Democracy and Crowds
Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale: (1805)
In Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), flocks acquire some way of communicating and coordinating actions. The birds have a purpose: to destroy the peace of a small town. There is a political sub-text in the film: overthrow of the ignorant tyrant (i.e. man) by moving an oppressed group to concerted action. In politics, mobs and crowds have the power to exert influence if they are able to communicate effectively to avoid dissipation. In democratic systems, the power of numbers is crucial: the majority that claims power by voting, the minorities’ influence in the house of the legislative, and the civil movements that represent special interests; and of course the crowds of protesters and populist movements in the streets, to the “shadow crowds” in the police and the army.
The trend in digital communications is to give those individuals increasing control over their political voices with every innovation. Does the right to freedom of speech protect every new form with no reservations? Communication technologies tend to create the illusion that the individuals in the crowd can regain the voice lost to the de facto powers, which created a putative authority over them, the voiceless. This happened with the advent of the printed book, the telegraph, and the telephone. More recently also the cell phone and the Internet, the key elements of a new type of mass media, that some claim might foster anarchy.
In January 2001, the People Power II movement, a crowd of protesters coordinated by cell phones and texting, took the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue in Manila to oust President Joseph Estrada, in what was a civilian-led coup d’état. The cell phones were “seen to bring a new kind of crowd about, one that was thoroughly conscious of itself as a movement […]. While telecommunications allows one to escape the crowd, it also opens the possibility of finding oneself moving in concert with it.” (Rafael, p.80)
In April 2010, an email became viral and spread over the Internet and cell phones. The message warned about a confrontation of drug cartels in Cuernavaca, Mexico. The result was a panic that gripped the population, augmented by the presence of militia in the streets, and the inability of the government to control the situation. Crowds of persons abandoned offices and public places and hid at home; using cell phones and Twitter to coordinate movements, complain, and exchange information. A hoax spreads like fire. (See Luhnow)
Those are just two narratives of a new global situation: the availability of a low cost, individually controlled tool of communication with the crowd (i.e. mass media). It is very powerful, and its use new to the democratic system. There is a need to match the new capabilities with the entitlements of political and civil rights created before such a technology was even within the imaginable.
The result might be a restriction of the human right (HR) to freedom of speech. Is it adequate to uphold this right when new forms of communication can lead to a chain reaction of misinformation and the formation of mobs, which may threaten, with no legitimate claim beyond sheer numbers, the democratic system itself? To question HR would be to challenge democracy. Thomas Pogge, discussing attainment of democracy, considers that “voters must be free to assemble and discuss, and free also to inform themselves, which presupposes freedom of the press and of the other mass media.”(Pogge, p.153, emphasis mine) But, he also agrees that a democratic system is not a monolith, it is a matter of degree, where “democracy is a scalar predicate, as political systems can be more or less democratic in multiple dimensions.” (Pogge, p.153) That is, a system that restricts access to the new mass media certainly has created some limitation of freedom, but has not ceased to be democratic.
Amartya Sen considers that when thinking about political rights a bias may exist. Western culture puts an emphasis on unrestricted freedoms above all: the primacy of the individual in liberal thinking. Asian culture may put an emphasis on order and discipline instead. Therefore, the argument goes, “censorship of the press may be more acceptable in an Asian society.” (Sen, p.149) The order of the state is of greater importance, so that “the moral authority of human rights is conditional on the basis of acceptable ethics.” (Sen, p.228) Singapore might restrict the use of the new mass media in accordance with its ethics, and not be regarded violating HR. Sen concludes that, regardless of cultural tradition, the promotion of equality in this form (i.e. liberal equality of freedom) is only recent in the East and West alike, and that societies must be involved in the decision of what cultural traits to let go. The use of mass media technologies in society is part of this recent trend of “equality of freedom, guaranteed for all.” (Sen, p.233)
The issue is then not only restriction of HR but also the practice of democracy. Democracy, in its implementation and operation, is one key to the attainment of HR. The idea of democracy is in large part about its practice in society. A democratic institution, like the freedom of speech, “is conditioned by our values and priorities, and by the use we make of the available opportunities of articulation and participation.”(Sen, p.158) The citizen that enjoys entitlement to powerful technologies has a democratic duty to make responsible use of them.
Relevant in the practice of democracy is also the idea of social accountability. A system that promotes education, transparency and open communications, will be able to create a space for the accountability of institutions and government programs. Adequate communication would “allow the people to watch and evaluate the actions of government as they unfold […] far more effective in stimulating good government and much more empowering for the citizens who participate.” (Ackerman, p.7) New mass media can become a part of the democratic system of accountability, if governments are receptive to its mode and flow of information: unorganized, spontaneous and sometimes irreverent, contrary to bureaucracy and protocol, and deeply personal.
New mass media communications, as embodied in cell phones, Twitter and the Internet, do pose a threat, and an opportunity for democratic governance. Restriction in their use will certainly constrain some freedoms, but would not justify a claim of violation of HR by itself. Governments need to promote the responsible use within its own walls, and in the citizenry, to obtain the potential benefits in democratic practice. This may entail some regulation, such as positive ID requirements and digital signatures, which build trust and protect identity.
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References
Ackerman, John. Human Rights and Social Accountability. Social Development Paper No. 86, World Bank, 2005.
Luhnow, David. Mexico’s Drug War Spreads. In The Wall Street Journal, April 19, 2010.
Pogge, Thomas. World Poverty and Human Rights. Cambridge MA: Polity Press, 2008.
Rafael, Vicente L. The Cell Phone and the Crowd: Messianic Politics in the Contemporary Philippines. In Histories of the Future. Daniel Rosenberg and Susan Harding, editors. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005.
Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.
© 2010, Oscar Howell. All rights reserved.