Communication

Are Facebook, Twitter, fostering civic engagement?

July 4, 2011 886

Emily Badger writes in Miller-McCune Magazine about the link between social media and civic engagement.

Since the first days of the Arab Spring, social media has been celebrated for its role in helping to foment democracy in countries that don’t yet have it. An intriguing though less dramatic question back home is this: Can it also be used to strengthen democracy and civic engagement in countries like the U.S. that do have it?

The answer isn’t so obvious. Political operatives and White House insiders have touted the power of Facebook, Twitter and Google to engage the public in election season and the governing decisions that follow. But contrarian voices have sprung up to suggest those platforms have hidden consequences, encouraging “slacktivism” as much as activism, and narrowing our world view rather than expanding it.

Most controversially of late, Eli Pariser suggests in the new book The Filter Bubble that today’s hyper-personalized Facebook feeds and Google search results may just feed us information from the people who already think like us and about news that confirms what we already believe. By using indicators we provide about ourselves — when we “like” Sarah Palin’s Facebook page — Pariser suggests social networks may be tailoring content to our biases, filtering out precisely the opposing views a globally connected Internet was supposed to facilitate.

Evgeny Morozov, author of The Net Delusion, suggests meanwhile that “group fetishism” has led us to confuse quantity with quality in online activism. After all, it’s easy to be “engaged” in politics when all you have to do is “like” a candidate or her cause.

This, Morozov writes, “all too often leads to civic promiscuity — usually the result of a mad shopping binge in the online identity supermarket that is Facebook — that makes online activists feel useful and important while having preciously little political impact.”

Click here to read the article in its entirety.

One of Library Journal’s Best Magazines of 2008, Miller-McCune not only identifies policy issues of global important but provides evidence-based solutions offered by academic research and real-world models. Through excellent but understandable writing and proven judgment in what to cover, the nonprofit Miller-McCune has received a surprising amount of acclaim and, more importantly, a large and growing audience interested in the social and natural sciences.

View all posts by Pacific-Standard Magazine

Related Articles

Did the Mainstream Make the Far-Right Mainstream?
Communication
February 27, 2024

Did the Mainstream Make the Far-Right Mainstream?

Read Now
Why Don’t Algorithms Agree With Each Other?
Innovation
February 21, 2024

Why Don’t Algorithms Agree With Each Other?

Read Now
A Black History Addendum to the American Music Industry
Insights
February 6, 2024

A Black History Addendum to the American Music Industry

Read Now
The Use of Bad Data Reveals a Need for Retraction in Governmental Data Bases
Communication
February 1, 2024

The Use of Bad Data Reveals a Need for Retraction in Governmental Data Bases

Read Now
When University Decolonization in Canada Mends Relationships with Indigenous Nations and Lands

When University Decolonization in Canada Mends Relationships with Indigenous Nations and Lands

Community-based work and building and maintaining relationships with nations whose land we live upon is at the heart of what Indigenizing is. It is not simply hiring more faculty, or putting the titles “decolonizing” and “Indigenizing” on anything that might connect to Indigenous peoples.

Read Now
Safiya Noble on Search Engines

Safiya Noble on Search Engines

In an age where things like facial recognition or financial software algorithms are shown to uncannily reproduce the prejudices of their creators, this was much less obvious earlier in the century, when researchers like Safiya Umoja Noble were dissecting search engine results and revealing the sometimes appalling material they were highlighting.

Read Now
Did Turing Miss the Point? Should He Have Thought of the Limerick Test?

Did Turing Miss the Point? Should He Have Thought of the Limerick Test?

David Canter is horrified by the power of readily available large language technology.

Read Now
0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments