Government and politics has been the cornerstone to how humans organize themselves since the beginning of written history. Government, especially democracy, allows for a system to be put in place that facilitates commerce, education, and culture. In the past, a government would go about nurturing these various facets of society by whatever means necessary with very little oversight. This was often achieved by either oppressing the populous or simply keeping the populous in the dark. Even if the government wanted to keep the people well informed about their activities, it was difficult to do so because there was no practical way to distribute reliable information.
It was not until the 15th century and the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg that a reliable new technology had the capacity to spread information quickly and efficiently to the masses (Lualdi, 2005). From that moment forward, leaders and politicians would exercise the communication technology of the day to promote themselves while demonizing their opponents in hopes of gaining favor amongst their peers. When communication technology progressed, governments would quickly find a way to utilize and implement the new technology in a way that would benefit the government and improve their ability to run the nation.
Today, our government has unprecedented access to retrieve, distribute, and organize information and they do so through the use of this relatively new phenomenon known as computer mediated communication. A far cry from the printing press, CMC allows for information to be gathered, encoded, decoded, and delivered instantaneously from anywhere around the world. With this powerful new technology at the world’s disposal, our government and politicians are finding new ways to utilize it in order to create an advantage for our nation and ourselves. Now we will look into just how our government is using this technology to better our nation.
Lualdi, K (2005). The Making of the West: Peoples and Cultures.
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