City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations and Theses City College of New York 2012 The Effects of Social Media on Democratization Melissa Spinner CUNY City College How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/110 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] The Effects of Social Media on Democratization Melissa Spinner Date: August 2011 Master’s Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of International Affairs at the City College of New York Advisor: Bruce Cronin Table of Contents Introduction..............................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: Defining and Understanding Democratization.....................................16 Chapter 2: Defining and Understanding New Technologies .................................30 Chapter 3: Infrastructure and Contextual Conditions that Lead to Democratization ......49 Chapter 4: Evidence of the Link Between Social Media and Democratization ....68 Chapter 5: The Philippines: How Text Messaging Ousted a President.................85 Chapter 6: Egypt: The Beginning of Democratization ..........................................92 Chapter 7: Disputing the Dissenters ......................................................................99 Conclusion ...........................................................................................................121 Bibliography ........................................................................................................130 Table of Figures Figure 1: Influence of voters in 2004 Spanish election .........................................66 Figure 2: Linear graph of ties between democracy and interconnectivity.............69 Figure 3: Correlation between Democracy and Internet Users..............................70 Figure 4: Democracy versus Technology Diffusion Index....................................71 Figure 5: Qualitative Analysis Structures .............................................................76 Abstract Within the past decade people around the world have become progressively more aware and interested in the new uses of digital technologies in movements for political change. The technologies have given more people and groups access to information and the tools needed to increase productivity and communication than in the past. As a result of these new digital technologies, the number of people contributing to their civil societies has radically increased. My thesis questions: What is the value of digital activism in the process of democratization around the world? How did those that succeed successfully use these new technologies as opposed to the several others that have failed? Are the successful practices replicable in other scenarios with a similar context? In studying, analyzing, and evaluating digital activism, I attempt to determine how citizens can use digital technologies more efficiently in order to exercise their political power in a more effective manner. Introduction On January 17 th , 2001 thousands of Filipinos gathered on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue, a major crossroad in Manila, after having forwarded the text message “Go 2 EDSA. Wear blk” and “Full mblsn tday EDSA” to over seven million people. Within a few days there were over a million people protesting the impeachment trial of President Joseph Estrada for not using incriminating evidence during his trial. 1 Thanks to the public’s ability to coordinate such a fast and massive response, Estrada was impeached three days later. The impeachment of Estrada was the first, but not final, time a form of digital media was used to force out a national leader. In the past few years several societies have used different forms of digital media in order to revolt against their governments. As with all new technologies, it is important to study the effects digital media has had on both communities and regimes in order to attempt to predict its effects on other nation-states. Digital media can be defined as a form of electronic communication in which users create communities to share information, ideas, and other content via web-based and/or mobile technologies. 2 My thesis will question whether digital media tools create, aid, enhance, or hinder democratization. I will observe the text message coordinated protest in the Philippines in 2001 as well as the Facebook Egyptian revolution in 2011 to support my findings. This paper concludes that while digital media may not have been the cause of these revolutions it has certainly aided and expanded the reach of the revolutions. 1 Clay Shirky, "The Political Power of Digital media," Foreign Affairs , http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67038/clay-shirky/the-political-power-of-social-media. 2 "Dictionary and Thesaurus," Merriam-Webster Online , http://www.merriam-webster.com. 1 This is a very important and time sensitive topic in the field of international relations. While democratization has been occurring for hundreds of years and has equally been a topic worthwhile of research, it is just recently that technology, and more importantly digital media, has been a factor in democratization. Politicians, news anchors, and even bloggers have been concentrating on this topic increasingly as more countries rise up against their governments. Democratization is defined as the change to a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections. 3 To begin I will examine democratization theories laid out by political scientists and philosophers. Samuel Huntington in Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century discusses several causes of democratization including wealth, education, capitalism, social equality, culture and foreign intervention. He also mentions three processes of democratization. Transformation is a top-down change coming from within the government. Transplacement is when the regime and government negotiate reform. Replacement is when the regime breaks down or collapses. 4 I will be primarily concerned with the third process of democratization: replacement. Huntington believes there have been three modern waves of democratization: first during the 19 th century, second after World War II, and third in the mid 1970’s. 5 I would like to further his studies by arguing that the fourth wave of democratization began in the 3 Dictionary and Thesaurus: Oxford English Dictionary 4 Samuel P. Huntington, The Third Wave: Democratization in the Late Twentieth Century . (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991). 5 ibid. 2 new millennium with the rise of digital media and technology. While digital media has not caused non-democratic nations to begin the democratization process, I believe that it has offered a new means of communication for individuals to fight for their right. Robert Dahl, a distinguished political scientist, has argued that in order for a government to continue, all citizens must be able to “formulate their preferences” as well as have their preferences be weighed equally regardless of the source. 6 This is especially relevant in situations in which citizens rise up against their governments using digital media sources. The Internet is not the first technology associated with freedom. Previous inventions such as the printing press, telegraph, radio, telephone and computer all have the ability to free individuals, as well as to assist their oppressors. 7 However, unlike the television, radio, and printing press, the Internet is both interactive and personalized to allow users to share experiences online. 8 Barry Wellman argues that social networks are “profoundly transforming the nature of communities, sociality, and interpersonal relations”. 9 These networks enable the communication between different cultures by sharing their values of communication despite and different values they may have. 6 Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition , (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971). 7 Henry Jenkins, David Thorburn, and Brad Seawell, Democracy and New Media , (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004), p. 26. 8 Michael Richter, "Facebook's Response to DoC," Facebook, Palo Alto, January 28, 2011. 9 Jeffrey Juris, "The New Digital Media and Activist Networking within Anti-Corporate Globalization Movements," American Academy of Political and Social Science 597 (2005), p. 189-208. 3 Although cultures may have opposing cultural values, these networks enable them to share their values of communication and thus interact more easily. 10 Digital technologies and applications are changing the way individuals, governments, and non-governmental organizations are interacting today. They have given more people and groups access to information and the tools needed to increase productivity and communication than in the past. As a result of these new digital technologies, the number of people contributing to their civil society has radically increased. In my thesis I will describe and define major social media technologies. Facebook, a major social networking website, launched in 2004 for college students, and has more than 600 million users as of January 2011. 11 Facebook exists and thrives because of people’s desire to share information