Politics on the Internet

A Student Guide

Steve Buckler, David Dolowitz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2004
• eBook ISBN: 9781134498291
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Process
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The Internet is revolutionizing the way we live and interact with the world and is also changing the way we study. When it comes to politics we are faced with an immense volume of information which is often overwhelming, but properly harnessed can be inspiring and enlightening.

This indispensable new text equips the reader with the key skills needed to cut through the mass of material the web offers and use its real power. Today's students and scholars need new coherent strategies to approach their interests and get the best out of information technology, this superb book builds and strengthens these skills. With a clear, concise and focused structure, this book:

• guides the reader to the best online politics sites and sources
• breaks the web down into manageable forms ideal for study
• deals with key issues such as plagiarism and newsgroups
• empowers study methods and builds confidence
• advises on how to quickly get the best search results.

Twenty-first century scholarship is presenting the academic community with new challenges and opportunities. This book analyzes the technology at every student's fingertips and is a welcome gateway to the range of sources available. This is the ideal guide to the maze of online resources now available and will save students and scholars literally hours of time, opening up the best resource in contemporary politics and delivering the skills needed to master it.

This book will be of great interest to all students of politics and the media.

1 Introduction

The Internet — why bother?

The highway is going to give us all access to seemingly unlimited information, any time, any place we care to use it. It's an exhilarating prospect, because putting this technology to use to improve education will lead to downstream benefits in every area of society.

Bill Gates, The Road Ahead

Many people would be a little more sceptical than the world's foremost software entrepreneur concerning the educational implications of the Internet. It is certainly true, however, that information technology will have a deep and continuing impact upon the world of learning, as upon many other aspects of life; and, as a student, you will find that the Internet inevitably plays a large part in your studies. The increasing presence of computers and of Internet access in homes and workplaces has been matched by their prevalence in Higher Education. Computer technology has become a basic aspect of provision for staff and students in universities and the use of the Internet for research and teaching is now common. The purpose of this book is to provide a guide as to how you might best and most effectively make use of the Internet in your studies. First, however, and since this is a book designed specifically for politics students, it is appropriate to provide some sense of the politics of the Internet — of how it is used politically and what the political impact of this new medium might be. Equally, an awareness of the politics of the Internet may equip you to ask some critical questions about the medium that will prove important when you are actually using it.

Where did the Internet come from?

When investigating a particular phenomenon, political scientists will often be inclined to ask questions about where it came from and how it developed. It is instructive for us to look briefly at these questions in relation to the Internet. One frequently noted fact about computing technology is the speed with which it has become a major aspect of modern life. To quote just one of the many statistics, the number of computers in use in the United States alone increased from 5,000 in 1960 to 180 million by 1997.¹ A significant factor in this enormous increase has been the communications potential of computers once they are linked into networks. Computer networking emerged in fledgling form in the 1960s when the technology was developed that allowed information to be broken down into a form that was transmittable and readable by other machines. At this point, the potential range of networking was limited as the technology was developed and controlled by the US Defense Department. The ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), the precursor of the Internet, was developed in 1969 specifically for military and technical academic use. The widespread development of networking did not begin in earnest until the 1980s when the US National Science Foundation began to sponsor the linking up of computer systems between universities. More importantly perhaps, at this point, the intense lobbying that had been undertaken by the commercial sector throughout the 1970s and 1980s led to an increasing liberalisation of the data-processing industry. Companies began to develop their own corporate networks and these were linked up with increasing speed to form what, in the mid-1980s, became known as the Internet.

It was also at this time that some key developments occurred that were to turn the Internet into a publicly accessible and usable medium. Technology using HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language) allowed graphic material to be displayed in documents; the development of the Domain Name System allowed easy identification of Internet sites and facilitated Internet searching; and the subsequent rise of commercial service providers allowed subscribers access to e-mail, web pages and user groups. With these developments, the Internet emerged as a site for information transfer and communication unprecedented in terms of access, range, volume and speed. This process culminated in a landmark ruling by the US Supreme Court in 1997 which removed all laws restricting the free flow of information on the Internet. This judgment set a worldwide precedent for liberalisation of online activity. When we look at its use in education as well as in other spheres, it is worth bearing in mind that although universities were amongst the first non-military users of the Internet, it is the commercial sector that has been central to the subsequent drive for more general access and usage.

Before we examine the specific uses of the Internet that you are likely to encounter in your studies, it is useful to add some further context, and raise some questions, by looking at the emergence of online technology in relation to politics.

Politics and the Internet

There are two principal ways in which the Internet has come to figure politically. It is increasingly used by conventional political institutions, such as government agencies and political parties; but beyond this, Internet communication has made possible new forms of political organisation and interaction. Governments and political parties now routinely employ the Internet as a means of interacting with their constituencies through websites, e-mail and sometimes discussion forums. By these means they disseminate information and publicity, gauge opinion and engage in campaign activities. The Internet potentially has advantages for governments or parties in that it provides a means of getting messages across whilst bypassing the kind of scrutiny and questioning that often accompany exposure in the traditional media. The flow of information may therefore be more easily controlled. The Internet also has the advantage of providing a cheap and immediate method of responding to events or of conveying messages. On the other hand, some in politics are less enthusiastic about the medium and see potential drawbacks. Perhaps the largest of these concerns the limited access to the Internet amongst the population as a whole: access remains most common amongst more advantaged social groups. As a result, key parts of the target audience remain unreachable in terms of online information or publicity. There is also a concern that the Internet represents a form of communication that is too passive and lacking in impact when compared with more traditional campaigning techniques. Perhaps because of concerns like this, the Internet has generally been regarded as simply a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, traditional modes of political communication. By the same token, it has tended, in traditional, mainstream politics, to be used in ways that reproduce traditional forms of communication and the potential that some would argue the technology contains for radically new forms of political interaction remains somewhat underexplored.

The question of how far the Internet could potentially change the political landscape is one that more frequently arises in the context of its use by groupings outside the framework of more traditional political institutions. This includes some groups that may have pre-existed the Internet but have been able to use it in order to expand or intensify their activity, and also groups that have been brought into being in virtue of the technology itself. Issue-orientated pressure groups, protest organisations and ideological movements outside the mainstream have made use of the Internet to extend their scope and their organisational focus in ways that traditional methods of communication did not permit. Equally, Internet user groups have sprung up which have created new spaces for e-mail-based political communication and debate, some at a relatively local level, others on a broader scale. The openness of the medium has in this way permitted users with common interests and concerns to discover one another and generate their own participatory forums.

The advantages of the technology in this respect lie in its global reach, the equal chances to participate in debate that it opens up and the level of interactivity that it offers. Some would also argue that the potential anonymity that comes with online communication is an advantage: exclusionary tendencies that come with recognition of class, race, gender and even accent are marginalised in the electronic forum. Factors of this sort have led some to regard the Internet as carrying profound implications for the future of political life. It has been argued that online political interaction will come to represent a new public sphere, accommodating an unprecedented diversity of voices and challenging the centralisation of the political process. Virtual political communities, it is suggested, will provide opportunities for direct participation that will revitalise political life at all levels. At more local levels, it may provide opportunities to integrate decision-making processes into communities themselves, generating new levels of ‘social capital’, the benefits accruing from interaction and mutuality. More broadly, the Internet may provide an interactive forum that will serve to reconfigure identities through cultural and political exchange and break down the stereotypes that underlie marginalisation. It may be that the Internet is still in its early stages as a political forum and still needs to develop values of civic engagement and real, deliberative communication, but the technology may hold considerable promise for the future.

Not everyone would share this optimism, however. Some would point to disadvantages inherent in the medium that potentially outweigh the advantages. Despite its global reach, the limitations on Internet access, especially in the developing world, make the political forum it offers much less inclusive (at least at present) than it initially might seem to be to those for whom the Internet is now a routine feature of life. And as we noted earlier, similar, if less pronounced, divisions also exist between different socio-economic groups within the developed world itself. Also, online political debate is notorious for being, all too often, ill-informed, chaotic and lacking a proper deliberative element. Much interaction is in the form of unsupported assertion and is often uncivil. This would be enough to lead some to doubt that the anonymity afforded by online debate is necessarily a good thing, as it provides a context in which people do not feel the need to conduct themselves as responsibly as they would were they clearly identifiable. There may be other factors at work here as well. The lack of responsibility that characterises online interaction may reflect a lack of any sense of ownership of the medium, or any sense of control over the values embedded in it, on the part of most who use that medium. The design and development of the Internet have been driven by the application of technical expertise largely in the context of commercial interests: this may have created a sense of division between the professional owners of the medium and its generally passive users. It has been argued, in the light of this and the problems of differential access mentioned above, that the Internet, far from creating a transformed or revitalised public sphere, actually reproduces familiar inequalities and forms of exclusion. On this view, moreover, to the extent that the Internet does become an important feature of politics, it may serve to increase the opportunities for commercial interests to shape or dominate the political process.

Strong arguments may be made, then, both for and against the idea of the Internet as a potentially revolutionising and liberating political medium. Like most radically new technological phenomena, the Internet has tended to polarise opinion and it may be some time before it is possible to adjudicate with any certainty between the contending views here. What is not in doubt is that one way or another the Internet will be an important factor in politics as well as in many other areas of life. For students of politics, the kind of critical concerns raised here will be of continuing interest even as we use the medium itself as a research and learning tool.

Learning and the Internet

Initially, in Higher Education, computer technology was deployed in specialist technical research but more lately it has become more deeply embedded in the sector's activities. As the capacity to place information on the Internet in a sophisticated and accessible form has developed, online research resources have become an important feature of academic life: bibliographical information, library catalogues, archives and databases of various sorts are all routinely used by academics. Equally, the Internet has facilitated networked collaboration and information sharing. The Internet has also itself become a site and object of research as it has developed into an important arena for social, economic and political interaction.

Since the mid-1990s, increasing access to the technology has meant that the Internet has come to feature much more prominently for students as well. Online resources can play an important role in your research. The Internet also provides a new way of accessing tailored information such as reading lists, course materials and research links. In addition, it is featuring increasingly in the learning and teaching process itself through the use of online teaching aids, e-mail discussion forums and Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs). With a new learning medium comes the requirement for new techniques for effective use and also new conventions for the integration of this medium into academic work as a whole. These are some of the issues with which this book is centrally concerned.

The following chapters will provide you with advice designed to help you become an efficient, and also a discerning, user of the Internet. This is an important issue in part because of the sheer openness of the Internet as a communications medium. Traditionally, certain criteria have operated that regulate the production and use of academic materials, through professional standards in publishing, copyright regulations, bibliographical cataloguing systems and so forth. These criteria are much more readily bypassed in the context of the Internet. The relatively easy and unregulated way in which information is published online, whilst in some ways a cause for celebration, might also prompt some caution when it comes to the use of such material in academic contexts. Discernment with respect to the origin and quality of the information that you find on the Internet is certainly called for.

A related issue here takes us back to the commercial forces that have played such an important part in fuelling and shaping the development of the Internet. Some would argue that this influence has resulted in a commercial orientation being built in to the ‘virtual architecture’ of the Internet. Commercial imperatives may have an influence upon the kinds of information provided and upon its mode of presentation. This potentially involves a ‘commodification’ of knowledge: commercial providers, for example, may be inclined to present information in a form that is most easily consumable by simplifying or sensationalising it. Information may also of course be presented in highly selective ways, and the principles of selection may need some examination. Equally, there may be a tendency to link web-based resources to further marketing opportunities: the line between information and advertising is one that may often quite easily become blurred. Another related development that has concerned some people in the USA in particular is the way in which the rise of networked educational provision has prompted alliances between universities, commercial content providers and technology companies. There are undoubtedly potential implications in this for the nature of Higher Education, as the interests of the commercial sector in more vocationally orientated study and training linked to research and development needs come to exercise more of an influence. The way in which use of the Internet in education might actually lead to a re-shaping of the educational agenda itself is a matter of ongoing concern. Again, in this context, a certain critical questioning of what is provided online is in order.

These are issues that you are likely to find prove relevant when you are researching on the Internet and when you come to make decisions about what information to use and how to use it. And with such issues in mind we will next go on, in chapter 2, to identify and categorise the many different kinds of resources available online that may be useful in your studies, including library resources, databases, media sources and many more. We will consider how to recognise different kinds of resources and how they may prove useful to you. Building on this, in chapter 3 we will consider how to make the most effective use of the Internet through appropriate search techniques. We will also look at the various types of subject directories and search engines that are available and how you can make the most use of them in your studies. Having looked at the important information sources and how to find them, in chapter 4 we will consider some guidelines you might follow that will help you be discerning with respect to the information you find via the Internet. We will consider ways in which you might assess Internet sites for probable accuracy and reliability and look at the places where you are most likely to find dependable sources. In chapter 5 we shall go on to look at how you might effectively use the Internet to conduct ‘interactive’ research — through the use of online questionnaires, discussions or focus groups. We will examine ways in which Internet technology facilitates this kind of research, which can prove very useful in the project work or dissertations that most students undertake at some point in their studies. In this chapter, continuing the interactive theme, we will also look briefly at learning on the Internet through the Virtual Learning Environments that are becoming an increasingly common feature of Higher Education. Throughout, the discussion will be illustrated with examples chosen to be of particular relevance to students of politics and international relations. We have also provided a general list of important Internet sites that are likely to be of use to you in your studies.

1. Schiller 2000: 13

2 Resources on the Internet

When learning to use the Internet it is quite common for students to feel somewhat overwhelmed by the amount of information available. This can be a barrier to utilising the Internet as an effective research and learning tool. However, with a little understanding students can quickly learn how to utilise the Internet to its full potential. Not only can the Internet open the door to governments, think tanks, international organisations, databases, statistical information and media organisations, but it also allows students to contact individuals, groups and communities, while participating in online discussions, chats and events.

The primary purpose of this chapter is to help you find, recognise and understand the major categories of information available on the Internet and to indicate how these can be used to enhance the learning experience. Although one point should be made at the outset: no matt...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• Acknowledgement
• 1 Introduction: the Internet—why bother?
• 2 Resources on the Internet
• 3 Using the Internet
• 4 Evaluating sources
• 5 Interactive research on the Internet
• 6 Conclusion
• Appendix: list of useful websites
• Bibliography
• Index