BackHow smartphones are changing global politics
What has happened in Turkey is just the latest in a series of events this year in which the smartphone and social media apps have been at the centre of action
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In 1860, Abraham Lincoln used a telegraph to stay in touch with the Republican GOP, which he could not attend. The John F. Kennedy convention team first used walkie-talkies in 1960. Fast forward to 2016, and the entire landscape feels very different.
We seem to have reached a stage where life without a smartphone simply cannot be imagined. According to Ericsson’s annual Mobility Report released in June, there could be as many as 6.3 billion smartphone subscribers globally by the year 2021. The world is becoming increasingly connected, and it is technology which is driving the social and economic changes. And if the recent developments are to be considered, it is now also driving political change. Is the smartphone truly shaping modern history?
The most recent example is the failed coup attempt in Turkey, over the weekend. Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who at the time was believed to be at the Marmaris tourist resort in the southwest coast of the country, dialled a different port of call—Apple FaceTime video call app, found in Apple’s iPhone (as well as the iPad and Mac computing devices). Erdoğan used this FaceTime call, his first interaction with the media (this was first aired on CNN Türk) and the citizens of Turkey, to rally his supporters. “Go to the streets and give them their answer," said Erdoğan, adding, “I am coming to a square in Ankara." See video here
Hardly a surprising strategy by the President to connect with his supporters using a popular smartphone app, considering Pew Research’s Spring 2015 Global Attitudes Survey, which suggests that 72% of Turkey’s population owns a smartphone and is connected to the internet. Read report here
There are reports that the Turkish establishment had imposed restrictions or at least slowed down access to social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter immediately after the coup attempt. But a lot of Turkey’s citizens were able to share updates with the rest of the world, including videos, photos and live streams. Katy Lee, an AFP journalist, crisply summarized the unfolding events in a tweet, “Truly a modern coup. President Erdoğan speaking to CNN-Turk on FaceTime. You can’t make it up."
On 23 June, Democrat politicians in the US staged a sit-in at the House of Representatives, demanding that the gun legislation be finally passed, after four bills failed to make it through the Senate in the days leading up to this session. The opposition, Republican politicians, ordered the cameras in the chambers be shut off. The Democrats then turned to live-streaming the protest on Facebook Live and Twitter’s Periscope. Soon enough, even news broadcast networks began to air these live stream videos.
On 15 July, Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump shunned all the traditional mediums while announcing his vice-presidential running mate. Instead, Trump made the announcement about Indiana governor Mike Pence on Twitter.
Online petition service Change.org wants to change the way people vote, in the US for the time being—the US Presidential election as well as some Senate battles, for example. They have rolled out a mobile friendly website, Change Politics (www.changepolitics.org), which will provide voters with a guide to help them understand the ballot which they will get at the local polling station. Potential voters and their friends can make candidate recommendations as well as follow other users. The idea is to let people understand the candidates better, make sense of where they stand on various issues and then make an informed decision.
On 6 July, Diamond Reynolds switched on the Facebook Live streaming on her phone when her fiancé, Philando Castile, was shot four times by a police officer during a traffic stop in Minnesota, US. “You shot four bullets into him, sir. He was just getting his licence and registration," Reynolds is heard telling the police officer. While the video was initially removed from the social media network because, as Facebook later clarified, of a “technical difficulty", it was eventually restored without any cuts or edits. And a few days later, protestors were the first to share graphic images of Dallas, US police officers being shot by a sniper during a protest rally. In a post that week, Facebook chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg wrote, “The images we’ve seen this week are graphic and heart breaking, and they shine a light on the fear that millions of members of our community live with every day. While I hope we never have to see another video like Diamond’s, it reminds us why coming together to build a more open and connected world is so important—and how far we still have to go."
The common element in all these instances, apart from the fact that the information was first shared on social media, is the human element. A person streaming the video, or a voice trying to make sense of something as it unfolds live, adds a genuine sense of approachability. And in some cases, it also acts as an antidote to the perceived bias suspicion that certain media coverage is looked at with. And that immediately resonated with the viewers—irrespective of anyone’s political leanings or views on the subject. This seems to be just the beginning of a new era of social voting and streaming governments, and the smartphone seems to be leading that change.
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