DEMOCRACY & NEW MEDIA: A REFLECTION ON THE APPARATUS AND ITS ROLE IN SUSTAINABLE DEMOCRACY
Keywords:
Democracy, New Media, Internet, FreedomAbstract
Theoretically, the Internet has a possibility of opening a new era for public cyber-space democracy on a local, national, and global scale. Yet there are various views on Internet’s democratic potential. As a result of internet’ free nature, internet censorship is minimalised. Unlike content censorship, internet censorship is utilised to filter vulgar languages, videos and images. Recent protests in Hong Kong illustrated a good example of democratic society. China’s government-scale censorship on Internet is significantly different from western part of the world. Whilst internet censorship in western countries is focused on hated posts, pornography, and coarse language or name calling, Chinese internet censorship is mainly aimed for replacing western internet environment to their own. As the world becomes more globalised, it is becoming more challenging for Chinese government to persuade the need of Internet censorship to the public. The question lies in how much control a government should have, if any at all, over the internet.
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References
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