Introduction
Across all the countries on the globe, social media is making it easy for individuals to make a voice in the government. It is making it easier for people to hold their leaders accountable, to discuss issues, and to organize around causes. When social media took a significant position during the 2011 Arab Spring in countries like Tunisia, they considered it a liberation technology. Since then, a lot has changed. The US presidential elections of 2016 unfolded the risks of political polarization, fake news, and foreign meddling. By linking individuals in different countries, social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter provide an environment for digital evolution, as well as tools for fostering worldwide friendships. Social media has also broken down the long-standing barriers that prevented ideas and voices of people from being heard, hence serving as a compelling force of democracy. The primary focus of this essay is on how social media affects civic participation and engagement, access to unbiased, and current information, all necessary for political democracy. This essay argues that social media does not only weaken democracy, but it also strengthens it. It focuses on how the Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movements in social media are strengthening democracy.
How Social Media Helps in Strengthening or Weakening Democracy
Several types of research have claimed that the liberation of technology like mobile phones, the internet, and social media, can positively strengthen democracy. However, there is no empirical investigation on whether or not social media can enhance democracy. Scholars have also noted that the practical evidence on the coexistence between democracy and the internet is mixed. This statement seems to be true because the internet, especially social media, is not only used as a democratization tool, but also and authoritarianism instrument. Therefore, the relationship between technologies based on the internet like social media and the internet may be based on other aspects, including the responsibility of civil society. Tucker (48) emphasizes on the significance of political organizations, economic forces, and the civil society in evaluating the impact of technological advancements on the power of democracy.
Also, since all the technologies have different architectures, which influence various forms of behaviors, researchers have proposed that rather than studying the internet, they should determine the implication of social media on political and democratic outcomes. Some of their studies have proven that social media promotes accountability, and thus democracy in the country. There are five criteria for the existence of democracy in the country (Tucker 51). They include the active participation of the public, equality in voting, the inclusion of adults, control of the plan, and enlightened understanding. These five criteria ensure that there is political equality among people and give them equal chances of exercising their duties to the nation. The media is one of the main channels through which the public can access information necessary in understanding the agenda issues and exercising the highest standards of democracy.
The Black Lives Matter (BLM)
Racism in America arrests the growth of democracy. Black Lives Matter is a political movement that started in 2013 as a hashtag. This hashtag has developed to be a contentious and dynamic movement of civil rights. The hashtag was created in response to the murder of Trayvon Martin, a Black American teenager in 2012 (Ransby 3). The man who killed him was released. The momentum of this movement increased following the wake of other killings of Africa Americans by the police. The black lives matter movement is based on the philosophy that believes that justice and freedom will never be attained if people expect it to flow from the advantaged and more powerful leaders to the minority. As an alternative, for people to live in realities of equity and freedom, they should unravel the structures of the disadvantaged people that restrain the most affected by oppression and systematic domination. The BLM movement aims at both oppression and domination. It tries to enact and imagine a world where all people, including the people of color, are free. Certainly, it is not easy to overdo the place of freedom in the formation of activists of the movement. The ultimate goal of the black lives matter movement was to create a world where black people would be free from oppression and domination. The movement works on changing the behavior of people so that blacks can have their freedom in democracy.
The black lives matter social movement originated from the black American community. It campaigns against systemic racism and violence towards Africans in America. The movement conducts protests regularly about police killings of the Africans (Stephen 4). Other issues addressed by this movement are racial profiling, racial discrimination, and brutality of the police in the criminal justice system in the US. It is a formal movement, whose initial goal was to highlight the uneven number of occurrences in which police shot dead a black person. Now, the BLM organization is described as a chapter-based nationwide organization operating to validate the life of black people. Its development has included the issues affecting LGBT communities, black women, black people with disabilities, and undocumented African Americans.
For sometimes now, social media has been focusing on events of campaigns and protests on the streets. However, the BLM movement has been conducting campaigns on changing legislation. Recently, the movement has made some recommendations, which include the demilitarization of law execution, amendment of the laws, unionization of uncontrolled industries, and legalization of drugs. Some of the efforts of this organization have succeeded (Stephen 5). For instance, a civilian oversight board was created in the city of St Louis. This board investigates and reviews complaints and allegations of the citizens about police misconduct. To build the legacy of the LGBT and civil rights movement, the BLM has established a new technique of challenging racial disparity in society. Besides, the organization draws intersectionality theories of feminism, which advocate for a collaborative response to issues of nationality, sexuality, class, race, and gender.
It is worth noting that freedom, in the political viewpoint of the Black Lives Matter movement, has some resemblance to the most common copious formulations of democracy. The prevailing conceptions of freedom in the public discourse of America stress on choice and rights. Besides, it is a static notion; someone is either free or not, based on the accorded rights and the decisions that they are permitted to make. Freedom is a process that is measured by peoples’ capabilities in exercising their life experiences, and the efficacy and health of their respective communities.
The #MeToo Movement
According to Spector (4), the #MeToo movement was started by Tarana Burke in the year 2006. It became prominent in 2017 when Alyssa Miano applied this hashtag in encouraging women who had experienced sexual violence to post their stories on the harassment as an illustration of the universality of the issue in the country. In the preceding months, men and women used platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to share their stories on the experience of sexual harassment. All the survivors of sexual violence expressed their solidarity. Although it is not acceptable, sexually harassing women directly in political life is more violating than violating the dignity and rights of one victim (Spector 5). In the political arena, sexual harassment undermines the effectiveness and standing of already politically engaged women. It also affects the willingness of other women in the community to enter political life. The experiences of the political life of women in the #MeToo movement is a very profound and crucial question for democracy. The answer to this question is that for people to live in a resilient, inclusive, and response democracies, women have to be given an equal chance as men in politics. They should not be harassed or threatened.
The year 2017 was characterized by hashtag protests like the #MeToo. By the end of the year, people were questioning the impacts of these movements and if they could reinforce democracy and create long term changes in politics. Yes, the participation of the public has been changing over the years. While traditional political organizations are getting worried about the decline of membership and increasing distance between their followers, protests have fueled social media movements to becoming the new forces of politics. The #MeToo movement has been essential in strengthening democracy in regimes (Han 2). In the current age of digital information, the campaign has been effective in carving out space in politics, replacing it with new techniques, discourses, and agendas that guarantee a more excellent representation, as well as a more significant public participation. Protests and movements have the capability of reviving democracy. In a study by Tucker, countries where the levels of equality and social rights are very high is characterized by a population that is active in protesting. This infers that nations with healthier and stronger democracies also exhibit high levels of protests from its citizens.
With the large body of study on the factors that contribute to the underrepresentation of women in politics, the #MeToo movement of 2017 provides an essential perception of these factors. The #MeToo is a reminder that violence, sexism, and harassment towards women is real and widespread. Still, the underreporting of this problem is a barrier to the achievement of gender equality in political leadership. Maybe it is still a norm for women to feel uncomfortable in a male-centered world dominated by sexual intimidation and domination. The #MeToo can enlighten the world on sexual harassment. It is now the kindle for re-igniting the fire, supporting an increase in gender equality.
Conclusion
Most studies have proved that social media is an instrument for strengthening democracy in the country. Nevertheless, social media is undermining some social aspects that have made democracy possible in the history of nation-states. Though many people may not believe this, about half of all legit voters during the 2016 presidential elections received fake news on Facebook. Also, social media and Facebook may tend to create their own filter bubbles to provide a rich setting for individuals to increase polarization. Society creates and shares social realities. In its present role, the social media risks supporting the facts where conflicting groups of people could not agree on what to do, or even about what truth is.
Works Cited
Han Zhang. “One Year of #MeToo: How the Movement Eludes Government Surveillance in China.” The New Yorker (October 10, 2018).
Stephen, Bijan. “Social media helps black lives matter fight the power.” Wired. Com (2015).
Ransby, Barbara. “Black Lives Matter is democracy in action.” The New York Times 21 (2017).
Spector, Emma. “Deliberative Democracy in the# MeToo Era: A Chance to Reconcile?.” (2019).
Tucker, Joshua A., et al. “From liberation to turmoil: Social media and democracy.” Journal of Democracy 28.4 (2017): 46-59.