondering if there was anything I might have missed, or not considered.
So, in your guys’ opinion, how do you think that data collection, social media, and the mass adoption of the internet, in general, has affected democracy?
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1 Reply
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I think it’s contributed to growing levels of polarization (an argument I see online more and more) due to the ability to join or create “communities” that align more with personal beliefs, leading to less exposure to differing opinions (or atleast enough time spent with people so similar to you that any people or opinions outside of your own experiences seem too absurd to be legitimate).
The whole Cambridge Analytica fiasco blew the lid on the more secretive industry of behavioural analytics and how big companies collect our data (and what they do with it).
While there are positives (easier to connect with others, ability to share information widely which allows for more informed people, voters, supporters, etc.) there’s also many negatives (spread of misinformation, manipulation of weaknesses like cybersecurity and hostile rhetoric, etc.)
How has it affected democracy? Might get in trouble for this opinion, but it’s really shown how weak voters’ minds are when combatting disinformation and manipulation. I’m in Canada and volunteered in the 2019 election, so I met a lot of voters on the campaign trail. While Canadian’s are usually level headed, I met some people who were SUPER misinformed, but voting citizens nonetheless (or misinformed and refusing to vote, which I’m not sure is worse or better since they were very close-minded).
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