The internet brings myriads of unprecedented complications to politics, like the issue of political communication and risks of making politics less esoteric. This is further convoluted by the question of autocracy and whether the internet serves as a tool of control for growing authoritarian regimes, or if it threatens their survival.
Whether American President Donald Trump plans to devise and carry out an autocracy is topical in contemporary politics, on the front burner of public discourse. It is foremost imperative to note that there are undefined parameters on his administration’s true motive, and therefore — for the time being — the United States cannot be seen as a true authoritative regime, but as a form of emerging competitive authoritarianism.
I argue that the challenge of Donald Trump’s attempt at an authoritarian regime is not whether he can silence the internet and any opposing discourse, but if he can set and dominate the digital agenda. Narrative control remains paramount to the success of an authoritarian regime, as controlling the media is likened to controlling political reality.
Hence, diluting dissent is crucial to move the public agenda in favor of his interests, requiring tactical and focused propaganda and disinformation campaigns.
However, once an issue gains traction, any attempt at suppressing it can lead to the fragmentation of attention, and consequently, narrative instability — pulling blocks from a rashly built Jenga tower of media censorship and control.
Journalists traditionally act as gatekeepers of agendas, informing the flow of dissemination.
Preinternet, this role of gatekeeping was a simpler process to disrupt, as there was a clear delineation of ‘producer’ and ‘consumer’.
However, now with the multiplication of producers, e.g., citizen journalists on social media, it is practically impossible to silence adversarial views.
Political communication no longer exists in a 1:1 ratio, where one person has one voice (via a ballot), and politics is no longer a race to dominate the agenda to gain the most ballot votes.
Simply put, in the digital age, disseminating information is no longer enough to be the dominating voice.
Even so, one could contend that this means political stakeholders can utilize the same platforms we can to enact control over media narratives.
To an extent, this is indeed evident through the current administration’s push to frame immigration as a national crisis.
By constructing the ‘us vs. them’ narrative, Trump swayed MAGA voters to believe that “the protestors have gone too far.”
Attempts to vilify civil disobedience have been undeniably intertwined with the internet, with social media being used as an immediate channel to the mass public.
As many Americans learn about social movements through the internet, this is a seemingly effective platform to influence public opinion regarding anti-ICE protests — whether that is through making occasional violent protests seem like the majority, or framing protestors as ‘domestic terrorists.’
Concomitantly, though, the opposing community of citizens are able to move the agenda for their benefit as well.
With the multiplication of producers, numerous bystander videos were able to show that Renee Good did not endanger any ICE officers’ lives and that she was murdered without rhyme and reason — undermining the legitimacy of the state’s narrative. This is a precipitated outcome of the decline of the 1:1 political communication ratio, in which citizen journalist accounts of this video went viral and were able to set the dominant agenda in the media. A catalyst for international scrutiny, citizen narratives exemplify how when attempts at propaganda circulate, they compete with observable reality.
This observable reality is transmitted quickly from firsthand sources through the internet, providing credibility to citizen journalists.
Authoritarianism can only survive if power lies with the immediate leader, in this case, President Trump, and not within the people.
Thus, while the internet does bring new avenues for a government to disseminate a certain agenda, the internet is not an esoteric forum: given that we will continue to have access to the internet and have the ability to act as producers, we will be given the platform to weaken official media and subsequent agendas.
Reading the news may seem bleak and make us feel hopeless in the face of administrations like Donald Trump’s, but hope lies in our abilities to threaten the creation and survival of autocracies and autocrats.