Communications Revolutions

Since childhood, I have been fascinated by history. Indeed, it was this love of history that initially drew me into the study of International Relations. For me, IR is nothing more or less than the study of contemporary history as it continues to unfold before our eyes. The issues and events of today do not arise from a vacuum, but are rooted in the legacies of the past. As I frequently point out to students, IR as a discipline has always drawn heavily upon the older discipline of History; we cannot hope to make sense of the modern world without understanding the linkages between present and past. Despite my interest in the past, however, my current main area of research – Internet governance – deals with a very modern issue-area. Nonetheless, I seek to understand this very contemporary phenomenon in its historical context. The digital revolution is but the latest in a long line of human communications revolutions, each of which has profoundly impacted the course of political history.

The first human communications revolution was, of course, the development of language itself. Language goes far beyond mere basic communication. A great many species are able to communicate with others of their kind, to exchange basic information such as the presence of a predator or a food source, but language allows humans to exchange much more complex ideas, feelings, emotions, perceptions, theories and concepts. Language is foundational to, and an integral part of, human social structures. The exact origins of language are, of course, lost in the mists of time, but it is reasonable to assume that, as human societies became more sophisticated, so too did language, as both a consequence and a driver of societal development. This reciprocal process ultimately also enabled the evolution of increasingly complex and sophisticated political arrangements to govern those societies (see Greenspan and Shanker 2004).

As villages grew into the first towns, and towns developed into the earliest cities, a more certain and permanent way to keep track of business transactions, agreements and contracts, ownership rights, laws and government records was needed. The invention of writing was the second great communications revolution, and made bureaucracy and the earliest states possible. This occurred independently several times in different regions of the world, including (but possibly not limited to) Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) from around 3400 BCE; Egypt from around 3200 BCE; the Indus Valley from around 2600 BCE; China from around 1300 BCE; and the cultures of Mesoamerica from around 900 - 600 BCE. Writing also made possible the accurate preservation and dissemination of concepts and ideas, stories and mythologies, philosophies, discourses and ideologies over long distances and spans of time. The written word was, and remains, central to the emergence and development both of ‘civilisation’ and of ‘politics’ as we understand those terms today.

For many centuries to come, however, the copying and transmission of the written word remained a highly labour-intensive and time-consuming task, limiting access to information and knowledge even among the literate minority. The invention of the printing press and moveable typeface in the fifteenth century made possible the mass production of relatively inexpensive books and other printed materials for the first time. The printing press facilitated wider public participation in politics, by facilitating the creation of a ‘public sphere’ of debate and discourse distinct from the official narrative of the government of the day. Printing dramatically changed the landscape of political and religious debate, and was at the heart of the intellectual shift from the mediaeval to the early modern world. A large body of historical research suggests that printing was a key enabler in the post-mediaeval development and dissemination of new ideas, leading to the rise of subversive movements and challenges to the existing religious, social and political order (see Dittmar and Skipper 2019).

While printing remained the main format for mass messages for many years afterwards, the nineteenth century saw the advent of the earliest electronic communications systems – the telegraph, and later the telephone – technologies that enabled near-instant communication over vast distances for the first time in human history. For the first time, ambassadors could remain in direct real-time contact with their political superiors over vast distances, and journalists could report home news for immediate publication (Solymar 2000). Only a few decades after the invention of telegraphy, wireless communications began to supplant the wire-based telegraph. In the first decades of the twentieth century, as a development of these advancements, broadcast media – initially radio, later television – began to supplant the printed press as the main source of news and information for the masses. Television, in particular, became one of the main sources of social reference points, and had a huge impact on the shaping of political discourse. It changed the way that political campaigns were run, and arguably changed the very nature of party politics and the political profession itself, contributing to the rise of the ‘electoral-professional’ model of party politics (Panebianco 1982: 481-487). Professional media managers became more important, with an increasing focus on controlling and stage-managing media events, to the point where policy decisions may be actively influenced by ‘how it will look on TV’. By the late twentieth century, television had become so influential that it had essentially become a part of the political system.

Each of these historical communications revolutions thus had a huge impact upon the political sphere. The Internet is proving to be equally transformative. Over the past two to three decades, our societies have become critically dependent (perhaps overdependent) on computer networks that control much of our infrastructure. As a result, ‘cyber policy’ cannot be neatly separated from other areas of public policy, but interacts with almost every other area of governance, from health to education, public services, economic development, environmental policy, national security and ultimately the basic functioning of the political system itself. Decisions around Internet governance can determine which groups and organisations are able to access, control and benefit from digital resources and opportunities, and which ones are not. They have implications for the right to access information and knowledge; and they can effectively determine which viewpoints and voices will be heard, and which ones will be marginalised and silenced. Depending on the policy choices that are made, the digital revolution has the potential to challenge existing inequalities and power relationships, or to reinforce and exacerbate them (see White 2018).

Like broadcast media before, the Internet has also changed social norms and expectations. Online media have, for many people, supplanted broadcast and print media as their primary means of accessing information, and, like earlier media, they can have a profound influence on shaping political discourse and behaviour. Online channels have the potential to influence public opinion through selective representation (or misrepresentation) of facts and the presentation of a biased or even false narrative. Recent studies have found such practices to be on the increase, with escalating use of such techniques by political parties and governments across a growing number of countries (Bradshaw and Howard 2019). More sophisticated and targeted techniques for manipulating thought and opinion at the individual level are available through the power of online surveillance and big data (Hersh 2015). There are already known instances where the use of such techniques may have successfully influenced democratic processes such as elections and referendums (US National Intelligence Council 2021; UK Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament 2020). Aside from the obvious implications for democracy and the legitimacy of electoral outcomes, mass surveillance and manipulation techniques have also opened up new privacy and human rights concerns.

Furthermore, decisions around Internet governance have significant import for matters of security. The Internet has great potential as a facilitator of the peacebuilding process, but it can also be used as a tool of oppression, a channel for disinformation and propaganda, and even as a means of waging war (see White 2019: 441). Increasingly sophisticated cyberwarfare techniques and cyberweapons are being rapidly developed, and in some cases deployed, both by states and nonstate actors. Cyberwarfare has the potential to produce very real consequences in the real, physical world. Not only could cyberattacks directly cause large scale disruption and even significant loss of life, they could also bring about political destabilisation and escalation that could lead to conventional kinetic warfare. These dangers should not be underestimated or taken lightly.

As with previous communications revolutions, the Internet is thus bringing profound social and political changes. Much of my own research, including the articles referenced above, is focused on questions around how best to manage these challenges. In a forthcoming paper, I will show why governments, both individually and collectively, are fundamentally ill-suited to deal with the challenges of this evolving issue-area. As a truly borderless global medium, the Internet is largely incompatible with a territorial statist model, and its governance requirements are not well served by governments pursuing ‘national’ interests. At the same time, the current ‘multistakeholder’ model of Internet governance raises certain issues of its own, including questions around accountability and corporate capture. My aim is to explore these questions and consider potential solutions, based on an innovative approach to the democratisation of Internet governance institutions and empowerment of the Internet-using global citizenry.

Beyond Internet governance, humanity faces a growing list of other global challenges requiring truly global responses. Successful innovations in Internet governance may demonstrate that nonstate approaches can be workable and practical, perhaps lighting the way for rethinking governance in other issue-areas. Far from being merely a niche technical area, Internet governance is thus at the cutting edge of contemporary global politics, and developments in this issue-area may significantly influence the broader course of global political history. I believe that the academic community has the potential to make a significant contribution to this process. Increased engagement and dialogue between the IR and Internet governance communities would be beneficial to both, and may help to shape scholarly understanding as well as to inform developments at a practical level.