IB Digital Society 4.6A Political Processes Notes

4.6A Political Processes

1. The organising concept is power. Digital tools can spread it outward, letting ordinary people organise and be heard. They can also concentrate it, because whoever controls the platforms and data steers what people see. Digital democracy is the term for this mix of promise and risk.
2. Keep the two halves apart: impacts (changes already here, e.g. an online petition or internet vote) versus implications (wider consequences, e.g. manipulation, exclusion, or collapse of trust).
3. Content topics meeting here: media and networks carry political speech, data and artificial intelligence target and persuade, and values and ethics run throughout.

Participation and Activism Online

1. Digital activism uses social media, online petitions, and messaging to inform, organise, and mobilise people fast and cheaply.
2. A single post can cascade across a network to millions before officials respond, and movements coordinate protests across borders. Through space, organising is not tied to a place; through expression and power, voices once shut out of traditional media can be heard.
3. The same ease has limits: low-effort clicks (slacktivism) may not yield real change, platforms amplify outrage and lock people into echo chambers, and states can monitor or shut down the networks activists rely on.
4. Impacts: mobilisation is faster, broader, cheaper. Implications: shallow engagement, polarisation, and organisers exposed to surveillance.

Data-Driven Campaigns

1. Microtargeting uses profiles built from online behaviour to show each group the political message most likely to move it.