“The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu(1991:172) has argued that a lack of access among the general populace to the tools necessary for political participation has resulted in the concentration of political power as the province of a small elite. Although much has been claimed for the potential of new media technologies to promote democratic political participation,it remains unclear whether the application of these technologies in practices as apparently diverse as those of electronic governance, interactive entertainment and virtual socialisation indeed offer the popular dissemination of the technological and cultural capital which Bourdieu sees as essential to the process of democratisation…”(Charles 2012:27)
These days everyone has to keep up with the technology, even politics. In order create a relation with the younger generation, politics has linked with the most used social media nowadays like Facebook and Twitter and even Youtube.”In April 2010, four weeks before a British parliamentary election,it was reported that the UK Electoral Commission had collaborated with Facebook to encourage unregistered voters to enfranchise themselves.”(Charles 2012:30).So, social networks are crucial for the politics, without them, they could not connect with the people.Because everyone has now a smartphone or a computer and at least an account on a social network, this is the easiest way to win a lot of people on your side. A great use of digital politics can be seen in Barak Obama’s campaigns. At his campaigns he used Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube to broadcast the debates and a lot of campaign clips.He also knew how to use popular culture in his favour.We can clearly see this in clips like We are the ones or Yes we can. When he used popular singers and actors to make a collage style music video inspired by his speech in 2008.And as we saw his successful campaigns helped his became the president of the United States of America two times.
This could be a great example of how digitalisation helped politics evolve.In our days without the help of world wide web any campaign would be hard to win.
Robert Dogaru 