How Technology Influences Elections

From smear campaigns to voting computers; multimedia and technology are an integrated part of the political system of every government in every country in the world and becoming more integrated all the time. It takes marketing campaigns, complex audio/video setups for live debates, and in some cases even electronic espionage to get elected. Election tampering and voting machine vulnerability is also a concern as technology assimilates more of the tasks previously assigned to people or machines. What will become of our society as these things effect change on so called democratic systems of government? Last I checked propaganda is a bad thing in a Free Democracy but that doesn’t seem to be regulated anymore if ever. After all, it’s the government that produces the propaganda. As did the NAZI party of Hitler’s Germany use propaganda effectively in that era to cow the naive German public. Everybody knows how that turned out.

When it comes to government elections the most obvious yet simple way that multimedia and technology has an effect is through the television and ad campaigns. I think the marketing of politics is a dangerous thing for democracy though. This is because marketing is just persuading someone to like what you want them to like. If you think about this concept for a moment it doesn't take long to see what I am getting at. The message you are getting through the marketing of politics is an image created out of what the politicians want you to think. So when you do that with politics you basically end up with corporately run government, which we currently have. By this I mean it's corporate in the sense that the image or ideal that politicians seek to create for their audience is that which large corporations have been creating for decades. The idea of the utopia or perfect world that America supposedly once was. Personally I think America has always been the way that it is now. It has always been a cultural melting pot and not this ideal image that you see in a 1950s propaganda reel. Remember this when you see or hear the next political commercial and you will see or hear what I mean.

After all the marketing, campaigning, and ads you still have the elections themselves. These are also strongly influenced by technology. Especially since the introduction of voting computer consoles in some places. Being an aficionado of computer security and vulnerability, I know that any and every computer system or network, no matter how secured, can be breeched in some way. That said, what I have researched about the voting machines currently being used is a bit alarming to say the least. From the sound of things these machines are as user friendly to tampering as a Playstation to a ten year old. Especially to someone with computer hacking knowledge. Not to mention that there are also many reports of these machines being stolen, tampered with, or at the very least poorly secured. I can't neglect to mention that these are only the preliminary stages of voting computer integration into government elections. What I don't understand is, why this is happening? If you can get a receipt at the ATM when you make a transaction saying exactly what you have in your bank account after the transaction. Why can't they do the same with the voting computer consoles. After all an ATM system is run with a computer network. It is literally that simple.

One thing that I can say for certain is that technology and multimedia are now an integrated part of our culture world wide. How we use it is up to us. Whether we allow it to corrupt our society, politics, and our way of life Or we let technology make things better for everyone with proper use and accountability. It remains to be see what the outcome of this integration will be. I think it could go one of two separate directions. Either we make technology useful and moral. Or we make technology into a force that consumes us with mindless corruption.