Critical Appraisal: ICT's Impact on Politics, Economics, and War

This essay critically appraises the statement that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has reduced geography and physical distance in politics, economics, and war, and has reduced territory less important than in any previous historical epoch. The essay explores the multifaceted impact of ICT across these domains, examining both positive and negative consequences. In politics, it discusses how ICT facilitates wider reach for political parties, enables citizen mobilization, and influences election campaigns, while also acknowledging the negative impacts such as data breaches and misinformation. In economics, the essay highlights ICT's role in simplifying trade, increasing productivity, and creating new wealth, alongside potential drawbacks like job displacement. The analysis of ICT's role in war considers its contributions to improved communication, surveillance, and weapon systems, as well as its use by terrorist groups and its impact on the nature of conflict. The essay concludes by emphasizing the transformative effect of ICT on reducing geographical and physical distance, altering the importance of territory, and reshaping the living standards of people.

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“Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has reduced geography and physical
distance in politics, economics and war and has reduced territory less important than in any
previous historical epoch”.
In the present era, the use of information and communication technology has been
enhanced. But it has been noted that it has impacted geography and also physical distance in
politics, economies and war. ICT is known as one of the popular sources in context to
technologies and it provide proper access to the information with the help of telecommunication.
The sources like internet, mobiles phones and other medium of communication are used in ICT
(TechTarget, 2018). So, the discussion in this paper will be on the concept of ICT which will be
related with geography, politics, economies and war.
In context to politics, geography and physical distance has been reduced as through
information and communication technologies it can be easy for the people to interact to the large
mass of audience in an easy manner. Geography and physical distance in geography in context to
politics has been impacted. If politics is taken into consideration it can be stated that ICT has
impacted the overall activities in both positive and negative manner. Through ICT it is examined
that the reach has been enhanced; now different parties in politics can reach the large audience in
less time and also with less cost (Spiekermann et al., 2015). Through internet or through
messages the parties can share their messages with the large audience. In 2008, U.S presidential
campaign was done in which the campaign of Obama used Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
This source assisted in securing the historic victory of the president Barak Obama (Ollo-López
and Aramendía-Muneta, 2012).
In 2012, the Obama’s campaign encouraged small donations using the social media and
mobile platform. They enhanced approximately $1 Billion in the overall contribution. The
presidential elections also showcased the significance of the big data and the campaign was done
state by state election data and also by considering the opinion of the public (Sørensen, 2016).
Also, internet offers a platform to the citizens to mobilize and voice their opinions which also
being improvisation in the human rights. Information technology techniques are influencing the
political events on the global platform and also it has offered welfare to the individuals. Social
media is considered as the tools that reconnect the citizens with the overall process of democracy
in context to both the political parties. YouTube and Twitter are the major tools of
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communication which are considered by the governments and dissidents like it has been
observed in Libyan and Syrian (Kleinsman and Buckley, 2015).
But in context to ICT, the negative has been also observed on the overall framework of
politics. The Facebook Cambridge analytical data scandal was one of the political scandals
which took place in 2018 (Think, 2018). In this it has been noted that Cambridge analytica have
leaked the personal information of the large number people from their Facebook profiles and it
was done without the consent of the people and the information was used for the political
purposes. In this case, 50 million of the Facebook profile information was taken by the British
Firm (Think, 2018). It is also considered the data brokerage communication with assisted the
election of the recent US president Donald Trump (Guardian, 2018). The information which was
extracted by the British company assisted Donald Trump for getting votes for the post of the
President in United States. So, this was the case which took place and has negatively impacted
the large audience. This incident took place with the help of information and communication
technology. So, in context to political parties, ICT has negative as well as positive impact and
therefore it can be stated that it has reduced the geography and physical distance (Isaak and
Hanna, 2018).
In relation to economies, it has been observed that with the help if ICT, the overall
process of trading is simplified. Through information and communication technology, the
opportunity is with the companies to enhance their trading activities. It can be stated that
digitalization has focused on the overall growth in productivity in the US economy and also it
can be easy for the companies to manage the entire activities by using the concept of ICT
(CompTia, 2018). With the net impact of digitalization it has been seen that there is substantially
enhancement in the productivity and also it creates trillions of dollars of new wealth. In the
market the technology economy has an important role as it measure the overall market economy.
The largest index in the market is of Dow and Jones industrial average and S&P 500 have
changed. The tech powerhouse like Apple and Amazon stocks are valued more. Apple covers a
large market share as they focus on considering information and communication technology
(Bloom et al., 2014).
In context to information and technology economy, it has been seen that IT companies
are spending their higher volume in which the activities are related to data centers, networks and
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outsourcing the IT services (Speakingtree, 2018). These activities are managed and controlled
with the help of information and communication technologies. In the present era, the volume is
USD6 trillion per year. If global technology is considered in context to the GDP it can be stated
that China and Japan are more twice then the UK economy (The Guardian, 2018). Also, by
considering ICT it can be analyzed that impact is on the currency exchange and now the overall
activities can be tracked by sitting anywhere in the world. The share value is also one of the
factors which have been impacted by the ICT. The distance has been reduced as people can track
the value of share easily with the proper access of the internet. It has been observed that
investment in ICT helps to contribute in the entire capital deepening and also it helps to enhance
the productivity level (Gatautis et al., 2015).
Also, with the help of information and communication technologies the downstream
sector has been encouraged to enhance the overall capital spending. Also, there is decrease in the
prices of ICT which result in the capital deepening and contributed towards the growth of the
labor productivity. Through ICT the job opportunity for the people has been enhanced which
offer employment to the individuals in the highly competitive market but it can be one of the
negative aspect. So, from this it can be stated that information and communication has reduced
the distance in reference to the economy (Gërguri‐Rashiti et al.,2017).
But in context to the overall economy there are various drawbacks which are analyzed in
the prospective of ICT. It has been examined that ICT has negatively impacted the overall jobs
of the individuals. This has led to the economic consequences in relation to the loss of income
and also impacted the status of the people (BBC, 2018). In context to ICT, job loss can take
place due to various reasons like manual operations being replaced by automation. Like robots
can be replaced by the people. Also through ICT it can be easy for the company to send the data
processing work to the country where the entire cost is low. Due to this the overall economy has
been affected by ICT. Therefore, it can be stated that through ICT, geography and physical
distance has been reduced as it can be seen that people have the opportunity to work but on the
other hand it can threaten the job of the people in the highly competitive market (Martin, Borah
and Palmatier, 2017).
If ICT is taken into consideration in context to war, the communication and flow of
information has reduced the war between the different countries (Chow, 2018). From telegraph,
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radio, film and television to the internet it can be stated that it plays an integral role in
representing the war. The ICT has brought improvisation in communication process, surveillance
and weapon system. With the help of ICT it can be easy to control the war and also it helps the
countries to communicate their views and opinion with each other. Also, with the help of ICT
technologies the President of US was able to see the war live which helped in considering the
right strategies to reduce the overall conflict taking place at that time (Castonguay, 2008).
But on the other hand ICT has negatively impacted the war. In the present scenario,
terrorists are using the new technologies for attaching the specific area. The terrorists are using
the technology of the military and also the internet is one of the best sources of the virtual
learning which is used by the slot of the terrorist groups (Mauroni, 2018). It can be stated that
internet serves as the library for the groups of terrorist as it offers them instruction manuals and
videos on technical and tactical areas (Harrison, 2018). Like the videos are related to making a
bomb, taking hostages and guerilla combat. The terrorists consider the benefit of interaction face
of internet to grab the information related to how to make a bomb and also the messages are
transferred immediately to the instructors. The terrorist can grab the information and can also
train themselves according to the military forces. It has impacted and enhanced the threat for the
people who are living in the society. It has reduced the gap and physical distance (Tarutė and
Gatautis, 2014). So, due to the ICT technologies’ the attacks has been enhanced in the society
and it has affected the living standard of the people.
It can be stated that in the present scenario, ICT has reduced territory less important than
any other historical epoch. It can be noted that with the help of information and communication
technology people can interact with each other from any place at the global platform. It has
reduced the distance among the people (TechTarget, 2018). By living in different territories has
no relevance as the use of ICT has been enhanced in the present scenario and also it has
minimized the distance and gap of the people living far away as now people can interact easily
through video calls or through social media sites. In the earlier times, the use of ICT is not more
so the importance of territories is more. To interact with each other people have to visit each
other place and then they are able to share their views and opinions. But now through social
media sites and through mobile technology it can be simple to communicate and also they can
transfer the information to each other easily (Selwyn, 2012).
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So, it can be stated that in the present scenario, the use of ICT has reduced the gap of
geography and physical distance in politics, economics and war and has reduced territory less
important than in any previous historical epoch. In context to politics it can be easy for the
political parties to interact with the large audience and also they can take votes by interacting
with the people through social media channels. The impact has been seen on the economy as the
demand for the jobs has been enhanced with the use of ICT.
It can be seen that due to the enhancement in the overall ICT process the change has
been seen in the changing mindset of the people (TechTarget, 2018). Also in reference to war,
ICT has enhanced the war between the countries as for terrorist it can be easy now to gain the
information and they train themselves by considering the training given to the soldiers. It has
enhanced the terrorist attack but also it is convenient for the higher authorities to analyze the war
situation which took place in the society (Mauroni, 2018). Therefore, it can be stated that ICT
has brought drastic change and also impacted the overall activities in a positive manner. So, the
living standard has also been changed by considering the use of information and technologies in
the highly competitive market.
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