Essay on Types of Impacts That the Rise of the Internet Has on Democratic Political Participation

Introduction

The global political landscape observers have noted drastic alterations recently. In democracies, significant numbers of the voting population have shifted to supporting politicians with authoritative tendencies. Many commentators on the matter suggest that the rise of the internet especially social media, plays a central role in amplifying cultural, economic, and political grievances, worldwide, perhaps even more significant, that they rely on their independent influences on politics in established democracies. Political participation is the citizens’ activities that try to impact the politics of government, authorities for the government selection, as well as the structure of the government. These activities may either support the current structure, authority, or politics, or they may seek to alter any or all of these.

This paper finds largely consistent patterns of interactions among all the mentioned variables among intra-individual change, individual differences, or net gains. The rise of the internet as seen in recent years have impacts on political participation and outcomes especially in democracies, on attitudes toward government, street protests, voting, politician’s behavior, xenophobia, and political polarization (Zhuravskaya, E., Petrova, M., & Enikolopov, R, 2020). This paper aims to review and discuss the evidence on the types of impacts that internet rise shapes political participation in democracies. In most democracies, the internet trends have been associated with several influences that play key roles in the various aspects of internet advancement, especially of digital media technology. This paper notes the rise of the internet and communication networks’ direct impact on democratic processes by influencing political participation and public opinions such as campaigns and voting. The next hypothesized point is that internet advancement and uses disallowing for wider informed voting processes and population. This trend is supposing broadcast media outlets and traditional prints as the source for critical primary information during democratic election processes thus influencing the voters’ decisions.

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Political participation

The concept of political participation is not relegated solely to the process of voting but is also in the need to character existing policies and practices on the democracies’ state and federal levels. Over the past years, the types of impacts of the rise of the internet have experienced major evolution stages. Traditional models of communication were based on direct contact or newspaper to distribute ideas and opinions on interesting political areas (Thompson, 2009). This new campaigning trend such as online political information brings more important impacts including; amplified access to better and more data on government decisions, policy places, and political candidates that affect all participants, more citizen engagement on concern issues at the national, state, and local level, and pressure on all entities that inform the public to offer quality information. This means that many people now discuss political issues through social networks as well (Zhuravskaya, E., Petrova, M., & Enikolopov, R, 2020). Concerning the distribution of political evidence, the rise of the internet potentials the obtainability of advanced information for common citizens and more customized user content to a greater level that is also conceivable with other communication forms.

The Rise of the Internet and Social Media

The internet has become the main source of information and news for any connected member. With the advanced right of entry to social networks, there is increased debate between family and friends online via forums, email-communication, and blogs to analyze the dictated contents before the voting process. The information is available online that concerns democracy, politics, and the government is astounding. The impacts illustrate that though speculation thrives concerning the data era, new information access via technology has the principal role in forecasting political participation and motivation to vote (Thompson, K., LaRocca, D., Gallagher, P., & Cintron, J., 2009).

Sociability

The impacts of the rise of the internet are great concerning sociability. When using the internet, people are usually not engaged in alternative social activity. This is likely where increased doings in one decreases the time needed for engagement for other activities (Zhuravskaya, 2020). When individuals spent more time on the internet, it is generally expected that most of their sources c