The Virtual Sphere 2.0: the Internet, the Public Sphere, and Beyond 230 Zizi Papacharissi

Routledge Handbook of Internet Politics Edited by Andrew Chadwick and Philip N. Howard t&f proofs First published 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business © 2009 Editorial selection and matter, Andrew Chadwick and Philip N. Howard; individual chapters the contributors Typeset in Times New Roman by Taylor & Francis Books Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Routledge handbook of Internet politicst&f / edited proofs by Andrew Chadwick and Philip N. Howard. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Internet – Political aspects. 2. Political participation – computer network resources. 3. Communication in politics – computer network resources. I. Chadwick, Andrew. II. Howard, Philip N. III. Title: Handbook of Internet Politics. IV. Title: Internet Politics. HM851.R6795 2008 320.0285'4678 – dc22 2008003045 ISBN 978-0-415-42914-6 (hbk) ISBN 978-0-203-96254-1 (ebk) Contents List of figures ix List of tables x List of contributors xii Acknowledgments xvi 1 Introduction: new directions in internet politics research 1 Andrew Chadwick and Philip N. Howard Part I: Institutions 11 2 The internet in U.S. election campaigns 13 Richard Davis, Jody C Baumgartner, Peter L. Francia, and Jonathan S. Morris t&f proofs 3 European political organizations and the internet: mobilization, participation, and change 25 Stephen Ward and Rachel Gibson 4 Electoral web production practices in cross-national perspective: the relative influence of national development, political culture, and web genre 40 Kirsten A. Foot, Michael Xenos, Steven M. Schneider, Randolph Kluver, and Nicholas W. Jankowski 5 Parties, election campaigning, and the internet: toward a comparative institutional approach 56 Nick Anstead and Andrew Chadwick 6 Technological change and the shifting nature of political organization 72 Bruce Bimber, Cynthia Stohl, and Andrew J. Flanagin v CONTENTS 7 Making parliamentary democracy visible: speaking to, with, and for the public in the age of interactive technology 86 Stephen Coleman 8 Bureaucratic reform and e-government in the United States: an institutional perspective 99 Jane E. Fountain 9 Public management change and e-government: the emergence of digital-era governance 114 Helen Margetts Part 2: Behavior 129 10 Wired to fact: the role of the internet in identifying deception during the 2004 U.S. presidential campaign 131 Bruce W. Hardy, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, and Kenneth Winneg 11 Political engagement online: do the information rich get richer and the like-minded more similar? 144 Jennifer Brundidge and Ronald E. Rice 12 Information, the internet and direct democracy 157 Justin Reedy and Chris Wells 13 Toward digital citizenship: addressing inequality in the information age 173 Karen Mossberger 14 Online news creation and consumption: implications for modern democraciest&f proofs 186 David Tewksbury and Jason Rittenberg 15 Web 2.0 and the transformation of news and journalism 200 James Stanyer Part 3: Identities 215 16 The internet and the changing global media environment 217 Brian McNair 17 The virtual sphere 2.0: the internet, the public sphere, and beyond 230 Zizi Papacharissi vi CONTENTS 18 Identity, technology, and narratives: transnational activism and social networks 246 W. Lance Bennett and Amoshaun Toft 19 Theorizing gender and the internet: past, present, and future 261 Niels van Doorn and Liesbet van Zoonen 20 New immigrants, the internet, and civic society 275 Yong-Chan Kim and Sandra J. Ball-Rokeach 21 One Europe, digitally divided 288 Jan A. G. M. van Dijk 22 Working around the state: internet use and political identity in the Arab world 305 Deborah L. Wheeler Part 4: Law and policy 321 23 The geopolitics of internet control: censorship, sovereignty, and cyberspace 323 Ronald J. Deibert 24 Locational surveillance: embracing the patterns of our lives 337 David J. Phillips 25 Metaphoric reinforcement of the virtual fence: factors shaping the political economy of property in cyberspace 349 Oscar H. Gandy, Jr. and Kenneth Neil Farrall 26 Globalizing the logic of openness: open source software and the global governance of intellectualt&f property proofs 364 Christopher May 27 Exclusionary rules? The politics of protocols 376 Greg Elmer 28 The new politics of the internet: multi-stakeholder policy-making and the internet technocracy 384 William H. Dutton and Malcolm Peltu 29 Enabling effective multi-stakeholder participation in global internet governance through accessible cyber-infrastructure 401 Derrick L. Cogburn vii CONTENTS 30 Internet diffusion and the digital divide: the role of policy-making and political institutions 415 Kenneth S. Rogerson and Daniel Milton 31 Conclusion: political omnivores and wired states 424 Philip N. Howard and Andrew Chadwick Bibliography 435 Index 487 t&f proofs viii 17 The virtual sphere 2.0 The internet, the public sphere, and beyond Zizi Papacharissi This chapter first traces dominant narratives on private and public opinion, beginning with an overview of the public sphere, examining models that oppose or supplement the public sphere, and leading into work that examines the internet as a public sphere. As a second step, distinct conditions that moderate the democratizing impact of the internet are identified and explicated. First, the self- centered nature of online expression lends a narcissistic element to political deliberation online, which is distinct from the objectives of the public sphere. Second, patterns of civic engagement online suggest selective uses of online media to supplement the representative model of democracy and mobilize subversive movements. Finally, the proliferation of online public spaces that are part commercial and part private suggests a new hybrid model of public spaces, where consumerist and civic rhetoric co- exist. These three recent developments are used to question whether the public sphere is the most meaningful lens from which to evaluate the democratizing potential of online technologies. “Technology is neither good nor bad, nor is it neutral.” (Melvin Kranzberg, 1985: p. 50) “Technology is a mirror of society, not a ‘neutral’ force that can be used for good or evil.” t&f proofs (Lasch, 1987: p. 295) The potential of online media generates a effects, and gratification. While it is multitude of responses and reactions. Most important to avoid the deterministic are centered around the ability of digital viewpoint that online technologies are and online media to simultaneously restrict able to, on their own, “make or break” a and empower individuals as they interact public sphere, it is also necessary to with each other in public life. Thus, the understand that technologies frequently use of the internet, the operative medium embed assumptions about their potential here, as it converges and sustains multiple uses, which can be traced back to the technologies, becomes an asset or a detri- political, cultural, social, and economic ment, depending on how it is put to use. environment that brings them to life. The internet, from this point of view Therefore, it is not the nature of tech- serves as a tool, and does not contain the nologies themselves, but rather, the dis- agency to effect social change. Individuals, course that surrounds them, that guides on the other hand, possess differing levels how these technologies are appropriated of agency, based on which they can by a society. Both Kranzberg’s (1985) and employ the internet to varying ends, Lasch’s (1987) descriptions of technology 230 THE PUBLIC SPHERE AND BEYOND as “non-neutral” or a “mirror of society,” and/or the economy (Garnham, 1990; acquire meaning as they position technol- Habermas, 1974). The modern public ogy within a particular discourse. Kranzberg sphere, according to Habermas, plagued (1985) recognizes technology as a histori- by forces of commercialization and com- cally relative construct that possess neither promised by corporate conglomerates, evil nor good inherent characteristics, but produces discourse dominated by the at the same time is not neutral; it is objectives of advertising and public rela- actualized by and within the historical tions. Thus, the public sphere becomes a context that delivered it. Lasch (1987) vehicle for capitalist hegemony and ideo- frames technology as the mirror that logical reproduction. Naturally, a digital exposes the inadequacies, the merits, and medium such as the internet, with an the hopes of a society. Thus, individuals infrastructure that promises unlimited and are likely to respond to technologies, but unregulated discourse that operates beyond even more so, to the discourse that sur- geographic boundaries, would suggest a rounds them. The future of technology virtual reincarnation of the public sphere. rests on the metaphors and language we Utopian rhetoric habitually extols the employ to describe it (Gunkel and Gunkel, democratizing

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