Politics and The Internet

Politics is a sensitive topic, which can bring out the worst in a lot of people. People can be outspoken and argumentative when others don’t agree with their views. The lecture and tutorial this week was based on Politics and the Internet, with a lot of focus based on democracy. I would like to focus on the role of eDemocracy, which is defined as the Internet’s role in real world politics that exists predominantly off the Internet. The Internet can both help and hinder political campaigns and ideas in today’s world. It can help to raise awareness of campaigns, get more people involved in the issues at hand, and in general voice the opinions of the government. On the other hand, people can become online renegades, thwarting the governments ideas, constantly protesting the government using online tools, or news of a political scandal can travel quickly and be on every website in record time.

Another interesting part of this week’s topic was the reading by Brain Whiteman, the co-founder and CTO of the Echo Nest. Whiteman explores about how the types of music people listen to, and the possibility of it relating to their political preferences. The blog was very interesting, and offered a unique point of view, but personally, I don’t believe these things can relate to each other as a rule. The theory could work in certain circumstances, but not to every person, as music taste can vary quite a bit, and so to narrow down on a persons political party based on their music taste would be very difficult.

Whitman, B. (2012) "How well does music predict your politics?"

Stockwell, S 2013, ‘Week 6 – Politics and the Internet’, Retrieved from Griffith University, School of Humanities, Learning@Griffith Website: <www.griffith.edu.au>