Yukiko Kitamura

0080788668

Can social media challenge the power of non-democratic governments?

Introduction
Social media provide opportunities which people show and discuss
individual opinions via the Internet, and it sometimes gives enormous
impact to political like the Arab spring. Therefore, the thinking which social
media might be hope for people who are under a terrible situation is
increasing. However, problems especially political problems are not simple,
and leaders in states also know better than to leave own nations
conversations on social media completely (Morozov, 2011). On this essay,
social media for nations and authorities, present conditions of social media
in North Korea and China are discussed.

Social media in nations

After spreading the Internet, social media takes roots in peoples life.
Social media could provide various information and also allow people to
transmit opinion, and some people think social media is a tool of
enforcement of morality in the world. In addition, government s
propagandas or the truth about the horrors of governments are discovered
by nations via the Internet, and the developments of social media such as
Twitter allow people speak without any barriers, but it also means that
political system becomes unstable (Morozov, 2011). Furthermore, a lot of
people expect that the development of the Internet lead people liberal in the
global fight for freedom (ibid). According to Howard, people usually do not
use information devices for political purposes, but when people face to some
military or political crisis, people start to use that for gather and provide
information about them to share their relatives or friends (Howard, 2011).
The result of spreading and sharing information via social media might be
Irans Twitter revolution in 2009 and the Arab Spring happened from 2010.
What the significantly different point of these revolutions with previous
revolutions such as Irans revolution which led by Imam Khomeini from
1978-1999 is that almost all of the movements in the Arab Spring and Iran
s Twitter revolution were headless revolutions (Jamali, 2014). Social media
gather people who want to defeat own political system without any specific
leader. Even though not every people did not think that the movements
were occurred by information technology, it is difficult to deny the influence
of the Internet and mobile phones to the political consequences (Howard,
2011). For example, not only information about the illegal operation of a
voting result but also police abuse and government corruption were spread
through digital media over social networks, and it pushed people set up the
protest on the street in Iran in 2009 and the Arab Spring of 2011(ibid).
Howard et al also considered that the succession of social movement in such
as Iran or Egypt were brought by social media (Howard et al, 2011).
Although social media is just kind of tool of online communication, it started
to be considered as the tool led political revolutions. Bloggers or press
praised and evaluated positively the role of Twitter in Irans revolution,
and people began to assume that nations could lead own countries to peace
by Twitter when own governments policy is aggressive from the revolution
(Morozov, 2011). Twitter can gather skepticism people against governments
and also work as a rein to government when they move to wrong way easier
than the era when people still did not know the Internet, and it might mean
that Twitter might enable the maintain of piece in the world due to the fact
that people can look other persons opinion and find people who have
similar consideration on social media. Furthermore, it is possible that the
improvement of democracy and diplomacy are achieved by Twitter, and it
also allows social networking users to restrict when authorities include
companies or politicians try to take a control around the world
(ibid). Interestingly, there is an expectation of social media and the
Internet that both of them wipe away prejudice and open up peoples mind,
and it might be one of the important steps to encourage cosmopolitanism
(ibid). Social media let people jump the hedge of various individual
background, might advance globalization.

Using Social Media by politicians

According to Christensen, the state of Sweden (part of the Swedish Foreign
Ministry cited in Christensen, 2011) mentioned that social media might be
crucial for countries which battle for freedom of speech and democratic
changes in developing countries, though there is not enough evidence
(Christensen, 2011). In addition, social media could bring that nation will be
more interested in politics (Vaccari and Valeriani, 2015). It could be said
that social media could reduce the gap between nations and states, for
example, many famous politicians have Twitter accounts such as Barack
Obama, Boris Johnson or Shinzo Abe, and a lot of Twitter users might
encounter some political information without deliberately seeking, and
Obama was planning to use Twitter as a tool which connects between own
and nations. In addition, one of the purposes which politicians have a
twitter account is that sharing political information on social media might
increase the political concern of nations includes nations who are less
interested in politics (Vaccari and Valeriani, 2015). Vaccari and Valeriani
concerned that social media might be helpful to reinvigorate political
processes, but the connection between social media and technology move to
unpredictable way as well (ibid). In addition, the impact of Facebook might
admit of no doubt. Although Facebook is a still relatively recent
phenomenon, a recent Pew survey indicated information that about one-
one-third of young people aged 1829 used SNSs for political purposes
(Lenhart et al. 2010 cited in van Dijck, 2011). However, the discussions of
Facebook political groups about political affairs are consisted by false
statements and half-truths (Feezell et al. 2009 cited in van Dijck, 2011)
because such political groups are organized people have different knowledge
level (van Dijck, 2011). Even though some of the discussions lack of
reliability, social media can be a powerful tool for nations when they assert
about their strong political opinion (ibid). However, social media is also
being used for political purposes, and government manipulates nations by
social media much easier than before. Morozov pointed out that political
propagandas demonstrate effectively on social media, and propaganda
based on lies and international misrepresentation of facts also works
because the larger the story such as Obamas missing birth certification or
the mystery of 9/11, it is more difficult to find evidence for nations (Morozov,
2011). In addition, almost all people might believe what government said
because people tend to accept information from authorities as true without
question, except people who have doubts about governments. Social media
and information devices also let governments grasp about own nations in
minute detail. Governments could monitor what nations say on social media
and what kind of information they search on the Internet, and government
also could analyse specific person from information collected from there. In
addition, if people always bring a mobile phone, it allows government to
trace them (Morozov, 2011). Interestingly, social media seem to reinforce our
freedom of speech, and people might think that social media is the tool of
liberal, but the more people rely on social media, it also means that the
possibility which governments manipulate own nations increases.

Social media in North Korea

North Korea is one of the significant examples of countries which are in a
totalitarian state. The control over information by the state is considered as
crucial for surviving (Bruce, 2012). According to Altenberger, the
KCNA(Korean Central News Agency) is using Internet platforms and social
media as tools of statecraft and foreign policy. In addition, there is not
exactly the percentage of Internet penetration in North Korea, but Freedom
House reported that only few North Koreans are allowed to use the Internet
(Freedom House, as cited in Altenberger, 2014). Furthermore, watching or
listening unauthorized foreign programs is illegal and whenever people
commit the crime, serious punishment will be executed (Freedom House, as
cited in Altenberger, 2014). Even though almost all nations do not have a
right which accesses to the Internet, the governments in North Korea have
a kind of barrier which prevents foreign information to enter there.
Compare to China, North Koreas case much stronger, but North Koreas
policy might be a certain way to protect the own political system. The ban
on accessing the Internet from beginning and every information provided
from the government can control the nations easily because it means that
there is basically no way to know about any information. In so far as North
Korea. Social media cannot get a chance to challenge because social media
is almost but not completely extinct there.

On the other hand, the state in North Korea is showing a movement of

liberalization of information technology from around the last decade
(Mansourov, as cited in Warf, 2014). Even though the state shows the
positive movement, the main purpose might be that information technology
adopts for military use. Frequent cyber attacks by North Korea against
South Korea and the United Nations are reported (Sang-Hun, as cited in
Warf, 2014). However, the liberalization of information technology also
brings attacks from anonymous, for example, cyber attack to North Korea
page on DPRK website and the state-owned airline Air Koryo (Clarke &
Knake, as cited in Warf, 2014). The state in North Korea might continue to
the advancement of information technology to confront countries which are
considered as enemies, and it is difficult to predict whether social media will
spread throughout the advancement. However, if the nations can use social
media, the state will increase more alarm and control the nations.

Social media in China

China is also one of the Communist countries in the world, and it is a
famous story that strict censorship is established. Heavy censorship is set
up and monitored by the ruling partys propaganda department in the
Chinese media system (Jiang, 2014). Even though the Chinese government
is controlling mainstream of media, every Chinese is basically allowed to
use the Internet and find free space in there. However, limitation what
extent nations can speak in social media is set by the state. It is impossible
to access to Facebook. Tweeter, YouTube, and Google in China, but there are
a lot of social networking services in China instead of these things. It is a
big difference between China and countries which brew the Arab Spring. If
authorities ban access to the Internet, it may just increase the frustration of
nations. Therefore, Chinese government provides social medias created to
monitor and control easily by myself, and it may also fulfill the nations
desire to social media. However, the control of social media on the Internet
might be more difficult than that of conventional mass media. Conventional
mass media such as TV or radio provide only unidirectional communication,
but communication on the Internet allows people make multidirectional
communication (Tang and Sampson, 2012). In addition, the state may
consider the power of the enormous number of microbloggers as a tool of
dethroning of corruption politicians in China. According to Hassid, the
central government desire to use the Internet as monitor and control of the
local officials (Hassid, 2012). For example, journalist Zhong Xiaoyong posted
an article about the dangerous of the chemical factory in Xiamen on his blog
in March 2007, and 2000 people protested the factory despite the local
government tried to control the article (Economy, as cited in Hassid, 2012).
Hassid pointed out that this movement was used for achievement of policy
goal of central government (Hassid, 2012), it could be said that nations can
get satisfaction from criticising authorities which are a target of purge for
central government and central government success to distract the nation's
attention from themselves to the others. Interestingly, social media in
China fix a kind of government corruption, but it was lead by the central
stats. Therefore, the Chinese government might use social media for
convenience.

Conclusion
Social media bring us opportunities which bid against authorities and lead
own society to liberal. On the other hand, authorities also use social media
to manipulate own nations. In addition, non-democratic countries such as
China and North Korea already know how to manage social media and the
Internet and adopt in own country respectively. Social media might
shorten the distance between government and nations, and it may mean
that the amount and kind of information increase rather than that nation
gain power which are able to defeat governments at will. Therefore, what
people can do is collecting and providing information from social media
under the controlling of government. However, there is some people who
misunderstand that social media is an invincible trump to defeat
authorities. The work of social media in Iran and the Arab Spring tend to be
appraised positively, and social media might be crucial in the movements.
However, excessively expects to social media is a risk because they are not
almighty but just a hub of information and people are also influenced by
enormous uncertain information from there at the same time, and
authorities can find seditious people via social media. Therefore, social
media are not a competent tool to challenge any authorities which include
non-democratic countries.
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