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US president Donald Trump, who gets on Twitter the moment he wakes up, may be social media's most prominent politician user, but he is hardly the only one. For the past two decades, world leaders have leveraged the power of the internet to communicate with the public. In some nations, digital tools form part of an effort to increase government transparency and accountability. In others, they become a platform for propaganda, censorship and fake news.
The Conversation Global's new series, Politics in the Age of Social Media, examines the varied ways that governments around the world rely on digital tools to exercise power. Today, e-government expert Rania Fakhouri asks whether social media can help identify the pitfalls of government and their politics. "This much freedom of expression and opinion," she notes, "can be a double-edged sword."
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Protesters post a hashtag to social media together to make it trend as they denounce policies of President Donald Trump at the Not My President’s Day Rally in Los Angeles, California February 20, 2017.
David McNew/Reuters
Rania Fakhoury, Université Libanaise
Can social media create opportunities to identify and challenge government pitfalls and problematic policies?
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Politics + Society
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Rinna Kullaa, University of Tampere
The integration of Turkey into the European Union could have embodied a counter-discourse to the so-called 'Clash of Civilisations'. Perhaps it is not too late.
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Business + Economy
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Iban de Rementeria, Universidad Central de Chile
Colombia's plan to turn coca-leaf farmers into coffee growers has a fatal flaw: the market.
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Calestous Juma, Harvard University
Import bans in Africa are a poor substitute for the creation of incentives that enable
local producers to compete favourably.
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Arts + Culture
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Siobhan Lyons, Macquarie University
Interplanetary colonisation was once the stuff of science fiction but now there are plans to colonise Mars. How have film-makers and writers dealt with our rapacious Anthropocene age?
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