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automatically get millions of results even for the simplest of queries. Furthermore, the
information we are exposed to is not limited to sources that agree with our cultural context.
We are exposed to divergent concepts and foreign ideas, ideas that challenge our
assumptions and give us a window to other possibilities. Clay Shirky in his… asks” What
happens when a new medium puts a lot of new ideas into circulation?” from the telegram to
the radio to the printing press, the television, the telephone and today, the Internet? Clay
answers, “The more ideas there are in circulation, and the more ideas there are for
individuals to challenge those ideas”.
Not only is the Internet and the World Wide Web exposing us to loads of information, and
new ideas (a consumer perspective), the same medium is allowing people to contribute to
the body of knowledge and ideas on the web (a producer perspective), never before has it
been easier or cheaper to create and disseminate knowledge in a wide variety of formats
(text, images, audio, video), than it is today (the producer perspective). Other mediums
prior to the advent of digital technology and the Internet have mostly been limited to
consumption. With today’s technology individuals are not only exposed to new ideas but
can react to those ideas almost instantaneously by for example commenting on a blog post
or even faster, hitting the re-tweet button or ‘liking’ something on Facebook.
This capability is also being made more and more available to people at all levels of society.
Internet-enabled services are finding their way and diffusing even to the ‘fringes’ of society
though they are not being delivered in the way we would normally expect i.e. access via a
browser. Google for example leveraged ubiquitous SMS technology to deliver some of their
services including search and chat, other companies have figured out how to bring Facebook
and Twitter to ‘dumb’ phones, or take BiNU that aims to ‘turn your phone into a smart
phone’. So the argument that rural folk or the continent’s poor population cannot be
influenced by the internet is not that accurate.
So what happens when citizens have this kind of power?
1. Influence: Citizens are more than ever susceptible to being influenced by external ideas
and concepts. One of the hallmarks of dictatorial rule is that citizens are usually limited
in terms of access to information. Usually, all media in dictatorial regimes is closely