Internet and Global Governance research paper. Research Paper

Internet and Global Governance
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Internet and Global Governance
Advancements in technology are fast changing the political landscape of the world. At the superficial level, technology is integral in revitalizing personal, professional, and political lives. This impact has advanced into the manner in which people view their world. Aspects such as interpersonal communication have currently changed to conform to particular ideologies. One then question whether technological advancements have overtaken agenda setting in global governance. Take for instance the advancements in social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to mention a few. These platforms are defining people in terms of what they like, the people with whom they interact, and even their places of residence. All that information is embedded on one platform where people could use it to their like. In the context of communication in the media, the agenda is changing and the internet is the fuel. This research explores the growing role of social media platforms in shaping the political debate and popular opinion among the society through events like The Arab Spring, The Brexit referendum and the U.S. presidential election in 2016. Using the agenda-setting theory and the multiple case studies, it is evident that the political landscape and global governance are changing due to the influx of uncontrolled use of social media tools.
Background Information
The influence of the new media in the lives of private citizens keeps attracting more debates. That is because people are still divided on the positive and negative prospects associated with the consumption of information in the new media platforms (Seigler, 2017). The prevailing debate concerns some Americans who believe that social media sites have the capability to improve the quality of news bearing the fairgrounds that they instill in the prevalence of modern data. That argument is rooted in the traditional understanding that the mainstream media set the agenda. The mainstream media would skew information so that people could only consume what they (the media) wanted. That made it easy to influence some people to follow in specific aspects of the community. The use of agenda-setting in the traditional mainstream media had a considerable influence on political outcomes. Media outlets would use their information platforms to portray political candidates as good or bad. That made it easy for the media to choose political leaders for the citizens. With the evolution of social media, that prospect has changed considerably. Currently, more emphasis is embedded in how fast information can flow and how that information cannot be skewed to befit a specific agenda. That is what people thought initially. It turns out that things have changed considerably and Americans are becoming pessimistic about the viability of social media outlets to deliver objective news without setting the agenda to befit a specific individual or group.
The consumption of news on social media platforms keeps increasing. In the US, 62% of adults believe that they actively rely more on social media tools for news than any other platform. The number of people who access and use social media sources als...