Before moving on to assess how the Internet and SNSs can contribute to citizens’ political participation, the features of these technologies and their influence on individuals and society are explored in this and the two following sections.
Chadwick (2006) defines the Internet as “a network of networks of one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many and many-to-one local, national and global information and communication technologies with relatively open standards and comparatively low barriers to entry” (p. 7).
Because of this multifaceted nature, Selnow (1998) dubs the Internet the master medium.
The Internet “incorporates text, sound, image, movement, and the potential for real-time interaction all in one package” (Kent and Taylor 2002, p. 31). Precisely “because it is a hybrid of the largely one-directional print, audio, and video media” which offers at the same time “the opportunity for a two-way communication feedback loop” (p. 510), Tedesco (2004) deems the Internet as revolutionary. Similarly, with reference to the integration of various modes of communication into one interactive network, Castells (1996) compares the technological transformation brought on by the Internet to the one fostered by the invention of the alphabet.
In his influential work, The Rise of the Network Society, Castells (1996) traces the history of this medium. The Internet originated in 1960 when, to prevent a breakdown of American communications in case of a nuclear war, the US Defence Department Advanced Research Project Agency created a network architecture that was not controlled by a central machine, but was formed by autonomous computers with numerous ways to link up. This structure was called ARPANET and became the foundation of the global and horizontal communication network which is today the Internet. The Internet went through various transformations and, as it grew, the need to be able to find and organise files and information within it became evident. A decisive breakthrough happened between 1990 and 1992, with the emergence of the World Wide Web (WWW) which has made the Internet what is today.
The web can be described as a flexible network of networks within the Internet that allows the grouping of interests and projects. This enabled users to interact meaningfully and to overcome the time-costly browsing of pre-WWW Internet (Castells 1996).
Things have moved on since then, and people have witnessed the rise of Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is an expression which was coined by the O’Reilly Media Group in 2003 during the planning for an Internet conference (Allen 2009). Web 2.0 started being adopted into popular commentary in 2005, yet businesses and web services considered to be exemplary of Web
2.0 – blogs, search engines, wikis, and SNSs – date from earlier times (Allen 2013). The main features of Web 2.0 can be easily understood if compared to the features of Web 1.0.
Web 1.0 refers to the web between 1993 and 2003 while Web 2.0 is regarded as the web since 2003 (Berners-Lee et al. – 2001 – predict a further evolution of Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 or Semantic Web). According to Zhai and Liu (2007), Web 2.0 is not a simple update of Web 1.0, but is the symbol of the second revolution of Internet technologies, which brought about great technological innovation and introduced totally new notions such as personalisation and users’ participation. “Web 1.0 are mostly HTML pages viewed through a Web browser, while Web 2.0 are web pages, plus a lot of other ‘content’ shared over the web, with more interactivity” (Zhai and Liu 2007, p. 27).
Among the various features of Web 2.0, there are four which are particularly relevant to the present research. The first is the aggregation and availability of a vast amount of information, considered by Chadwick and Howard (2009) to be one of the most typical and revolutionary components of Web 2.0. The second feature is the notion of collective intelligence which refers to distributed networks of creators and contributors producing information commodities (Chadwick and Howard 2009). Examples of collective intelligence are free and open source software projects such as Firefox, and user-generated content sites such as Wikipedia. The third typical feature of Web 2.0 is the empowerment of Internet users who, encouraged by such a collaborative environment, play an active role in content creation and distribution (Pietrik 2010). The fourth feature is personalisation, which, according to Papacharissi (2009), is “the ability to organize information based on a subjective order of importance determined by the self” (pp. 236-237), and is the main component on which blogs and SNSs thrive.
A useful way to grasp the main features of the Internet is to look at this medium in opposition to traditional media such as TV, radio and the press. To describe the differences between traditional media and new media such as the Internet, Negroponte (1995) introduced the push-versus-pull media dichotomy. Traditional media, characterised by unidirectional communication, can be defined as push media, whereas the Internet is considered a pull medium due to the presence of a proactive and self-selecting audience (Chaffey 2007). Within the push media environment, media elites decide which content to publish and when and where such content will reach the audience (Holbert et al. 2010).
Chaffee and Metzger (2001) illustrate the main principles on which pull media are built.
They argue that pull media differ from traditional media as the user/receiver, rather than the sender, is in control of the communication process, and also because they are characterised
by interactivity rather than one-way communication. Spurgeon (2008) agrees with Chaffee and Metzger (2001) in identifying interactivity as one of the main characteristics of new media, as well as a key category of comparison between old mass media and new digital media. She observes how broadcast mass media involves a type of interactivity defined as consultation: they offer a modicum of control in that users select information from a predetermined menu of content. In contrast, new media are programmed to support different types of interactivity, extending the possibilities of conversational interaction and participation, and facilitating consumer productivity (Spurgeon 2008). Chadwick and Howard (2009) believe that interactivity is what makes the Internet a political tool unlike any other media. This stance is in part shared by Bimber et al. (2009) who recognise that, unlike earlier technologies such as television, telephony and newspapers which provide limited opportunities for citizens’ interaction, collective agenda-building and decision-making, the Internet can have a different participative impact on politics.
The other major, politically relevant feature of pull media is the control the audience can exercise over transmission and consumption of content. The political consequences of users’
empowerment and control are manifold, ranging from the rise of new forms and platforms for citizens’ political participation to the publication and circulation of alternative non-elitist political stories (for a detailed account on the impact of the Internet on political information, see Section 3.2). Taking into account the active role of Internet users, Holbert et al. (2010) develop a fascinating comparison between pull and push media through the application of the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM). The ELM is a persuasion model developed by Petty and Ciacioppo (1986), indicating that persuasion can happen through two different routes, depending on audience’s motivation and ability. When recipients have both the ability and motivation to attend and consume persuasive messages, persuasion takes place through the central route. Otherwise it occurs through the peripheral route. When the persuasive process happens through the central route, it generates long-lasting effects, stronger attitude-behaviour associations, and greater resistance to counter-attitudinal messages (Petty and Ciacioppo 1986). Holbert et al. (2010) argue that the elite-based decisions relating to message construction and distribution which characterise push media often do not take into account audience’s ability and motivation to consume political messages. In other words, the push media’s top-down process tends mostly to activate the peripheral route of persuasion. In contrast, pull media are more prone to generating persuasion through the central route, as their users are in control – an element which guarantees a certain degree of motivation. Furthermore, the fact that the audience can chose
when, where and how to consume political messages facilitates individuals’ ability to process and consume messages.
Another significant aspect that has to be taken into account to better grasp the contributions of the Internet to citizens’ political participation is its spatial impact on communication. The Internet is a participatory medium facilitating collaboration and interaction among individuals, regardless of geographical boundaries (Milakovich 2010). Benkler (2006) believes that the Internet has strengthened connections between individuals on two spatial levels: Internet users connect more with individuals who are geographically distant without reducing their own local connections. Welman et al. (2003) share this idea, arguing that people use the Internet to strengthen locally-based social connectedness but also to develop and maintain global connectedness. Consequently, individuals can employ this medium to create a social network built around shared interests and identity across local and global boundaries.If early predictions suggested that the Internet would enable individuals to build space-free relationships in the cyberspace, current research on the contrary has shown that individuals use the Internet to connect with, rather than escape from, their immediate environment (Kim and Ball-Rokeach 2009). These findings are confirmed by Uslaner (2004), who establishes that online communications occur mainly between people who already know each other offline.
The synthesis of the research thus far mentioned seems to paint an overwhelmingly positive picture of the Internet. However, not all scholars share such a techno-optimistic stance. For instance, Curran e al. (2012) adopt a critical approach to the study of the Internet. Bearing in mind the economic and societal contexts in which the Internet operates, Curran e al. (2012) play down its impact on the communication environment which, as they observe, is still dominated by big corporations and is used to further their profit-oriented interests. In line with Chadwick’s (2006) remarks on the role of corporations and governments in the development of such a medium, Curran (2012a, 2012b) stresses that the Internet was not created as a public communication tool, highlighting the influence first of the military, and subsequently of corporations, in its development. He emphasises the commercialisation of the online environment and, considering that online users’ personal data are being sold to certain providers, argues that the Internet has been transformed into a mass surveillance tool (Curran 2012a, 2012b). Similarly, Stanyer (2009) and van Dijck (2013) note how the Internet is dominated by corporate media chains. Accordingly, Fuchs (2014, p. 77) observes that “there is an asymmetry between the power of corporations and other powerful groups and the actual counter-power of citizens … due to the fact that the ruling powers control
more resources, such as money, decision-making power, capacity for attention generation, etc.”
As the Internet has become more and more pervasive in everyday life, the aforementioned techno-enthusiasm has also been tempered by concerns over the potentially divisive aspect of digital technologies. Many authors address the issue of the digital divide and the exclusion of certain groups of the population (e.g., older people, women in certain societies, ethnic minorities, people with low levels of education and income, etc.) from fields of society like politics, education, community life and social relationships (Abbey and Hyde 2009;
Barrantes and Galperin 2008; Bonfadelli 2002; Norris 2001; Rice and Kats 2003; van Dijk 2005, 2009). The digital divide refers to a gap in access to and usage of new forms of information technology (van Dijk 2009). Focusing on the case of Europe, van Dijk (2009) stresses that the access gap – with particular attention to computer access and Internet connection – is still a relevant issue today. In fact, even if such a gap is slowly closing, Northern European countries provide greater access to the Internet than Southern European ones (van Dijk 2009). This trend is confirmed in the two countries on which this thesis focuses. Recent reports reveal that 54% of the Italian population is online (Audiweb 2013) while, according to the Oxford Internet Institute, 78% of the UK population has access to the Internet (Dutton and Blank 2013). Likewise, a study by the European Commission (2013) shows that 87% of the British population use the Internet weekly, a figure above the EU average of 72%, with only 8% of the population having never used this medium (much lower than the EU average of 20%). The picture is different in Italy, where the usage of the Internet is much lower than the EU average, with only 56% of Italians reporting of using the Internet weekly, and 34% of the population having never used it.
The digital divide applies not only to access, but also to the ways digital technologies are used. In this sense, researchers talk of a usage gap (Bonfadelli 2002; van Dijk 2005, 2009).
According to van Dijk (2009), the divisions created by uneven access to skills are greater than those caused by physical factors, and while physical access gaps are closing in the developed countries, the skills gaps continue growing. Taking this into consideration, he concludes that social and cultural differences in society are not only reflected but actually reinforced in computer and Internet use, and that those users who already hold a strong position within the society tend to benefit from the usage of digital technologies more than other individuals (van Dijk 2009).
Originally developed as part of a military project, the Internet has changed the lives of many people by making available a vast amount of information and facilitating and fostering communication. Because of its hybrid nature incorporating text, sound, image and the potential for real-time interaction, the Internet has been dubbed the master medium. It differs from traditional media in that users, rather than broadcasters, are in control of the communication process, and in that it is characterised by two-way rather than one-way communication. Many scholars have celebrated the contributions of the Internet to society.
On the other hand, others have depicted it as a tool of surveillance dominated by big corporations, suited to their profit-oriented interests, or highlighted its tendency to favour those individuals who are already rich in terms of resources, consequently widening existing societal gaps. While scholars may disagree on the appropriate ways of perceiving such a medium or on the value of its contributions to society (Internet optimists vs Internet pessimists), what appears certain is that the Internet is a revolutionary medium which impacts on countless spheres of people’s lives, including the sphere of politics.
2.3 Social Networking Websites: Self-Presentation, Network Composition