Democracy or Anarchy?

Dictionary.com defines democracy as: ‘a form of government in which supreme power is vested in the people.’

It defines anarchy as: ‘a state of society without government or law’, ‘a theory that regards the absence of all direct or coercive government’, ‘political and social disorder due to the absence of government control.’

The rise of citizen journalism and user generated content (UGC) has led some to claim that the Internet is playing a key role in expanding democracy.

Dan Gillmor claims in his publication We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By People for the People is democratising the media. He claims: ‘The communication network itself will be a medium for everyone’s voice, not just the few who can afford to buy multimillion-dollar printing presses.’

This may be the case.

Activities such as blogging and UGC sites such as CNN’s iReport allow freedom of speech and expression to stretch further. They allow more and more people to tell their stories or others’ stories to a wider audience.

This freedom is not without its problems, such as inaccurate and sometimes wrong reporting of news. A famous example of this is ‘The Dorset Elk.’ In 2006 both Sky News and The Guardian showed a picture of what was said to be a forest fire in Dorset, sent in by a citizen journalist. A closer look at the photo shows two elks in the foreground, animals not native to Dorset. The photo was a photo taken in 2000, in Montana. CNN’s iReport also features the picture under the heading: Fire in Highlands of Scotland, the report remains on the website.

Is this democracy? People have freedom in what they write, but without controls set on what they write disorder ensues. This could potentially lead to dangerous outcomes. There is no real danger in the Elk hoax, however, if someone decided to publish a photo of their next door neighbour claiming he was a paedophile with no grounds of truth, it could be very harmful. Is this, by definition, a negative outcome of the anarchical state of the Internet?

By contrast, sites like the BBC’s ‘Have Your Say’ website do exercise a type of democracy. ‘Have Your Say’ allows users to express their opinions on news and current affairs while retaining editorial control. This replicates a democratic society such as our own where our voices can be heard within the law. As long as their editorial control is fair and objective, this is democracy.

UGC content has great potential to empower those who would not necessarily be able to get their view across, but we must be careful to ensure that this power is not abused.

IMAGES - "Anarchy" courtesy of Andrew Edmark taken from flickr.com, "CNN's iReport" courtesy of Ilikerall taken from flickr.com.