Part five

The internet is full of controversial images and slander. Here is a small peak at what is on offer.

These images are taken from the website http://www.politifake.org

Part four

There was a time when everyone read newspapers. When I was younger I would only be interested in reading the sports section. My sister would read the popular culture section and my parents would read the whole paper cover to cover.

This was after the time of partisan newspapers here in Iceland and my family subscribed to the biggest publication in the country, Morgunblaðið. Back then I did not realize that someone was editing the news, picking and choosing what stories should be published. I have come to realize that editing from a neutral point of view is tricky business. Editors always seem to have media owners breathing down their necks. In order to protect and promote certain interests the news are reported in distinctively various ways.

Davíð Oddsson, Iceland’s longest serving prime minister and former leader of the Independence party, was controversially appointed editor of Morgunblaðið in 2009. Mr. Oddsson had previously been the head of Iceland’s Central Bank and had been heavily criticized for mismanagement in the run up to the country’s banking crises. Mr. Oddsson was extremely unpopular as the head of the Central Bank as you can see by clicking this link.

In a chapter on media in the report Alþingi’s investigation committee created on the banking crises, the decision to hire Mr. Oddsson is questioned;

The appointment of Mr. Oddsson, former prime minister and head of the Central Bank, as editor of Morgunblaðið and the dismissal of many experienced journalists goes to show how owners can domineer over their media if they so choose. Their agenda seems to be to protect special interests rather than to practice professional and fair coverage. It is a tragic sign of Icelandic discussion customs that these comments have not lead to an objective debate on the state of Icelandic media in these treacherous times.

It has been reported that Morgunblaðið lost many subscribers after hiring Mr. Oddson as people wanted to protests his appointment. Someone even created a Facebook page to object this decision.

Part three

Can the internet really bring about political change?

In recent times we have seen how the internet has given the public a newfound platform to organize demonstrations.

Sigurgeir posted earlier how Google and Twitter played an integral part in the run up to the Egyptian revolution last January where a series of protests ultimately lead to the resignation of president Hosni Mubarak.

Here in Iceland following the banking crises in 2008 events unfolded that had no precedence in the country’s history. Peaceful protests turned into riots as the nation demanded political reform. In the Household Revolution (Búsáhaldarbyltingin) more than 30.000 people (that is over 10% of the Icelandic population) took part in demonstrations which eventually led to the resignation of the nation’s government.

Without the existence of the internet, today’s communication equipment and global media these events could not have occurred on such a grand scale.

Internet and politicans

I often wonder how it was possible, before the internet, for voters to know their politicians. Nowadays almost every politicians have a web page on their on where they share their thoughts with the public.

Like we know in Icelandic politics there were usually almost always the same politicians who were voted for the parliament, now I'm not saying that they didn't deserve there place, but mainly that the voters didn't knew many other politicians. Many of the politicians who got voted had been in the parliament for many years and it's quiet difficult for younger politicians to get their say, they were immediately shut down be the more experienced once.

After the crash of the Icelandic banks we have seen the most of the political party's have renewed their party´s, with much younger politicians, and many of them were not publicly known, but with the power of the internet they managed to get their publicity, and no one was able to shut them down if they wanted, they were (are) there, whether the other politicians liked it or not, and the public voted for them (or most of them).

So in my opinion I think think internet is very good thing for politics, everyone get's to have their say.

News coverage: covering reality or making one?

In my resent post, I wrote about whether the Internet was killing the media or not. After more consideration I thought to myself that even if the Internet does not kill the media it could in some sense affect the quality of news coverage.

In my years of surfing the Internet for news, I have come across many news stories that are either simply wrong or lacking minimum quality of sources. Many of the big media companies, like the Guardian or the Times, have been guilty of covering what is called urban legends, or stories that have been around the world - often for many years - but no truth lies behind them.

One of those urban legends is a story about a woman that got stuck to a toilet whilst on an airplane. This story has popped up again and again on news sites but it always changes a little bit, for example the woman’s ethnicity and the type of transport. (For more information you can click on this link: http://www.snopes.com/travel/airline/toilet.asp)

The Internet has made it a lot easier for urban legends to become a “reality” and when the media companies feature them they seldom admit their mistakes for the reader later. Maybe these kinds of news are published online because there is not a strong editing policy? It seems to me that some of the news stories online are written with impatience and time pressure.

Even though I wonder about these aspects of the news media, I cannot argue against news coverage online. It might, in my opinion, be necessary for some media companies to reconsider their online news policies. It would in some cases make the news coverage better and more reliable for the readers.

Honest politician!

I just had to put this picture on the blog, please enjoy...

Newspapers

How is the internet changing the media?

In some years from now I think that we will not have as many newspapers in business as we do now. Many of them have taken the opportunity of the internet arrival and it‘s technology and publish their newspapers online.

Of course technology is usually always a good sign, but in this case, is it possible that the local newspapers as we know today will no longer exist in couple of years?

Many people argue about the media, saying that they are mainly controlled by elites, who choose what is going to be publish or not, usually in their benefits. So I wonder if it is possible that with the internet taking control of the media that we always have a fair view of a subject? Will the journalists have more freedom in their work?

Voting online - a fair way to go?

An innovation is about to take place in our society, soon people can be able to vote online about political matters. This development is worth investigation and consideration mainly because of the flaws that this kind of system arises. For example, is this kind of system fair for the voters?

This kind of system has many positive aspects, because it allows people to vote at home were they feel safe and it prevents chaos at polling stations. But what kind of flaws can such system have? First and foremost it relays on the fact that everybody has a computer and knows how to use it. This has been the criticism that weights most when talking about this kind of system. Many people, like the elderly and the disabled, don’t have a computer and don’t know how to use it and would therefore not vote if the ballot papers would only be accessible online. If that would be the case, it would not be fair to the Icelandic voters. However, this kind of system can be very comfortable for the voters, but I think it would be necessary to have polling stations as well.

Apart from this flaw, this is a very exciting innovation and I look forward to see how it will develop further.

Wake up and smell the coffee!

After wondering about the affect the Internet has on politics, I thought to myself that our political community would be a lot different if the Internet had never been invented. You might ask why? In my opinion the internet has become a major factor in making our unheard voices loud. Before the time of the World Wide Web the opinions of the citizens were often ignored by politicians between elections.

But now the Internet has proven to be a great scene for people to express their opinion on different political matters. After doing so many people gain followers, and that group of people can in some cases become a pressure group which can affect political scenarios in our society. This often starts with blog sites that people later post to their wall on Facebook or Twitter. It is amazing how fast the word spreads on the web, and people are more often less shy to speak their mind through their computers.

So I recommend to all people to wake up, smell the coffee and start using the Internet to speak their minds.

Times are changing

The internet is changing the view on politics in many ways.

In my opinion before the internet, politics were less open to the public, mainly for people who were in poltical party.

Nowadays because of the internet I think that the public is more and more interested in politics, because it‘s more open to them. You can find all sorts of blogsites and many different type of author‘s with different view on the same subject. And for the people who are not interested they don‘t have to read it.

I also do think that with communications websites, like Facebook it‘s easier for the public to have a say, to gather a public protest or to have open meetings.