PRO CON WEBSITE ARGUMENTS FOR MY POSITION
Propaganda In The Internet Age
Arguments for my position: The
China government used social media as a weapon to fight back
against Hong Kong people democracy protests.
Argument #1: Social media is an effective weapon for propaganda
Political
groups use social media as their significant platforms and
crucial channels for publishing news as well as political
content, due to young people usage of social media as their
dominant platform to establish their political existence. (Woolley
and Howard, 3)
“In
some countries this is because some companies, such as Facebook,
are effectively monopoly platforms for public life. In countries
where only small proportions of the public have regular access
to social media, such platforms are still fundamental
infrastructure for political conversation among the journalists,
civil society leaders, and political elites.”
(Woolley
and Howard, 3)
Argument #2: It is easy for the Chinese government to use
social media as their weapon
The
powerful and wealthy elites are able to take advantage of their
personal relationships, compensation and intimidation to
influence the media. This lead to the dependency of mass media
on the elites to distribute news that are skeptical and prevent
negative comments. (Durham
and Kellner, 273).
“It
is very difficult to call authorities on whom one depends for
daily news liars, even if they tell whoopers…
Perhaps
more important, powerful sources regularly take advantage of
media routines and dependency to “manage”
the
media, to manipulate them into following a special agenda and
framework”
(Durham and Kellner, 273).
Sources
Durham,
M and Kellner, D. (2006). Media
and Cultural Studies: KeyWorks, Revised Edition. Blackwell
Publishing Ltd., 257-294.
Woolley,
S and Howard, P. (2017). Computational
Propaganda Worldwide: Executive Summary. Oxford, UK: Project
on Computational Propaganda. Computational Propaganda Research
Project. Working Paper No. 2017.11, 1-14.