Cyberdemocracy And The Public Sphere

In America's early days, the public sphere -- the crossroads where citizens gathered to conduct civics -- meant town halls, taverns and churches. Media, especially TV, became the common civic sphere a generation ago. Soon, the country's new public sphere will be the Net, ironically more like the taverns and town halls than people might think.

Any discussion of the revitalization of democracy, especially via cyber-democracy, starts with the public sphere -- the crossroads where citizens gather to discuss and conduct civic affairs. In America's earlier days, the public sphere was the New England town hall, the village church, tavern, union hall, park or street corner.

Those places still exist, but they no longer serve as centers for political discussion. Political scientists have argued for years that the media -- especially TV -- have replaced those spaces as the country's new public sphere. Until the l980's, that made sense; the vast majority of Americans received their political information via one of the three commercial TV newscasts -- ABC, CBS or NBC. Now only a fraction of Americans (recent Pew Center for Media Research surveys suggest about 18%) watch network newscasts regularly. Few younger people watch them at all.

My belief: As it grows, the Net is already replacing conventional media as our new public sphere, the new national gathering place. Roughly half the country's population is now wired, according to the most recent data, and computing is becoming more readily available in offices, factories, homes, libraries and schools. A number of companies -- Ford, Delta, Intel -- have begun offering computing equipment and free Net access to workers. And the price of computing is eventually expected to drop.

Cyberdemocracy could, theoretically, re-democratize politics and media, giving each citizen the opportunity to research, talk, speak and vote online from his home or office. The Net has already undermined a number of taboos and institutions, from restrictions on sexual discussions to investing. In fact, it seems inevitable politics will be transformed. At that point, our notion of civic discourse will change completely. So, perhaps will such outmoded ideas as having only two significant political parties, or considering all issues from the journalistic and political vantage of a "left" or a "right." The corporatization both of mainstream media and national politics could also come under challenge in so individualized a medium.

Much of the little civic discussion we've heard about the political impact of the Net has focused on crime (thwarting theft or online predators), security (encryption), the rotting of young brains, intellectual property and commerce along with the usual predictions of impending chaos.

Such issues are too narrow, suggests Mark Poster, who teaches at UCLA/Irvine. His essay, "Cyberdemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere," appears in one of the best collections of techno-writing -- "Internet Culture", published several years ago, edited by David Porter and published by Routledge Press.

Though the Net works with and extends existing social functions, Poster writes, "What are far more cogent as possible long-term political effects of the Internet are the ways in which it institutes new social functions," don't mesh easily with contemporary organizations and institutions.

Existing politics and ideologies appear restrictive and antideluvian, especially in the face of cyberspace, which breeds diverse points of view, individual expression, and the kind of free flow of ideas almost nonexistent in Washington's Media/Politics machine. Political theorists and cyber-scholars argued a decade ago that traditional political authority and conventional two-party politics couldn't withstand so much individualistic thinking and grassroots participation. It's still not completely clear whether that's so.

But if the ongoing presidential campaign provides any indication, that day may be drawing closer. The approximately 78 million Americans aged 21 and younger now account for 28% of the population. What TV was to Boomers, computers are to their kids. This striking new reality appears largely lost on the candidates, their parties and the media that cover them. Politicians prattle on about Net obsession and and violence-inducing pop culture, while that culture has never been richer and violence among kids has plummeted in recent years.

So far this fall, months of campaigning and tens of millions of dollars in marketing, research and advertising has yet to produce an original or significant idea, let alone a rational solution to any political issues. Poster writes that the terms "left" and "right", which form the boundaries of the co-produced nightmare Americans call politics don't derive from ideology, but from the seating arrangements of legislators during the French Revolution.

Will the Net change any of this? Maybe. The Net disrupts many basic assumptions about politics. The Net is a vast de-centralized communications system. As a historian, Poster says he finds nothing about the Net more fascinating than its emergence from a collection of cultural communities that had little in common: The Cold War-era Defense Department, which promoted decentralized communications to survive a nuclear attack; "the counter-cultural ethos" of computer programmers and engineers, with its aversion to censorship; and "the world of university research, which I am at a loss to characterize."

Poster might have connected the Net to the early "tavern" model of civics. Both involved small communities coming together; both were fractious, even hostile in their style of discourse. He might also have added several other founding streaks; cyber-gurus and hippies, spin-offs of the demoralized 60's idealists who saw their revolution fading after the end of the Vietnam war, and the heady moral glow of the civil rights era, and who fantasized about utopian and electric communities. And most importantly, the hackers, perhaps the most political of all, who adopted the then-profoundly radical idea that information want and ought to be free. It turned out to be one of the truly revolutionary social impulses, and one that's proving true.

But although the Net's political implications of the Net are potentially enormous, we don't even have a social context in which to think about them. "The only way to define the technological effects of the Internet," Poster writes, "is to build the Internet, to set in place a series of relations which constitute an electronic geography. Put differently, the Internet is more like a social space than a thing..." That's why it's real implications are passed over in political discussions in favor of exploitive issues like moral values and child safety.

But as Poster points out, the issue at the heart of any discussion of a re-democratization of democracy is civics. Questions of "talk," of meeting face-to-face, of "public" discourse get confused and complicated. If "public" discourse exists as pixels on screens generated at remote locations by individuals one has never met and probably never will, then how will public communications be distinguished from private and personal ones? This isn't, of course, unique to the Net.

If the Net becomes the new public sphere, then everyone with technology will have new opportunities to participate -- but not in the personal, way that once characterized politics. This may not prove as big a chance as it appears. Once the town meeting gave way to the TV network, politics had already become impersonal and elitist. TV raised some of the same issues, sans interactivity and linkage.

For some time, national politics have been a co-production of Washington politicians and lobbyists and Washington journalists. The public has been relegated, reduced to anonymous polling figures and truncated sound bites. In recent years, a third party -- corporations, now the primary funders of politics -- have entered the equation, further diminishing the public's role and its interest in the process. As media has also become corporatized, conventional politics seems almost to have cleaved away from much of the populace, an incestuous ritual that seems closed off to most of us, even though we still have the right to vote.

The Net can only increase citizen interest and participation in politics, as Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura's successful online gubernatorial candidacy demonstrated. Online politics is inclusive, participatory, interactive and convenient. Political Web sites teem with discussion and commentary. It would be simpler to register and vote from a home or office computer than in the conventional way, especially if cyberspace becomes the public sphere. If it's a less personal style of politics that existed a couple of hundred years ago, it may be more inclusive and interactive than the current process.

The Net is much closer to the original model of the civic sphere --the tavern/union hall cohort -- than political scientists might think. Weblogs like camworld, myvideogames.com and kro5shin.or are the digital equivalent of taverns, are sites from chickclicker.com to advogato.org, everything2.com, even my.marijuana.com. CNN and Usatoday.com might be the equivalent of the town hall, Slashdot a busy village watering hole where people come to trade information and brawl. Slate, Salon and Inside.com are the rarified, genteel taverns of the Old Guard. People are often raucous, discussion chaotic, but those are signs of interest and vitality as well as trouble and dissonance. And the new taverns are hyper-linked to one another, a completely new reality.

The "magic" of the Internet is that it is puts "cultural acts, symbolizations in all forms, in the hands of all participants; it radically decentralizes the positions of speech, publishing, film-making, radio and television broadcasting..."

One change likely to arise from cyber-democracy is that the nature of authority will change. The Net discourages endowing individuals with inflated status. Just look at scholarly research, being challenged and reformed by the dissemination of texts via the Net. Political authority, Poster argues, will be reformed in much the same way. This argument is a bit problematic. Corporations are a lot more powerful and politically effective than academics. They manipulate politics and the law all the time, as the Microsoft experience and the free music wars have amply demonstrated.

Cyber-democracy is as good a term for that process as any. Day by day, the Net is becoming the primary, increasingly universal public sphere in the United States, and will likely be for much of the rest of the world. Given the relentless decentralization of the Net, the moral and political authority of Washington-style politics and conventional media may be replaced by a more informal, rational, accountable system. No utopia, and the cybersphere will raise as many problems and challenges as it resolves. But week by week, the Jurassic-era Bush-Gore-Nader/media proceedings may be among the the last of their kind. Good riddance.

Comments

Mark Poster's article online

[NoInfo]

Some context... CyberDemocracy: Internet and the Public Sphere is here: http://www.humanities.uci.edu/mposter/writings/dem oc.html

The net lets the disaffected connect

[Hairy_Potter]

Prior to the net, if your politics were outside the mainstream, be you a Gus Hall loving Commie or a die hard Joh Bircher, you had a lot of trouble finding kindred souls unless you moved to Cambridge, Mass or Montana. Now, you can instantly electronically commune with similarly disaffected souls.

I think it's inevitable that politic groups will splinter into thousands of smaller groups, though I don't know if this is good or not. It may be okay for a smaller country like France, Italy or the UK to have lots of small political parties that govern by coalition, and can fall overnight with a call for new elections, but that might be hazardous for America and world security.

The world looks to America for stability, and the world likes knowing that whatever president we elect will be for a strong military, pro-corporate democracy and the mass media. The world likes knowing an American president will stay in power for 4 years, ome hell or highwater.

If America starts acting like one of those second rate NATO countries that change government monthly, there might be less security and more unrest in the world, and that would be bad.

Thanks,

Re:The net lets the disaffected connect

[Tuxedo Mask]

Now, you can instantly electronically commune with similarly disaffected souls.

You can, but no one cares to. Politics thrives on argument and dissention. There are even people who wander from message board to message board on the web, trying to stir up completely meaningly controversy -- and people love it! Sites like slashdot are not popular because people are interested in meeting like-minded individuals and thoughtfully discuss the world's problems. No, they are popular because people have an inborn desire to beat other opinions down.

That is the essence of politics. That is the essence of trolling.

If America starts acting like one of those second rate NATO countries that change government monthly, there might be less security and more unrest in the world, and that would be bad. No disagreement there. I'm sick of hearing how superior the European system is, on every subject from dentistry to particle physics. It's no accident that we build Fords, while they drive Fiats and Yugos.

Re:The net lets the disaffected connect

[FallLine]

Ask France what it thinks of "American stability". Hell, ask American victims such as Panama what it thinks.

I admit, the US screwed over much of South and Latin America. However, the fact of the matter is that we didn't do it for shits and grins; we were fighting the Cold War. It was serious business, despite the revisionist history of some recent historians. Now maybe the United States made some mistakes, even towards its objective of containment, but once a situation reaches a certain threshold there isn't a rewind button; sometimes you simply don't have another choice.

Anyways, this has nothing to do with "American stability." America's government was fundamentally stable throughout. The actions taken during that time are largely extraneous to the question of American stability.

As an American, I think it's high time we started acting "like one of those second rate NATO countries". The stability you speak of is STASIS, and it's maintained by an oligarchy of fascist capitalists.

Sure whatever. I'd rather live in this static republic than the highly volatile governments of most of Europe's democracies. Universal healthcare and such may sound like a dream at first glance, but when you start looking at what it is in actuality, and what it actually costs, it's less than absolutely desirable. When you examine the amount of damage these various coalition goverments have imposed, I suspect even you would reconsider.

Re:The net lets the disaffected connect

[FallLine]

This is apology for atrocity, not a testament to American stability. The REASON you've got it so fine is BECAUSE of those "mistakes" made in the Cold War.

What is that supposed to mean? I said the events in South America are largely extraneous. In other words, it neither contributes nor takes away from the notion that the United States has an extremely stable goverment.

I suppose you believe that dropping the Bomb on Japan was justified, too.

That's an entirely different subject, but yes. I do think it was necessary, with some reservations.

All of which puts the lie into Katz's view of the Internet as savior. Yes, people talk here, but they act and think as they always did.

I disagree with Katz on almost everything, especially this notion. The internet is not a savior. In fact, I believe it'll ultimately pale in comparison to the effect of the telephone on the world.

Re:The net lets the disaffected connect

[FallLine]

I never said the _only_ time the US screwed anyone ever over was during the Cold War. But the fact is that the bulk of the problems in more recent times came then, especially the more popular ones that academics like to complain about. Anyways, if you want to be technical, Haiti is neither South America or Latin America, it is the Caribbean and it has a totally different culture. Nor did I say, or imply, that the US is perfectly ethical. Quite the contrary, I actually said the US did less than desirable things out of self interest.

What I do dispute vigorously is the assertion that the United States is internally stable because of some of our past "imperialistic" escapades. It's absolutely unsupported by the facts and there are many more probable reasons for our success. For instance, less than 20% of our exports go to the whole of South America, Latin America, and other nations on the western hemisphere, and an even smaller percentage of our imports comes from them. Do they have an effect on our economy? Sure. Is the success of our economy contingent on them? Definetely not, we'd still be considered very successfull even if you took that away. Furthermore, there are plenty of other non-economic reasons that account for our stability. i.e., the two party system, the balance of powers, a strong constitution, an abiding faith in our system, etc etc etc

Re:The net lets the disaffected connect

[FallLine]

They are not extraneous. The stability of the US government DEPENDS on keeping foreign people's under its boot. If those countries were not exposed to the neo-liberal policies of the US which--like the British Empire in India--GUARANTEE a market for their company's goods, your "stability" goes bye-bye. The US did this with the Philippines, Hawaii, Guatemala, the list goes on and on. Here, inside the Plastic Bubble, things look and feel great (comparatively), and these aggressions are justified, in Orwellian fashion, as "defending democracy" and "enhancing stability". The question is: stability for whom? The obvious answer is: US, and us alone.

Bull. Less than 20% of our exports go to South America, Latin America, and other countries in the Western hemisphere. In addition, those countries that we have most control over also tend to be the most minor economically, by any measure (i.e., agricultural production, imports, exports, etc). This does not mean the US has never done anything immoral, but THAT IS irrelevant to the question of the internal stability of the United States. To excuse the stability of the US when those countries play such a minor economic role and ignore the many other undeniable unique features of our political and government system is foolish.

Like all imperialistic states, the US is a predator, and it chooses the weakest of enemies to pick on or exploit. THAT is what makes this country stable--the combination of US force of arms and the willingness to use them against defeated/weaker opponents (the Bomb in Japan and depleted uranium shells in Iraq), and the corresponding largesse its economic policies (armed extortion) lavishes on its own populace. If you believe otherwise, congratulations, you're the perfect US citizen.

I don't agree with all US foreign policy. In fact, I happen to think much of it is il-concieved, unfair, and sometimes even immoral. However, it's just plain wrong to say that these, and other acts, in modern times, were all done out of imperial motives. There are plenty of other reasons.

If you believe otherwise, congratulations, you're the perfect US citizen.

I'm not trying to be a smart-ass or put you down or anything, but you really need to start thinking outside of the box the American Intelligensia has fostered on you.

Ah the common rejoinder of radical liberals. If you don't agree with my view, you must be a lamb or _insert other noun or adjective_.

And where does the term "public sphere" originate

[sqlgeek]

From Jurgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere "The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people come together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor. The medium of this political confrontation was peculiar and without historical precedent: people's public use of their reason (öffentliches Räsonnement). In our [German] usage this term (i.e., Räsonnement unmistakable preserves the polemical nuances of both sides: simultaneously the invocation of reason and its disdainful disparagement as merely malcontent griping" (27). [Like the English word, "Reflection" = thought; satire.]

Goodness gracious

[Jerf]

Why was that so long?

In recent years, people have not had a general meeting place to discuss politics, which is bad because democracies need public debate. Fortunately, the power of the net allows people to meet in many different kinds of environments that closely parellel the meeting places of old, which is good and may save democracy.

This will affect our political system in ways that nobody understands, but a lot of people think they do. It will probably diversify the discourse.

How does he expand that into that much text? I've written long things before, but usually I'm explaining the unobvious, or a whole new way of looking at the obvious. For this audience, this article is neither.

Re:Goodness gracious

[Jerf]

While I think JK writes well, and sometimes does bring something new to the story board, most of the time it seems that it's just an endless spew of redundancies.

That's my opinion in a nutshell too :-) I wish he'd write less often but better.

The Town Hall/Church Forum is not dead...

[NathanielPRobbins]

... It is just too bad young people often do not take an interest to it. You kids can accomplish more in your community by attending Church than you ever will by getting on some little chat room.

I think just about every church in this nation is trying to come up with ideas at attracting the younger generations. The problem we have, obviously, is the secular media influence (which says church is not "cool") and the fact attention spans have diminished on an exponential basis over the past couple decades. Many churches are taking the wrong steps to attract our youths. By trying to sacrifice Spripture for Rock & Roll or loud visual displays. I do not think this is the way to do it. Instead, pastors should refocus on going OUT into the community, such as we have.

To be honest, I have Saved countless more souls OUTSIDE of the Church than inside!

Re:The Town Hall/Church Forum is not dead...

[syrupMatt]

The seperation of church and state refers more to the fact that the laws of the United States must reflect secular interests more so than they do the interests of the religious majority.

While I do dislike politicans who use religion as the basis of their platform, I have no problem with a minister/preacher/rabbi/shaman/sheik whatever expressing their political views to his congregation. That right remains his/her right of Free Speech, and as such, although we may disagree with the platform that he is speaking from, we cannot argue that he DOES have the right to speak.

Also, on that same note, it is interesting to note that some of the first gatherings of revolutionary-minded people in the late 1700's were based in/on the preachings of revolutionary deacons, who used their position in front of a large number of people to spread the furvor of anti-British sentiment.

Now, as for every politican mentioning god. What do professional politicans do best? They pander to speical interest groups and large numbers of people with relatively the same beliefs. While you and i and many others may not believe in the religious that said politican is espousing, the fact is that much of America does. Not only that, but if they hold those religious views, it is again their right to state them, as long as they dont force them upon other people.

A better question to ask is to what extent do we let government control the influence of religion? At what point does religion stop being free speech?

-syrupMatt
"Moving through the masses like a fish through water."

News from the 'net

[tewl]

You really need to be careful where you get your information from on the internet.

Check to make sure it's a valid source and not just some propaganda bullshit. Unfortunately, the net makes it very easy to spread untrue information just as easy as it is to promote validated facts.

Sure, there is freedom of speech, but don't believe everything you read on the internet, what may look like valid news may actually be nothing but rumour mongerers spreading their bullshit.

For an example, check out The Drudge Report. Facts or rumours? Make sure you know who you're getting your news from.

Re:News from the 'net

[Anne Marie]

For another example, check out slashdot. Facts or rumors? Knowledge or flamebait? Experience or juvenile posturing? Check to make sure it's a valid source and not just someone trying to score up some karma.

Don't you see? By postulating what you want us to believe, you exclude our capacity for believing it, because it itself belongs to the class of memes that you're criticizing: slashdot is no less "some place you hear stuff on the web" than the Drudge report.

E-Government in the Britain

[onion2k]

Here in Britain we have an initiative called E-Government. Its an attempt by the powers that be to get the whole of the governments proceedings online and 'web-enabled'. The main push of the idea is to save some cash, but as a secondary it is also an attempt to get politics into the average householders head. So far its not been very much, the project was launched 5 years ago, and most people in the UK don't seem to have heard anything of it, but its gathering momentum. Recently Blair announced that everything the government does will be online by 2005. Everything single form, paper, bill and act will be available over the net. Its a pretty exciting time.

This kind of venture is a fantastic way of giving power back to the people. A forum for every voting person, and one in which it'll be easy to track which politician is doing what, is supposedly just around the corner. Maybe it'll fail hopelessly. I sincerely hope it works.

The official web site of the 'Office of the E-Envoy' (E-Government) is at http://www.e-envoy.gov.uk/egov_index.ht m.

A Rule of Thumb For Katz

[FallLine]

Most things in this world are they way they are for a reason. Rare is it when everything suddenly changes just because some technology was introduced. Rare is it when an issue is so simple as to only have one bad guy (i.e., "government", "corporations", "religions", etc.) Of course, Katz probably already knows this. He probably doesn't care, because making silly predictions of doom and gloom or hope is his stock and trade. First, by making these predictions Katz can target the malcontent groupthink niche that resides here on slashdot (being the only ones that'll look past your mediocre style). Second, if, by god, Katz happens to actually be even approximately right on one of these predictions he gains fame--few will remember the thousands of failed prophecies he has made.

I really wonder sometimes. Doesn't he ever want to be anything more than a hack? He may pull the wool over many slashdot kiddies eyes, but it must ring hollow, for both himself and the slashdot editors. Why can't slashdot just bite the bullet and admit that Katz is nothing but a cheap money making ploy? I can't speak for the powers that be at slashdot, but if I were them I'd want to do something that makes a positive contribution to this world, even if it is a little less profitable. Selling brain candy is not productive. Entertaning? Perhaps, but the popular media that slashdot loves to criticize does the same thing. Of course, if it's popular it must be a good thing, right?

Re:A Rule of Thumb For Katz

[CoughDropAddict]

Rare is it when everything suddenly changes just because some technology was introduced.

Thanks for reminding me that introduction of better navigational technologies didn't result in a radical increase in exploration and colonization of new lands.

Thanks for reminding me that introduction of the printing press didn't result in a radical increase of the availability of books.

I'm glad I remember now that introduction of the cotton gin didn't make production of cotton radically less expensive, and more popular.

Radio, telephone, assembly line, fiber optics, and, yes, the Internet...

(Note: ripping on Katz is not sophisticated, insightful, nor interesting. Your post could have been generated by a perl script grabbing random sentences from previous anti-Katz posts and stringing them together in random order. don't you have anything better to do?)

--

Re:A Rule of Thumb For Katz

[FallLine]

Short and sweet. Those major changes occured over how many decades and centuries? Katz makes how many predictions per week? Anyways, it's not just the predictions that I take exception with. It's the fuzzy thinking behind his predictions and even statements of the present. It's the fact that Katz probably doesn't believe what he says. It's the fact that he effectively manipulates one too many kiddies. etc etc etc

awarness isn't democracy

[Artemis Entreri]

Years ago, people relied on newspapers for their news, or at least, for news outside of their town or district. In any community, there is a percentage of people that actually get involved with local politics, and this percentage is fairly small. Most people go about their day to day lives without much interaction with the local political community. A person could read a paper, and believe that he/she was informed about politics, when in fact, he was just rehashing a summary of events.

Television brought the same thing. By having a direct connection to the news in the form of a person speaking to you with the white house in the background, you felt like you were a part of it. You could then talk about it with other people, and feel assured that you were on top of things. After time, we began to feel that it's our right to know, and it is, but it's really a right to find out. Granted, if you want to live a normal life, and have a job and a family, you don't have time to go crusading around, and digging up everything that you feel is relevant about politics today, so that's where the news comes in.

The net can be even worse, in that the sheer volume of information is staggering. But how many use the net to really exercise their democratic rights. Reading headlines and blurbs doesn't cut it. Our perceived right to information is filled if we log on to our news site every morning, and read about what john doe senator said about x situation. That's great. Ten days later, some other headline dominates our mind, just as it dominates the paper, or news channel or web site.

The net isn't going to revitalize our feelings of democracy, or incite us to become involved. It's natural progression of mediums. In the electronic age, or whatever this time period is going to be called, the net replaced the television. But people can still read good newspapers and be just as informed. I think that the people that read about news, but never actually wrote a letter to their representative, will still read the news online, and still not do anything.

The average american views the net as a tool anyway; a fancy newspaper if you will. By clicking on things, we can believe that we're getting the information that we want, not the information that's being given to us. As such, it doesn't really draw us into politics. I don't think the net is going to instill social conscience; it's just a new way to fill the void of inactivity, and this is from someone that loves computers and the internet.

Best use of Web for Democracy

[ackthpt]

Typically I refrain from discussing politics in Taverns, it interfers with beer drinking. I usually discourage it by repeatedly changing the subject (What about them Yanks? I still say they suck.) Political discourse, as I've seen it on the internet (before there as a "The Web") rarely stayed on topic and usually drove people from discussion, requiring the invocation of Godwin's Law at some point.

IMHO the true value of the Internet and Web is for research. I can access candidates pages, League of Women voters on proposals, and visit sites (like Vote Smart) which reveal the true voting records of incumbants.


--

Town meeting lives on!

[yankeehack]

In Vermont, towns across the state set aside a whole day each March to specifically allow the community as a whole to discuss and vote on local issues. News outlets cover the all day meetings. This year's town meeting day was March 7th.

I don't know how Katz did his research.

Change isn't just possible... It's necessary

[mobileunit]

If our civilization is going to last much longer, we are going to need to transfer some power from the top to the bottom. Look at the bubble economy of the last few years... We had a vast expansion of corporate and consumer debt. In May, payments on consumer debt exceeded 100% of disposable income. If consumers took out any more debt, they wouldn't be able to pay it off. Now they can't get credit to buy shiny new things, so the people who make things are going to lose their jobs.

Never mind the environmental problems, such as global warming -- now that half the north pole is going people are starting to realize that it's no joke. What about the "environmental crisis" that the mass media perpetuated on our culture? Teachers can't educate kids in schools because they're burnt out on TV. Most of us are going to die in a nursing home because family structures have been destroyed by college educations and corporate jobs that move us around the country and the world, and the television set that raises children instead of their parents.

We got into this mess because the decision makers in our society make decisions for their own personal good, not the public good. We can only get out if the people take power back. Because we're on the edge of an economic and ecological crisis which is only going to get worse if we do nothing, I think "the establishment" will find itself in a weak position and will have to let us win.

Needless to say, a lot of activists are getting involved these days, both in things like the protests that have happened in Seattle, Philadelpha, LA, Boston and Saint Louis, but also in more "square" things like the Nader campaign. If you'd like there to still be a planet to live on, you should get involved too.

Yet again

[Golias]

(sigh) yet another pontification about how "It's All Changing Because Of The Internet".

I have two counterpoints to make:

1. Nothing on the net is new. SSDM (Same Shit, Different Media)

2. Use of the prefix "Cyber" in front of any English word should not get past the Slash lameness filter. Katz has been writing in this forum long enough that he ought to know how ignorant he sounds when trying to coin a term like "Cyber-democracy". Yuck!

Jesse the Gov

[jcw2112]

It seems to me that everyone wants to use Gov. Jesse Ventura as an example for just about everything that is right or wrong with the political process. As a (sadly) former Minnesotan who did in fact vote for Ventura, I have to say that his online capaign (there WAS one?!?) had little or nothing to do with his election to the post of governor.

Rather, I think it has everything to do with average folks feeling disenfranchised and finally taking an iterest because there was actually a choice.

Maybe the Net will help this along. Maybe there will spring up a spirit of community that will bring some real choices to the polls...

But I think that the true root cause of change will have more to do with the serious lack of choices and less to do with whether or not you are jacked in.

As always, I could be wrong.

People don't use the 'net for political news

[KNicolson]

JK said: Now only a fraction of Americans (recent Pew Center for Media Research surveys suggest about 18%) watch network newscasts regularly. Few younger people watch them at all.

I read ;on the BBC a few weeks ago that 50% of the US voters base their opinions on Saturday Night Live and other similar "political" shows, and it jumps up to 80% for the under 30s. Yes, they seem to be deserting the traditional news sources, but don't assume they are flocking to rational debate on the web.

"Ventura's on-line campaign"

[Paul Neubauer]

While Jesse Ventura did have a web site that was more than 'vote for me' and 'send me a check' that was likely not the deciding factor. The traditional campaign methods were.

Here's my experience:

First hearing Jesse Ventura is running.. and thinking "Oh, brother, an ex-pro wrestlier? Nutcase. Next."

But then I started hearing radio interviews with the candidates.. and one was making a lot of sense. It was only at the very end that I found out the sensible one was named Ventura. He also did soemthing else amazing. When someone asked him about something he didn't know about, he came right out and said he didn't know know about it. No bluffing, no BS, just a very honest answer. The press was stunned into silence for a moment.

He made few campaign promises, and wouldn't let the press badger him into making more. It was fun to hear him ask a reporter what part of "no" he didn;t understand. Jesse explained that he only made promises he knew he could keep.

And then I heard a debate. Both the Republican and the Democratic tended to respond with "You're right, Jesse, but..." and then went at each other. Jesse didn't step in. There was the issue of public funding for a new Twins stadium. The Republican wanted to fund it one way. The Democrat wanted to fund it another way. Jesse suggested that maybe they could "..build there own damn stadium." And right there I stopped wondering if I should I vote for him.

By election day the polls showed each with roughly 30-33%, taking into account the margin of error. It was a real three-way race. And then the only polls that really matter opened... and it wasn't so close any more.

The Big Two parties took away one lesson from this: Don't let a third candidate into your debates. They did NOT learn the lesson the voters wanted them to learn, which is that we want someone who is honest (love him, hate him, think he's an idiot, you never doubt where Jesse stands - he tells you and doesn't give a damn if that bothers anyone), who understands that the government's role should be to get out of the way. (One major party says they want to get government out of my wallet. The other major party says they want to get out of my bedroom. I want government the hell out of both places.)

I have net access almost every waking hour. I didn't visit his web site until very late in the campaign, if at all before the election. But Jesse got out. He went to the small towns. He got on the local cable shows. He got on public radio. He got the word out, himself, the "old fashioned" ways. Maybe the net helped, but it was far from the only thing.

I'm looking at a greater trend here

[FallLine]

I'm looking at a greater trend here and this article is just one element of it. Perhaps you lack the experience or knowledge of his previous articles? In any event, this article is just one more in the series. It doesn't buck it at all. This is on the "internet will liberate everything" trend. The next will be the threat by the corporation against the individual....and on and on and on. It's brain candy. It lacks any real substance.

Probably the stupidest thing uttered and followed up by an even more hollow point.

No it is not. Fundamental change in this world is rare. Consider how many Katz-like "predictions" there are per actual change. It's 1 million to 1.

Do you really think that the introduction of radio and TV didn't suddenly change things?

On a Katzian scale, it doesn't even register. After the television or radio was introduced, did politics make a sudden change? Did it shift suddenly towards or away from the people? Did corruption and backroom dealing suddenly leave or join politics? The answer is a resounding no. Politicians may have dressed a little different. Politians may have need to be a certain height, look a certain way, etc. They may have felt the need to do and say certain things, but it's still fundamentally the same world; what little significant change has happened over an extended period of tim (i.e., the trend towards soundbite media).

Katz doesn't give a carefull and balanced analysis of anything. It's either biased by very good or very bad. In short, it's alarmism. He's feeding the kiddies desire to scream and shout about something, nothing more.

Not an inevitability

[Rolls]

The problem I have with this Katz article, like the problem I have with many Katz articles, is the implication of inevitability. The Internet could have a democratizing influence, but is by no means assured.

For example, Katz talks about the "taverns", "town halls" and "churches" that exist on the Internet. But a serious concern is the extent to which these spaces are true public spaces, in the sense that they reflect the true diversity of public opinion. The Internet is at least partly attractive because it allows people to only encounter the information, people and ideas that they want to, to filter out what they might consider noise, to exclude those views that they find distasteful. But this is dangerous. In the real world, the messiness of randomness and shared physical spaces -- like the guy handing out pamphlets in the town square or your neighbors' diatribes at the school board meeting, or even the 30 minutes of Tom Brokaw on television -- keep us from truly blocking out information and viewpoints that we don't have a natural affinity for.

My question is, does the Internet truly promote public conversation, or does it promote private conversations among groups of like-minded people (e.g., slashdot users)? And if it is the latter, what are the implications of this for the strength of our national community? And, if we recognize that this would be, ultimately, bad for democracy, how can we encourage the development of true public spaces? Rolls http://www.quorum.org

Correct!

[cr0sh]

Honesty! That is what is wanted. When I first learned that Jesse Ventura was Minnesota's governor - I thought to myself, "Where have I heard that name...?". Of course, it soon struck me as to where - and I wondered who would vote in a professional wrestler for their governor...

Then I heard him speak...

And I thought: "Here is an honest and intelligent man."

I keep wondering when such an individual will be president...

I support the EFF - do you?