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
I think your prediction that something big will happen in 2002 misses the enormous opportunity we have this year. According to a Yankelovich Partners study, 46% of Americans say they are likely to use the Internet for "some type of political activity within the next six months". This is about 90 million US adults, compared with about 12 million who did the same in 1998 (according to this study from the nonprofit Pew Research Center).
This means that more than twice as many people will use the Internet as an election resource than will buy books, download music from Napster and trade stocks online combined.
My point is that if you're looking for critical mass, it's already here. But if you're looking for politicians and the government to lead on this one, you're looking in the wrong place. It's up to us collectively to set a high standard for how the Internet gets used for political communication, to make sure that it doesn't end up like Television, The Sequel. 2000 is a unique opportunity. By 2002, most people's expectations of what the "political Internet" is will have already been set.
Interested? Check out my personal effort to help set that standard, or email me and I'll point you to other like-minded folks who are doing good stuff in this area.
What makes/. different is that it is built in such a way as to be valuable to casual readers who don't have time to wade through hundreds of posts on a subject to find the valuable ones. This makes it accessible to orders of magnitude more people than your typical newsgroup, and hence is a fundamentally different type of medium (even though technically it IS just a souped-up threaded discussion board).
Scale is a critical component of any medium. I can imagine a 16th century monk arguing that Gutenberg's press was nothing new; it's basically just like transcribing by hand, only a little faster.
I realized that this claim would sound outrageous, mostly because comparisons to Gutenberg are made far too frequently. But I stand by it nonetheless.
We'd love to hear about your colloborative filtering model and funding ideas. We're nearing completion of our v1 site, but perhaps there's a way we could work together.
We hear constantly that the USA is a "democracy", as though everything that occurs in this society is due to the will of the people. This is completely false, and any basic knowledge of history and political science will prove this point. Our state is an Electoral Republic.
The distinction between "democracy" and "republic" is not as clear cut as you might think. The word democracy is of Greek origin, and originally referred to the government of Athens. The word "republic" is of latin origin, and originally referred to the government of Rome. Neither was a "democracy" in the sense you mean of a government where all citizens directly vote on laws. Each was representative; the only difference was that Athens chose its representatives by lottery and Rome based on elections from geographic regions.
I believe that James Madison was the first to introduce the distinction between democracy and republic, and that only because the concept of "democracy" was so controversial that he didn't want that particular word associated with the US Constitution.
In any event, the US is a democratic, because there are formal institutions and processes that make the government accountable to the people at large. Of course it's not an "ideal" democracy, and the government is not perfectly accountable to the people. But, I don't think that makes it incorrect to describe our government as democratic, nor pointless to describe how we might take small steps toward the ideal.
I wasn't saying that voting is meaningless, just practically meaningless in terms of determining the outcome of the election. It's an incredibily meaningful demonstration of citizenship and community, and it is our civic obligation to vote.
I was just reacting to the irrationality of the argument that votes matter less on the West coast because the election is already "determined."
It's not clear to me from the article that your interpretation is correct. It sounded to me like Excite was auctioning off bandwidth on its own "last mile" network, which for all intents and purposes, is the Internet.
Anyway, even if your interpretation is correct, in a world where the applications keep getting more and more bandwidth intensive, providing "enhanced" service to some is the same as reducing service to everyone else.
I find this kind of development troubling because it portends a balkanization of the public Internet into a bunch of private, corporate fiefdoms.
The problem with the solutions mentioned thus far to the campaign finance conundrum is that they all seek to fix things within the framework of the current system.
As near as I can reckon, the current system of campaigns and elections operates something like this: 1) candidates collect donations from constituents, a disproportionate share of which comes from wealthy individuals and organizations. 2) candidates spend donations with Big Media, buying advertising which raises awareness among voters. The biggest spenders generate the most awareness and also get annointed as "leading candidates," making it easier to raise more money, get covered by the press, organize campaign staffs, etc. 3) candidates with the widest awareness, best press coverage, best organized campaigns, etc., win their elections 4) candidates take office and enact laws which represent their constituents' interests as best they can determine. Of course, their constituents' interests are disproportionately represented by those who have given generously to their campaign. 5) candidates collect donations from constituents...
An appropriate reaction must be one that does not rely on the goodwill of establishment interests to fix this broken process. I.e., trying to enact laws to derail the current election process will necessarily fail, because lawmakers rely on strong economic interests for their power and the strong economic interests need to ensure their continued central position. The same thing is true for those who propose reliance on a free press, because the press's interests are tied to the candidates and the donors through ad spending.
Individuals' voices are not being heard, and it's too risky to pin your hopes on the belief that with enough rich people donating, everyone's views will be represented. The appropriate reaction is to reinvent the process, and organize to implement the new process. Luckily, our system still has one set of democratic safeguards, which are free elections; so ultimately, a well-organized populace has recourse. But, the channel for communication between citizens and leaders needs to be overhauled, from one based on campaign contributions and broadcast media to one based on a technology-enabled direct dialogue -- a dialogue enabled by the Internet.
Slashdot Mirror
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
This means that more than twice as many people will use the Internet as an election resource than will buy books, download music from Napster and trade stocks online combined.
My point is that if you're looking for critical mass, it's already here. But if you're looking for politicians and the government to lead on this one, you're looking in the wrong place. It's up to us collectively to set a high standard for how the Internet gets used for political communication, to make sure that it doesn't end up like Television, The Sequel. 2000 is a unique opportunity. By 2002, most people's expectations of what the "political Internet" is will have already been set.
Interested? Check out my personal effort to help set that standard, or email me and I'll point you to other like-minded folks who are doing good stuff in this area.
What makes /. different is that it is built in such a way as to be valuable to casual readers who don't have time to wade through hundreds of posts on a subject to find the valuable ones. This makes it accessible to orders of magnitude more people than your typical newsgroup, and hence is a fundamentally different type of medium (even though technically it IS just a souped-up threaded discussion board).
Scale is a critical component of any medium. I can imagine a 16th century monk arguing that Gutenberg's press was nothing new; it's basically just like transcribing by hand, only a little faster.
I realized that this claim would sound outrageous, mostly because comparisons to Gutenberg are made far too frequently. But I stand by it nonetheless.
Scott
We'd love to hear about your colloborative filtering model and funding ideas. We're nearing completion of our v1 site, but perhaps there's a way we could work together.
Scott
scott@democracyproject.org
We hear constantly that the USA is a "democracy", as though everything that occurs in this society is due to the will of the people. This is completely false, and any basic knowledge of history and political science will prove this point.
Our state is an Electoral Republic.
The distinction between "democracy" and "republic" is not as clear cut as you might think. The word democracy is of Greek origin, and originally referred to the government of Athens. The word "republic" is of latin origin, and originally referred to the government of Rome. Neither was a "democracy" in the sense you mean of a government where all citizens directly vote on laws. Each was representative; the only difference was that Athens chose its representatives by lottery and Rome based on elections from geographic regions.
I believe that James Madison was the first to introduce the distinction between democracy and republic, and that only because the concept of "democracy" was so controversial that he didn't want that particular word associated with the US Constitution.
In any event, the US is a democratic, because there are formal institutions and processes that make the government accountable to the people at large. Of course it's not an "ideal" democracy, and the government is not perfectly accountable to the people. But, I don't think that makes it incorrect to describe our government as democratic, nor pointless to describe how we might take small steps toward the ideal.
Scott
I wasn't saying that voting is meaningless, just practically meaningless in terms of determining the outcome of the election. It's an incredibily meaningful demonstration of citizenship and community, and it is our civic obligation to vote.
I was just reacting to the irrationality of the argument that votes matter less on the West coast because the election is already "determined."
Scott
It's not clear to me from the article that your interpretation is correct. It sounded to me like Excite was auctioning off bandwidth on its own "last mile" network, which for all intents and purposes, is the Internet.
Anyway, even if your interpretation is correct, in a world where the applications keep getting more and more bandwidth intensive, providing "enhanced" service to some is the same as reducing service to everyone else.
I find this kind of development troubling because it portends a balkanization of the public Internet into a bunch of private, corporate fiefdoms.
The problem with the solutions mentioned thus far to the campaign finance conundrum is that they all seek to fix things within the framework of the current system.
As near as I can reckon, the current system of campaigns and elections operates something like this:
1) candidates collect donations from constituents, a disproportionate share of which comes from wealthy individuals and organizations.
2) candidates spend donations with Big Media, buying advertising which raises awareness among voters. The biggest spenders generate the most awareness and also get annointed as "leading candidates," making it easier to raise more money, get covered by the press, organize campaign staffs, etc.
3) candidates with the widest awareness, best press coverage, best organized campaigns, etc., win their elections
4) candidates take office and enact laws which represent their constituents' interests as best they can determine. Of course, their constituents' interests are disproportionately represented by those who have given generously to their campaign.
5) candidates collect donations from constituents...
An appropriate reaction must be one that does not rely on the goodwill of establishment interests to fix this broken process. I.e., trying to enact laws to derail the current election process will necessarily fail, because lawmakers rely on strong economic interests for their power and the strong economic interests need to ensure their continued central position. The same thing is true for those who propose reliance on a free press, because the press's interests are tied to the candidates and the donors through ad spending.
Individuals' voices are not being heard, and it's too risky to pin your hopes on the belief that with enough rich people donating, everyone's views will be represented. The appropriate reaction is to reinvent the process, and organize to implement the new process. Luckily, our system still has one set of democratic safeguards, which are free elections; so ultimately, a well-organized populace has recourse. But, the channel for communication between citizens and leaders needs to be overhauled, from one based on campaign contributions and broadcast media to one based on a technology-enabled direct dialogue -- a dialogue enabled by the Internet.