Part two

When contemplating how the political landscape has changed over the years, it is interesting to take a look back and consider how things were before our time. I had an interesting discussion with my parents where I asked them what kind of political upbringing they had had when they were growing up. Being raised in the 50s and 60s the information flow to the public was very limited. State controlled media and partisan newspapers were the only source of information available to the public. Back then party loyalty was incredibly overwhelming. People would support their political party as fiercly as you see people standing by their favorite sports team, though thick and thin. Changing sides was not common. What illustrates this very well, in my opinion, is a short story my mother told me about my grandparents.

Every year there would be a radio broadcast from Althing (the Icelandic legislative assembly) where the prime minister would announce the plans and intentions of his government over the coming term. His speech would then be followed by discussions and comments from his respective political enemies and allies. After hearing the speech from his trusted leader of Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn (the Independence party) my grandfather would immediately switch off the radio and make a quick remark about how he was not prepared to listen to any communist propaganda or anything of the sort.

At the time the public could only voice their opinion once every four years through national elections and trust that the political parties elected to power would carry the country in the right direction. The only direct contact the public would have with politicians came through discussions at electoral meetings and debates which were held prior to elections.

Nowadays politicians have to be on their toes as public opinion can shift dramatically in a short period of time. Various opinion polls are released regularly and politicians will have to react quickly in order to remain popular. The public is much more informed and thus more able to reach an enlightened conclusion in difficult matters. As a result we see increased demand from the public to be a direct participator in decision making regarding important issues. Here in Iceland this is very much evident with the increased number of referendums in recent times.

Suffice to say my grandparents always voted for the same party almost all their lives. Previously rigid in political thinking they became more susceptible to different political views in the mid 90s.

Prior to the 1995 national elections a break-off candidacy from Alþýðuflokkurinn (the old Labour party) emerged. The newly formed party was called Þjóðvaki and was spearheaded by the current prime minister of Iceland, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir. Incidentally my mother was the 2nd candidate on the parties list in Reykjaneskjördæmi, the constituency where my grandparents lived. To make a long story short, our whole family rallied around my mother to support her. In the end Þjóðvaki received around 7% of the national vote, enough to secure 4 members of parliament. Although this was not enough to get my mother elected, she did serve a short time in Alþingi as a substitute for Ágúst Einarsson.

In the wake of my mothers unexpected political career, my grandmother gained a new outlook in politics. She became more enlightened by gathering information from the media and reading pamphlets from the different political parties. In the end she found that the party she had supported for so many years did not represent her beliefs and values.

I believe that this goes to show how politics have changed drastically over the years. People are now more able to broaden their horizons with easily accessible information.

Fair use?

The internet has changed the media for sure.

One of the things that it completely new is news aggregator sites. These sites scour the internet for news and then link to the most popular or relevant news story´s. But is this a good thing? The consumer seems to think so as consumers flock to these sites in ever bigger droves. However the media companies that produce the news don´t seem to be to ecstatic about this. They point out that it costs money to make media (news) and the search engines are simply abusing their work. The search engines that run the news aggregators do like to point out that they drive a lot of traffic towards the news sites and they should be able to monetize on that.

It seems to me that both sides have good points. I think I would have to take sides with the search engines though as producers of content should just be able to close of their sites with passwords if they do not want external traffic driven towards their sites.

What tools can politicians use?

Here I want to point out a couple of ways politicians can use to connect with people.

Websites: A website is important for anybody in politics. It is a platform that can be used to give a good overall picture of the candidate and his policies.

Email lists: These can be used to deliver news. However people tend to be awry of these lists as nobody want´s spam in their inbox, so they should be used with caution.

Social networks: These are essential. They should be used like websites, to give a positive look at the candidate.

Twitter: Tweets can give an interesting look, or window, into your life. That can be useful. However, it´s not vital since Twitter is kind of limited in it´s function.

Is the Internet killing other media?

As the technology develops, computers and software’s gets more powerful. With the appearance of the internet people have easier access to news and don’t have to rely on television, newspapers or the radio to fulfil their needs for knowledge about the world we live in.

More and more people, especially the young generation, use mainly the internet to get the information that they need. Most of them don’t subscribe for a newspaper to be delivered to their homes like is more customary for the elders.

Though this is the reality it’s not the end for the media companies, because most of them publish news on the internet through their homepages. If people choose to use the internet for newsflash, they usually log on to the media homepages to quench their thirst for news.

We’ll have to see what happens in the future about the life of newspapers, especially in Iceland (I don’t really know the development in other countries). Nearly all the young generation are getting attached to their computers and the internet and wouldn’t trade them for nothing. Therefore, why reading a newspaper if you can read the same news online?

Part one

The internet is a wonderful phenomenon. With a computer at hand, the world is literally at ones fingertips; an endless sea of information becomes accessible with a click of a button. Mankind has an endless thirst for knowledge and with the commercialization of the internet in mid 90s it has become easier with every year that passes to quench that thirst. It is hard to assess the impact and what effect the internet has had on our personal and professional lives. My opinion is that it has changed most peoples outlook on the world for the better.

For an university student as myself it is hard to imagine how difficult gathering information for a school paper would have been before the days of the internet. The information superhighway, which the internet undoubtedly is, enables people to gather information quickly and easily. Similarly we can conclude that the various interests of pressure groups and political propaganda of political parties and politicians has become much more accessible than it used to be.

As expected, there are always two sides to every story. The introduction and increased popularity of the internet is very positive thing indeed. However there is always a dark side to be considered. We shall look further into this later.

My goal with these blog posts is to point out, in various ways, how the internet is changing politics. Furthermore I shall have a look at how the internet is changing the relationship between the media and politics.