Is Web2.0 Culture Risking Democracy?

Over the weekend I had an opportunity to discuss all things internet with people with varying backgrounds and perspectives. Everyone there was a blogger, but with their own approach and profession, everything from health, business and music to journalism.

A straw poll showed hardly a hand full of people regularly read a newspaper or TV news. Very few read online newspapers routinely, choosing instead to get the information they were interested in from their own sources, such as blogs and Digg.

This is great news for those of us with a vested interest in social media, but what are the negative side effects?

We are increasingly in a self-service and self serving culture. I want, I need, is the order of the day. We don’t want to be told, just consume on our own terms.

Traditionally we have been told what was the news of the day. Told what is important via headlines and front page stories. Journalism was an important check against our elected leaders straying from the path. If we in the mainstream are all tracking the latest Britney/Hilton/Miley Cyrus story and overlooking anything dull or downer like politics, could democracy suffer?

There will always be individuals who hold our politicians accountable, but who will speak for and defend them? As one person pointed out, we say we dislike lawyers and journalists, but when things go bad these are the people we often need most.

You could say Digg and such like are the new newspapers, but as someone who works in social media I know how easy these things can be gamed to promote or bury a story. Also there are only so many times these sites can cry wolf before we ignore those too. We need the journalistic rigor and fact checking (even if this has been failing lately).

What do you think? Am I being overly pessimistic? How will journalism evolve to fit into a web2.0 world?

Posted on May 6, 2008 by Chris Garrett 
Filed Under Web 2.0

Comments

6 Responses to “Is Web2.0 Culture Risking Democracy?”

  1. Michael Holdcroft on May 6th, 2008 1:45 pm

    Chris,

    I deal with a lot of people everyday and one thing sticks out like a sore thumb: Most people’s standard of general knowledge is very, very poor.

    Michael

  2. Chris Garrett on May 6th, 2008 3:58 pm

    Do you think this is worse now than it was before? I have a feeling that general knowledge, especially current affairs, will only get worse due to our cherry picking the media we consume.

  3. John Clements on May 6th, 2008 6:42 pm

    I think the comment about the lack of general knowledge is relevant, but the reality I think we are dealing with as a result of the web phenomena is specialisation.

    Techy people know more and more about tech, less and less about stuff they find boring like politics. Meanwhile, politically motivated people go on specialising and upholding democracy, using, guess what? The Internet and other tech tools.

    The big question is co-operation and partnership. This is certainly happening in the UK, though I can’t say how scaled it is. Take a look at the democracy projects: http://theyworkforyou.com, http://writetothem.com; for a stateside example, try http://www.groupsnearyou.com/

  4. Chris Garrett on May 6th, 2008 11:37 pm

    Cool, thanks for the links, but does the fact I am in the UK and don’t know of them show that we are missing something?

  5. Claudia on May 9th, 2008 5:01 am

    Hmm…I had a similar discussion with another teacher regarding standards and what the new web is doing to our high school students. On one hand, there’s a challenge to the genereal media to have better reporting to reach more sectors of society. On the other hand, blog wrting is brief, web communities are sometimes not as productive, and very narrowed focus. But caring about the big picture and those around you is really a skill learned and practiced througout a life time. Do I think web 2.0 is a risk to democracy? yes, but its really a sympton of what society has failed to teach: care and responsibility for others.

  6. Prozac. on June 13th, 2010 5:26 pm

    Prozac….

    Prozac withdrawl. Prozac….

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