社群媒體對當代民主國家的機會與挑戰

Opportunities and challenges that social media bring to modern democratic countries

葉姵妏(Pei-Wen Yeh)

《全球政治評論》 76期 (2021/10) Pp. 85-99

摘要

社群媒體對於當代民主國家產生諸多影響，有學者認為，現今社群媒體的發展已出現兩面刃效應：正面部分，社群媒體能為民主政治帶來議題資訊揭露的快速；負面部分，社群媒體助長了監控機制，危及個人自主。關於此論點，學者Francis Fukuyama於2020年1月出版的《民主季刊》，有了更進一步的說明。本文也針對社群媒體究竟對當代民主國家產生何種機會與挑戰進行分析，並進一步探討社群媒體如何強化威權韌性與衝擊民主政治，以及觀察威權體制與民主國家面對社群媒體的因應方式。本文研究發現，社群媒體在過去扮演了提供人們資訊並賦予民間社會權力的正向角色。然而，現今社群媒體操縱特定的議題來塑造社會輿論，侵害人民隱私權，成為了影響威權體制與民主國家政治信息運營的工具，亦即只要掌握社群媒體就能操控人們的情緒與偏好，對於強化威權國家的威權韌性與衝擊自由民主政治的運作帶來極大的影響。

關鍵字

社群媒體 ； 威權韌性 ； 民主政治

並列摘要

Social media bring a lot of impacts to modern democratic countries. Some scholars believe the development of social media nowadays have created the effect of double-edged sword. On the positive side, social media can instantly disclose information for issues in democratic politics. On the negative side, social media encourage the development of monitoring mechanism and endanger personal autonomy. About this argument, scholar Francis Fukuyama, provided a further explanation in ＂Democracy Quarterly＂ published in January 2020. The article also carried out analysis on the opportunities and challenges that social media bring to modern democratic countries as well as further discussed how social media strengthen authoritarian resilience and affect democratic politics. In addition, the article also observed the coping methods towards social media in authoritarian regime and in democratic countries. The study reveals social media played a positive role of providing people information and empowering the civil society in the past. However, social media nowadays manipulate specific issues to create public opinions and invade people's right of privacy. It has become a tool that affects the operation of political information in authoritarian regime and in democratic countries. That is, people's emotion and preference can be manipulated as long as you can control the social media, which brings great impact on the strengthening of authoritarian resilience in authoritarian countries and the operation of liberal democracy.

並列關鍵字

Social Media ； Authoritarian Resilience ； Democratic Politics