Thursday 2 May 2013

ARTS3091 - Wk8 - Politics, transparency and truths

SOCIAL ORGANISATION

Will the idea of physical boundaries, policies and other ideals of state government's die with the emergence of online media? I certainly don't think so, even if transparency becomes more pervasive.

Politics has always been quite a behind-the-scenes ideology. The only times we ever talk about politics is when leaders, politicians and other things come in to contact with news reporting media. We only ever get narrow gaps of big things that are actually happen, especially in the Australian government, we watch their televised parliamentary discussions, tune into interviews and other sources. But what actually happens behind the scenes? What actually happens when politicians are in the office, what do they actually talk about and what do they actually do? No one in the general public really knows.

Which is definitely why this debate about more political transparency is taking place. Especially in Australia, with the competence the government is showing us these days, people especially young people wonder what the 'fat cats' are really doing. One reading talks about transparency in timetable to see if the public can help make it more efficient. I argue that although I enjoy knowing what the prime minister is doing I also don't want it to be something that can be accessed that easily by the public. Much like military records, there is a reason why this stuff is a need to know basis. We keep it private so that people who might threaten us cannot cause us harm.

An example I could recall was the Mumbai Attack in 2008. Terrorists were able to co-ordinate in great succession to assassinate and carry out their attacks on innocent people and made it difficult for the Indian military to detain simply because the media was reporting live about what is happening for the terrorists to see. Sure, they were killed in the end, but the media helped undermine the operation in some respects.

The media has also helped oppose political power in a number of ways, Occupy Wall Street being one of many. It helped connect people together and this transparency has extended to connect the event to the rest of the world. This cross country, boundary-less environment created from online media public space is our greatest asset yet also a great curse. Anyone can use a computer to do this, it's quite hard to imagine having this level of power during the civil rights protests in the 60s.

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