Digitization is increasingly affecting all areas of society, from politics to business to culture and science. The political dimension of this process is clearly evident today.
The rapid development of digital technologies like reading on kindle vs ipad creates new political conflicts and affects social power relations in a variety of ways. Digitization does not stop at the borders of states. As a global development, it is changing international politics. It is creating new foreign and security policy challenges.
Digitization as a topic and task for political youth education: Reading on kindle vs ipad
The digitization and digital transformation of entire branches of the economy as well as democracy are of course also a concern for political education and political youth education. Digitization is changing far more than “just” the economy. It is changing the job market, the media and education system, or communication behaviour. Digitization is also changing the political processes and the normative foundations of politics.
The free public discourse as the central basis of democracy: reading on kindle vs ipad
In order for a democracy to be able to achieve what makes it stand out from all other forms of government, it needs a free public discourse. Through this discourse, which in a mass society is always conveyed via the mass media, the citizens perceive themselves as parts of the community, as demos.
This discourse helps to clarify again and again what problems and challenges exist in society. Ideally, these topics are then conveyed through the intermediary organizations taken up by the state institutions. The members of a democratic pluralistic state are therefore by no means just passive addressees of the political decision-makers. They help shape the public discourse.
This is exactly where the changes brought about by digital communication come into play. Since public discourse is so important for democracy, it inevitably affects democracy. It affects if the form and content of communication change dramatically in the course of digitization.
As a result, there is also new content for civic education. It has to react, for example, to the loss of importance of the previously influential gatekeepers like journalists and editors. While even politically uninterested people in the old media landscape, it is now easily possible to live completely politically abstinent despite constant media consumption.