The Internet, The Social Media, Diplomacy, and the Individual

In no other time in human history individuals from the public had so much power to inform and to be informed as in the age of the internet. Before the internet, people around the world had little choice but to rely on the international media system which for decades has influenced the public via paper, radio and TV. Television revolutionised information communication and changed human behaviour just like the radio have done before. Whoever had the control of this powerful communication system had the control of the masses. Perhaps, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was the last time in our generation which the TV was capable to convince an entire nation to go to war. However, people all around the world are still spending a great deal of their free time watching TV and it still remains a powerful way of communication. The difference today is that the internet is changing the way the media do their jobs. If in one hand the TV has brought the world into our homes, it was and still is a one way communication system. On the other hand, the internet goes beyond any other way of communication. It did not only bring the world into our hands, it also united people all over the world in a fairer two way communication system. Individuals today are able to be informed as much as they can inform others. As stated by Alec Ross, senior advisor on innovation to Secretary Clinton, “The real seismic change that is happening is the one of hierarchy – power moving from the state to the individual” (Campion 2012). One can argue that the internet gave to individuals the freedom and education of which the TV is unable or failed to give. The sense of individual power promoted by the internet is probably something only experienced before by media professionals. Most of individuals in the world today are able to communicate with millions of people around the world using only their mobile phones. And we have seen these individual actions over and over again through websites like YouTube during the Arab spring and the protests against austerity in Europe and the US. “All you need is a camera phone to start a movement” said Lichtenstein (2010) for The New York Times. Nonetheless, governments such as the US are trying to get control of the internet perhaps because clearly the elites are losing control of the masses. Individuals can upload their own mobile phone images to the internet and tell a complete different story than the one reported by the media. Oddly enough, the main stream media started to show these amateur reports to perhaps, regain some of its credibility. In recently years the TV and the media in general have lost a great deal of credibility and the campaign of lies before and after the invasion of Iraq and the recently scandal of phone hacking have certainly contributed to this distrust view of the general public towards the media. “Nearly two-thirds of Americans think the news stories they read, hear and watch are frequently inaccurate” (The CBS News 2009).  The internet became a credible option and the individual became the source of news information. One can say that citizen diplomacy might have found its way up to the top of the multi-track diplomacy table and probably for the first time in our history, power seems to be at the hands of the people like never before. We only have to know for how long the elites of the world will let us talk to each other so freely. In an interview by Ian Katz for The Guardian, Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google said that “there were very powerful forces that have lined up against the open internet on all sides and around the world”. He said that the “threat comes from a combination of governments trying to control access and communication by their citizens and the entertainment industry” (cited by Katz 2012).

Social network such as facebook and twitter have achieved the status of important source of information and play significant role in international social relations. “Social media have become coordinating tools for nearly all the world’s political movements” (Shirky 2011). In addition, the Arab spring has been recognised as the first Facebook revolution. Many other social movement such as the Occupy Wall Street, have used the internet to organise, promote and synchronise their actions in different cities and countries in real time. “Since the rise of the internet in the early 1990s, the world’s networked population has grown from the low millions to low billions” (Shirky 2011). Nonetheless, the CIA is monitoring social networks daily in order to gather information for their database. Governments from around the world have engaged on social networks to promote public diplomacy and so have done individuals from around the world to promote integration and citizen diplomacy. We moved away from total media dependency to become the creators of news information. One can argue that every internet individual profile has the potential to be an international news agency. It is unclear whether the people of the world have yet realised the real significances of the internet for the world’s society but, it is certainly clear that the newer generation in our society will enjoy a level of freedom and power never experienced by individuals before.

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Bibliography

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