Internet, Public Sphere and Political Marketing: Between the Promotion of Communication and Moralist Solipsism

Abstract

The empirical basis of this article is taken from material that circulated on the Internet during the campaign for the referendum on whether to ban the sale of firearms and ammunition to civilians, which took place in Brazil on the 23rd of October, 2005, and resulted in a landslide NO vote against arms trade prohibition. The aim of the paper is to use the experience of the aforementioned referendum to analyze the impact exerted by the Internet on political dynamics and the public sphere. The paper begins with a short discussion of existing views on the impact of the Internet on politics and it is followed by an introduction to political marketing and the Internet. In the third section I analyze the official websites, followed by a forth section on the use of SPAMS in the campaign. In the conclusions I argue that the over-optimistic forecasts maintaining that new communication technologies would enhance democracy, as is widely claimed in the literature on this issue, have been to some extent wishful thinking and should be contrasted against the backdrop of historical experience. The political uses of the Internet in the referendum show a far more complex reality. Alongside the Internet’s positive aspects are also negative ones, such as its potential to harm the public sphere.