Major Essay Communications & Media Essay Research Paper

MAJOR ESSAY
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Major Essay
The 21st century is sometimes labeled as the age of unlimited information primarily because of information technology's bloom. Over the last decade, social media platforms have gained popularity and revolutionized communication. Today, world leaders and high-profile global citizens have embraced these platforms to share critical information and engage their global audiences. Politically, Twitter has gained currency as the world-leading platform where politicians can channel their opinion. Often, a single tweet will generate likes, retweets, and comments in quantum proportions within seconds. The goal is to have a global discourse through hashtags and trends. While Twitter is a platform that can drive political change, its downside comes with significant damages. Notably, theories of citizenship such as liberalism and communitarianism can act as the foundation through which the merits and limitations of Twitter are understood. While it remains a simple platform to share ideas, it presents complexities, and a deeper understanding of this platform is required.
Theories of citizenship
Many scholars have established a direct approach to the whole concept of citizenship by dwelling on its strengths and weaknesses, practice, and historical development. As a concept, citizenship has historically evolved and is simply described as the relationship between an individual and the state (Mitu 2019, p.3). Some theories such as Liberalism and Communitarianism have emerged in recent times in political theory. According to the theory of liberalism, an individual is more important to the group. Liberalism postulate that exercising rights is a citizen's decision. On the other hand, communitarianism fronts the idea that a person does not stand apart from the society and is bound to the society (Mitu 2019 p.4). The underlying idea of communitarianism is the common good.
Differential citizenship and social media
Moving away from the traditional contexts of citizenship, one area of interest emerges in differential citizenship. According to this theory, citizenship is different and comes in different contexts and domains, and can improve multiple capacities (Hudson 2000). In addition, differential citizenship has it that it’s impossible to totalize citizenship.
It is through differential citizenship that one finds digital activism. Recent social media movements such as Global Frackdown have attracted considerable attention to driving a political and social message. Global Frackdown activists have time without number organized themselves in a sustained manner demanding the government to ban the hydraulic fracturing technology (Hopke 2015, p.4)). Activists with genuine intentions have used Twitter to demand attention from their various governments. In true spirit with citizenship, this is significant milestone that nations have achieved. Governments exist to solve the needs of its citizens. And with such powerful Twitter movements. These advocacy networks and movement align themselves with themes of justice to establish a sense of moral authority. This is what communitarianism defines. Here, the individual is bound to the society and the community’s needs are far greater than individual/private demands (Mitu 2019, p. 4). In this case, private entities through government licenses are using a technology that threatens environmental safety. Additionally, the rise of digital activism has resulted in personalized political action. Individuals can participate in political engagements in a public sphere such as Twitter and get noticed. It remains the right of any citizen to participate in political activities.
Furthermore, Global Frackdown is a movement with both local and global framing (Hopke 2015, p.1). It is a transnational phenomenon and localized at the same time. Global citizens get to interact through the hashtag features and share lots of important information that spread beyond the mainstream media.
In the citizen-led movements, Twitter is majorly preferred because it allows citizens to post short and concise messages at a relatively low technical and financial cost. On the flip side, critics argue that social media is desktop activism where citizens try to change the world by being keyboard warriors while doing very little on the ground to spearhead social movements (Buente 2017, par. 1). Global Frackdown is particularly to be used by political lobby groups to spread propaganda and tarnish the government’s reputation (Hopke 2015, p.8). Undoubtedly, Twitter has evolved as a necessary and effective tool that can easily promote political change and sometimes create a social revolution.
What are the merits of Twitter as a platform for political change?
The Global Frackdown has largely revealed the influence of Twitter in facilitating change. Individuals and activist groups have challenged their governments through the hashtag to drop the environmentally unfriendly technology (Hopke 2015, p. 8). Both individual and activist group participation underscores the importance of citizenship in activism. As a platform, Twitter has helped both individual and advocacy groups to voice their concern on a global scale. With the hashtag phenomenon, people can engage in global discourse how they chose to do it. However, Twitter has a downside in that people can use the platform to engage in propaganda and hurt democracy (Leong et al., 2019). Sometimes, individuals in powerful positions use the platform to deceive the public by providing alternative facts. With the information overload, it is very easy to fall for fake news. This is where Twitter should intervene. It should have a way of verifying information or censure those in top positions who use the platform to hoodwink the public. In essence, Twitter shall be implementing the core ethics of communication.
The merits of Twitter as a platform for political change can be narrowed down to three. Firstly, the platform provides the attention economy (Buente 2017, par. 3). In modern states and democracies, citizens are flooded with media content alongside messa...