Critical Review

Introduction

In the article “From Liberation to Turmoil: Social Media And Democracy”, the authors highlighted the increased use of internet and social media in activities like political discourses. The article further explained how the use of social media has increased mainly in the autocracies and developed democracies influencing the democratic transition and consolidation in the current era. The article examines the usage of social media as a possible tool for democratic consolidation in the United States (Ellison & Hardey, 2014). The authors of this article discussed the links between politics and social media. The article further highlighted how the use of social media can raise hopes for liberation in authoritarian regimes and how the same social media can be utilized for suppressing these regimes at the same time.

Analysis and Discussion

The article is an innovative analysis of the use of social media such as facebook and twitter on political contradictions. The authors highlighted two simple observations regarding the use of social media in the global platform (Tucker, Theocharis, Roberts & Barberá, 2017). The article shed light on the fact that technology or social media provides a free open platform for many whose opinion and voices were not given any importance and generally avoided from discussions of politics in the mainstream media. The social media platform provides space and opportunities for people to get in touch with compatriots of same thoughts, support their preferred political parties and organize movements to protest against any political issue (McChesney, 2015). The article explained how collective action issues which have been avoided and oppressed from the mainstream political discussion are solved by the use of social media. The authors focused on the idea that the use of technology can generate new ways of holding the accountability of the government and pressing for wider inclusion of politics. The article sheds light on the fact that social media should expand its platform by including more voices which are considered as antisystem from the viewpoint of liberal democracy. Besides the several benefits of social media there lie some disadvantages also (Kumar & Svensson, 2015).The free and open platform of the social media can also be utilized to stimulate censorships. The environment or the platform can be utilized or exploited to silence and discourage opinions of other people. The platform that provides the opportunity to the people to share information, perspectives and their personal thoughts can be utilized to demotivate and criticize their views at the same time. The authors in this article focused how illiberal and anti-system forces use these authoritarian methods to exploit these free and open platforms of social media and complicate the matters (Tucker, Theocharis, Roberts & Barberá, 2017).The article focuses on the idea mainly on how political lives are affected by the strategies of social media that are pioneered by the nondemocracies.

Various other research studies on the topic of democracy and social media by scholars state that the collaborative platform of technology and social media generates new conception and image of citizenships and engagement in politics (McChesney, 2015).

The article fails to highlight the fact that how democracies should actually react towards this new challenge of the technology in the platform of social media (Tucker, Theocharis, Roberts & Barberá, 2017). In this article, the authors tried to portray the concept of the double reality of the online platform of social media. It explained how the perspective towards the social media can either turn optimistic or can run to become pessimistic in the field for the implication of democracy (Justwan et al., 2018).

The article mainly focused on the fact that though the platform of free online information is a principle of inherent democracy, social media are not. The authors of this article focused on the basic concept of the platform of technology highlighting the fact that social media includes a platform or space where people discuss their perspectives and interest in politics. These interest fights for influences and most of these interests are neither democratic nor liberal (Murphy, 2018).

The article focuses on how the liberation technology creates issues for autocracies and the success of the technological advancement and social media has charged up the turmoil of politics in democracies. Some belong to strong debates and some falls under the range of extremism. The article highlighted the scenario of London Bridge Terrorist Attack of 3 June 2017 which was the third major assault in the UK since March (Tucker, Theocharis, Roberts & Barberá, 2017). The article highlighted how series of activities in social media took place after the incident. From addressing the assault as the radical Islamic terrorist attack to the closer of the internet for preventing the expansion of extremism and terrorism plans, the display of enduring and structural asymmetry among the democratic and nondemocratic regime took place (The Economist, 2018).

The authors of the article have however explained certain controversial measures as proposed by the new reality but the article provides an unclear explanation if the envision of governmental steps are possible or not (Frare, 2018). The authors of this article have not answered on how democratic government can regulate the platform of social media that are used by terrorist group sometimes. The article has further not addressed the query if private enterprises or companies can ensure safety from harassments and censorship in their online platform. The reaction of the private organizations to the request for information from the government or on orders to shut down their specific corporate accounts has not also been discussed in the article. The article concludes with a query about the role of citizens for supporting democratic contemplation and online insertion.

Conclusion

The meaning of politics and democracy in the world of changing technology and social media platform is a topic of much debate. The article highlighted the use of the social media platform and its advantages and disadvantages in this current world of politics and democracy. The authors of this article suggested how it is important to review the responsibilities of governments and citizens on this globe in this age of digital advancement for an effective use of the technology.

References

Ellison, N., & Hardey, M. (2014). Social media and local government: Citizenship, consumption and democracy. Local Government Studies, 40(1), 21-40.

Frare, J. (2018). How bad is social media for democracy?. The Daily Campus. Retrieved from http://dailycampus.com/stories/2018/2/2/how-bad-is-social-media-for-democracy

Justwan, F., Baumgaertner, B., Carlisle, J. E., Clark, A. K., & Clark, M. (2018). Social media echo chambers and satisfaction with democracy among Democrats and Republicans in the aftermath of the 2016 US elections. Journal of Elections, Public Opinion and Parties, 1-19.

Kumar, V., & Svensson, J. (Eds.). (2015). Promoting Social Change and Democracy Through Information Technology. IGI Global.

McChesney, R. W. (2015). Rich media, poor democracy: Communication politics in dubious times. New Press, The.

Murphy, M. (2018). Facebook admits social media can harm democracy. The Telegraph. Retrieved from https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2018/01/22/facebook-admits-social-media-can-harm-democracy/

The Economist. (2018). Do social media threaten democracy?. Retrieved from https://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21730871-facebook-google-and-twitter-were-supposed-save-politics-good-information-drove-out

Tucker, J., Theocharis, Y., Roberts, M., & Barberá, P. (2017). From Liberation to Turmoil: Social Media And Democracy. Journal Of Democracy, 28(4), 46-59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/jod.2017.0064