The Internet and Politics

In his article, "Historical pragmatism and the internet", James Carey argues that historical research on the interent is not sufficient as it doesn't account for the historical context that goes along with technological developments, not does it consider how ideological factors such as politics, religion, economics and culture effects it. By this, he is arguing that there needs to be a pragmatic approach when looking at the internet so that we can decipher the course it is going to take in the future. He believes that even though there are always different styles and types of technologies being developed through time, they all been effected in similar ways in relation to what's going on in society at that time.
Carey also argues that technology and politics, particularly democracy have always been related and effect one other. The example he uses of this is following World War II when television was becoming increasingly popular around the world and countries set up their own standardization of connecting to a network. For example, if you live in France and want to watch television, you have watch what the French standard shows and you will be unable to watch shows from other countries. This course of action went along with the heightened nationalism and decline of globalization that came about after WWII as each country was trying to rebuild it's own economy and culture.
If we take Carey's two arguments that technological developments should be looked at pragmatically and that technology is related to the politics of its time, then we can assume the internet reflects today's global political structure, just as television did 50 years ago. As we know, the internet is an extremely interactive tool, allowing for people to become commentators on any kind of current issue and formulate their own opinions. Does politics follow this course? Are the 'people' able to interact with their political leaders and influence decisions? Perhaps not in the sense that the people have taken power from government, but what about when we consider a phenomenon such as Wikileaks. Wikileaks has changed the structure of international relations as it has revealed information that is usually kept private from opposing nations. Now, that information is out there for anyone to see and comment on. Of course, Wikileaks would not have been possible without the development of the internet, but it should be taken into account that politics would also not be put at risk by this huge development.

http://globaleconomy.foreignpolicyblogs.com/2010/12/01/wikileak-serious-attack-to-us-foreign-policy/