La place du pouvoir et ses différentes formes - synthèse en anglais

Notion :

First of all, I would like to give u a quick def of the notion Places & forms of power. 'Places' could represent important buildings or institutions that represent a certain form of power for example the English Parliament or the White House. A place could also be a region, a city, a state, New York, Washington. And 'Power' mean the ability to control, to make things happen despite the obstacles or opposition. Power could provokes fighting, discontent, between an huge force and the one under control. Nowadays to prevent this conflicts we made laws and we have places of power, like count or prison.

I would like to illustrate this notion through the theme of the using of social media.

Pb : So, we may wonder in what extent have new technologies empowered citizens ?

In the 21st century, digital technology is everywhere. Anyone can now communicate with anyone else in the world, almost instantaneously, regardless of place or time. This means that citizens throughout the world have the power to bring about change.

In our society we are empowered citizens. We have the power to record, share information thanks to social media. In the past only mainstream media could do that. Nowadays, with the journalists, there are witnesses, nothing can be hide. It's more than difficult for the journalists and even the regimes to lie. Citizens get much power, it's difficult for regimes to control the flow of information. With the expansion of the web, the new technologies, like the smartphones and the easiest access to media, they are less expensive and for the smartphones they are smaller the simple citizen could become citizens journalists. They can help to filling the blank, when the information are not completely transmitted, when journalists are blocked in their works because they can't going where they want to go. In some case they give true to life information. It's a sure place, where it's more easier to give an opinion and to share them. Because you can hide your identity and you just have a screen in front of you, which can't judge or say anything in reaction to the fact that are done on them.

It's useful in some case, when people haven't others ways to be inform, aware of big issues. Digital media enable to have an access to real time information.

This not replace the system but sometimes contest it and we need to have this because the others media are a part of the system and when these media doesn't cover people in a fair light, the desire isn't to shame them it's to create an alternative.

But they could be a real threat, they could encourage acts of violence. They enable people to gather, sometimes to cause mass looting. They allows people to share too much private information, after the people concerned are ashamed and have committed suicide, for example Amanda Todd. They enable people to comment on the news, on the profiles, and their comments may be mean. Social media are powerful tools to launch gossip. People may spy on other people and it may be hazardous. The data may be stolen and then there are leaks, for example with the recent sharing of celebrities' nude pictures. The using of social media may be turned into propaganda and could knock down an institution. And in this case they are misused.

It's useful in the education, let people be open-minded, let people realize that there are others like them, who think the same. It's allow to confront different opinions , it's a place of debate and which could led to a social progress, positive or negative. But

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