Putting the Democracy into eDemocracy:

An investigation into the arguments for the democratic potential of the Internet

ALLISON VERITY ORR 2120304

1 CONTENTS

Contents ...... 2 CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION...... 5 Overview ...... 10 The Internet ...... 13 A Brief History of the Internet ...... 15 Language and the Internet ...... 18 CHAPTER 2 - METHODOLOGY ...... 26 Essentially Contested Concepts ...... 29 Constellations of Concepts ...... 30 Political Disagreement and Rhetorical Arguments ...... 30 Conceptual Change and Legitimation ...... 35 CHAPTER 3 – MYTHS, MODERNITY AND PROGRESS ...... 40 The Mythology of the Internet ...... 41 Progress ...... 43 Progress, Democracy and the Internet ...... 47 Modernity ...... 50 Modernity, myths and the Internet ...... 54 Myth: The Internet Cannot be Controlled ...... 58 Myth: The Internet is Anarchic ...... 64 Myth: The Internet has no Gatekeepers ...... 69 Myth: The Internet Challenges Corporatised Media ...... 73 Myth: Everyone has Access to the Internet ...... 77 Conclusion ...... 80 CHAPTER 4 –DEMOCRACY ...... 81 Democracy ...... 81 The Democratic Crisis ...... 86 Democratic Theory and the Internet ...... 92 CHAPTER 5 – DIRECT DEMOCRACY ...... 96 Direct Democracy ...... 98

2 Direct Democracy and the Internet ...... 100 The Problems of Direct Democracy ...... 103 Size and System Capacity ...... 104 Complexity and Competence ...... 109 The Need for Leadership ...... 114 The “Tyranny of the Majority” ...... 116 Conclusion ...... 123 CHAPTER 6: REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY...... 125 Representative Democracy ...... 126 Representation ...... 129 Representative Democracy and The Internet...... 133 a) The Internet and Representation: Communication...... 133 b) Representative Democracy and the Internet: Information ...... 145 The Problems of Simplifying Representation ...... 152 Conclusion ...... 157 CHAPTER 7 – PARTICIPATION ...... 160 Participation ...... 162 Participation and the Internet: Who Participates ...... 166 A New Participatory Democracy? ...... 172 Why do(n’t) People Participate? ...... 176 Web 2.0 and “Viral Democracy”...... 181 2008 Obama campaign: A Diminished View of Participation? ...... 190 Conclusion ...... 199 Chapter 8 - DELIBERATION AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE ...... 201 The “Deliberative Turn” and the Public Sphere ...... 202 Deliberative Democracy and The Internet ...... 206 The Internet and the Public Sphere...... 213 Locating a Public Sphere Online ...... 218 Locating Deliberation Online ...... 222 a) Diversity of Views ...... 222 b) Engaging the Unengaged ...... 226 The Legitimacy of Deliberative Democracy ...... 232

3 Conclusion ...... 235 CHAPTER 9 - CONCLUSION ...... 237 REFERENCES ...... 241

4 CHAPTER 1 – INTRODUCTION

In the last decades of the twentieth century, and into the new century, there has been a sense that Western democracies are suffering a crisis of disengagement. Lower citizen turnout at elections, dwindling party membership, and declining trust in democratic institutions has lead to a perception that democracy is in need of renewal. Across the same time period, the Internet has emerged to occupy an ever-increasing role in our daily lives. From access to multiple forms of media and unprecedented opportunities for information sharing and distribution, to easy and cheap communications with the world, it has had an enormously engaging impact on our world.

The confluence of these two trends effectively ensured that commentators and scholars began to view the increasingly sophisticated tools and technologies available with the Internet as a way to re-engage an alienated citizenry and renew our democracies in the face of the challenges of the new century. The increasing literature around the Internet’s role for, and effect on, democracy is evidence of this, with writers and rhetors lauding the perceived new opportunities thus:

“The political significance of CMC [Computer-mediated communication] lies in its capacity to challenge the existing political hierarchy's monopoly on powerful communications media, and perhaps thus revitalize citizen-based democracy.” Howard Rheingold, Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (Rheingold 1993, 14).

“In government, I think we're moving towards a kind of direct democracy. In the US, our version of representative democracy was invented 218 years ago, even before the Pony Express, not to mention computers and telephones and so on. In other words, back then, before we had these means of communication, we had to have someone go off and represent us and then come back and tell us what happened.

5 But we don't need that kind of representation anymore, because now we're all on line in real time. We know as much as everybody else does.” John Naisbitt, Rethinking the Future (as quoted in Gibson 1998, 220)

“The Internet puts within our grasp an unprecedently good form of democracy”, that can bridge the gap between “the ideal of direct democracy” and the “necessity of representative democracy”. Gordon Graham (Graham 1999, 68)

“Imagine if the Internet took hold in China. Imagine how freedom would spread .” George W. Bush in Phoenix, Arizona during a GOP Debate, Dec 7, 1999.

“The Net may be a shortcut to democracy” Yuki Ishikawa (Ishikawa 2002, 332)

“If I had the power to redesign our form of government I would make it far easier for ideals to be joined to action, and I would use the Internet to do it”. Susan Crawford, “Small ‘d’ democracy”, (Crawford 2008, 92)

As these examples show, those arguing for changes to democratic life through the Internet are using the complex and essentially contested constellation of concepts in the existing democratic tradition – terms such as direct democracy, representation, participation, deliberation – within the new discussions to legitimate the Internet-based expressions and models of democracy in a way that suggests a complete break from the old realities of representative democracy. Indeed, some have suggested that the Internet is so new that there should be a break between the old world and the new. In 1996, John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the well-known Electronic Frontiers Foundation, an organisation founded to fight for rights on the Internet, created the “Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace”. This document describing a complete break between the world of Cyberspace, the “new home of the Mind” and governments and industry, “you weary giants of flesh and steel”. He asks them to leave Cyberspace alone, “you are not welcome among us. You have no

6 sovereignty where we gather” (Barlow 1996). For Barlow, Cyberspace was a place outside of politics, not existing within it. Nearly twenty years later, this document is more interesting as an historical artefact than as a governing document for Cyberspace. But it is indicative of the kind of utopianism of the early days of the Internet.

Democratic institutions and parliaments have progressively moved more and more services and systems online and are actively flirting with eDemocracy and eParticipation projects in the hope of bringing change in the way our democratic institutions and polities function, based on this largely enthusiastic body of research.

In his critique of the literature around the Internet’s democratic potential, Breindl highlights this document as “soaked with exaggerated rhetoric and hyperbole, characteristic of the hype surrounding Internet technologies” (2010. 43). He also notes the confluence of the two factors I noted above that have formed the background to this literature: the questioning of and disengagement from representative democratic systems in the West and the rise of a medium that seems to offer tools to re-engage citizens with democratic processes. These two factors have raised expectations that that the Internet could be the “cure” for “suffering democracies” (Breindl 2010, 44).

The danger inherent to this situation is that, in our enthusiasm to find a “shortcut” for democracy, we lose sight of the lessons of the past and neglect to include the essential strengths and understandings of our current democratic institutions in the new processes. In using the existing language of democracy to define and describe the new online processes, we unconsciously ascribe to them all of the knowledge and experience of several centuries of democracy. But in doing so, we must be certain that we are not diminishing existing democratic practices. Breindl and other authors, however, have highlighted the gap between the democratic hopes for the Internet and the realities of what has been achieved. This thesis explores this shortfall by examining the hope for the Internet’s democratic potential within the framework of the existing language of democracy. Internet enthusiasts have grabbed the recurring redemptive strain of democratic vocabulary that constantly

7 poses renewal and then applied it to the Internet. Renewal was mistaken for historic rupture.

The problems and contradictions inherent in creating a democratic polity across a large modern state have largely remained the same throughout the centuries: size, distance, access and participation, representation, the role of the public sphere and the ongoing balance between minorities and the majority are just some of the issues that continue to confront democrats. These contested issues are hotly debated because they go to the very essence of how we build our democracies, and how we can make them better. These conflicts are present in all current democratic models, and cannot be completely eradicated through a technological solution, but perhaps, as is argued by many quoted in this thesis, can be ameliorated.

As shown in the above examples, in the arguments put forward for the Internet’s democratic potential, concepts have been simplistically applied by some who were heralding a new era of direct democracy. They little realised at the time that representative democracy was becoming more complex rather than the reverse. Other more sophisticated authors, frequently prominent scholars such as Robert Dahl or Stephen Coleman, sought not a return to direct democracy but a deliberative addition to representative democracy through the Internet. Again, however, problems were overlooked, although their additions are worthy.

What is not at issue is that representative democracy is changing in relation to the Internet. What is of concern here is that both categories of authors were attempting to legitimate claims that the internet is a democratic technology. With both categories of authors the political vocabulary of democracy was expanded to meet the current capabilities of the Internet and the context of the times. As such, both categories of authors were responding to what Margaret Canovan calls the redemptive face of democracy, wishing to return democracy to the people. But the applications of these terms are contestable. The criteria are too demanding. Far from new eras and ruptures with the past occurring with the

8 internet, one finds these authors are going over the same old problem of representative democracy: finding ways to improve the relationship between government and the governed, between the political class and the people.

A critical analysis of these arguments, taking into consideration these inherent conflicts, helps us to understand the problems that may arise. It is not the intention of this research to set-up current representative models of democracy as an unchangeable ideal, but rather to ensure we are not so overly enamoured of the new technology that we end up throwing the democratic baby out with the bathwater. This analysis helps to understand why the presence of the Internet has not brought about the changes originally hoped for by Internet enthusiasts.

Therefore, the aim of this research is to examine aspects of the discussions around the Internet’s democratic potential as it relates to four of the key contested concepts of current democratic theory – direct democracy, representative democracy, participation and deliberation – and determine if the conceptual reductions inherent in the attempt to legitimate the new models are adequately incorporating the complexities of current democratic experience.

To this end, this research will answer the following question: How has complex and value- laden language been used in reference to the Internet to legitimate claims that the Internet is a democratic technology?

While the Internet may be new, the questions that arise around its role in politics form part of older discussions and arguments about democracy. Democracy is very complex, both as polity and a concept, and is driven by internal struggles and contradictions. In addition, it involves political concepts that carry inherited value. There is a back history to both the concepts used and to the claims made for the Internet, but the Internet is treated as if it exists outside of, or beyond, this history.

9 Overview

This research seeks to place claims for the Internet’s democratic potential within a wider context, in particular, to examine how the value-laden concept of democracy, and other concepts in the democratic conceptual constellation, are used to legitimate these claims.

This research is not a discourse analysis; I am not using a Critical Discourse Analysis nor a Political Discourse Analysis methodology (van Dijk 1998). The intention is to examine and analyse arguments and discussions around the Internet’s democratic potential to show how language is being used to legitimate claims for the Internet and democracy. The literature under review will include academic papers, news media, election analysis, speeches and commentary by politicians, and reports from independent organisations such as Pew or the Institute for Public Policy Research, among others. Sources are often American, but wherever possible, I have used Australian research and statistics. The intent is to draw on a wide range of sources to cover the many ways in which value-laden language has been employed for rhetorical purposes. The widespread use of the Internet, and the nature of the medium itself, has given rise to an enormous amount of commentary on its political use, and it is important to include the language of both scholars and non-scholars to help gain an understanding of how the language has been employed to shape our expectations of the Internet. Sources will be limited in several ways, in order remain focused on answering the question, of how language is used to legitimate claims for the Internet’s democratic potential.

Firstly, this research is historical in scope. I am interested in examining how value-laden language has been employed to shape our perceptions and expectations of the Internet in its history so far, so I will be focused on the years of the Internet’s rise to prominence, the early 1990s, and the emergence of the World Wide Web, the late 1990s, and its second decade through the rise of Web 2.0, including the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States in 2008, when the Internet was seen to be decisive to electoral victory.

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Secondly, in each chapter I have chosen several authors to highlight, who I believe are indicative of the argument in that area. These authors are respected scholars, prominent industry writers and well-known politicians, who have put forward arguments for the Internet’s democratic potential, and have been quoted by others. In this framework, these writers are treated as rhetors, making a persuasive argument to bolster a claim. The analysis will demonstrate the rhetorical nature of their arguments.

Finally, the choice of concepts has been driven by the literature itself. The concept of democracy has been connected with Internet from its earliest days. The democratic triumphalism of the 1990s coincided with the rise of the Internet, and the two became intertwined. Given the democratic crisis, the perceived disengagement and alienation from current representative institutions, it is unsurprising that the Internet has became part of the larger concerns over how to improve democracy. Apart from looking at the concept of democracy itself, through two democratic models, direct and representative, I have chosen to look at participation and deliberation. These have been chosen in particular because they are ubiquitous topics in this area. The perceived disengagement of citizens from representative institutions and the “deliberative turn” in democratic theory form the background to many of the claims for the Internet’s democratic potential, and so the concepts of participation and deliberation are particularly prevalent.

By eDemocracy I refer to Internet-based or network-computer-based technology with respect to democracy, democratic processes and institutions. Various terms have been used over two decades to describe this activity, for example E-democracy, digital democracy, online democracy, e-government, cyberdemocracy, virtual democracy, teledemocracy 1, and all are encompassed in this research. I will be using the term “Internet” to mean both the actual physical network as well as the content (although

1In all these terms there is no distinction made between words with a hyphen between the two terms (edemocracy or e-democracy) and those without. This is just a stylistic difference and does not affect the use of the term.

11 technically, the “Internet” refers only to the network). In other words, the term “Internet” will refer to everything online – the Web, blogs, online newsmedia, and all processes that use the Internet – chat groups, email, Twitter, social networking.

Below is an outline of each chapter.

Chapter 2 outlines the research methodology that will be used in this thesis to analyse the concepts in the discussions around the Internet’s democratic potential. It proposes that viewing the claims for the Internet through the prism of rhetorical redescription and attempts at legitimation, while taking into account the implications of the essentially contested concepts in the democratic conceptual constellation, provides an effective method for analysing the issues raised in the extension of these concepts to the Internet.

Chapter 3 provides a view of the philosophies underpinning and influencing many of the arguments around the Internet’s democratic potential – the continuing influence of the ideas of progress and modernity, and examines the resulting role of myth-making around the Internet. These ideas have had a profound effect on Western social and political thought, and it is from these philosophies and myths that many of the assumptions of the positive impact of the Internet on democratic systems can be traced.

Chapter 4 will provide some background to the concept and theory of democracy, and the perception of the democratic crisis that is providing the impetus behind much of the rhetoric of the eDemocracy discussion. This chapter also provides a model for understanding how the internal tensions inherent in representative democracy can lead to both the perception of a democratic crisis and at the same time, the continuing appeal of democracy and the call for more populist models, such as those put forward in arguments for the Internet.

Based on Chapters 2, 3 and 4, Chapters 5, 6, 7 and 8 each analyse one concept within the democratic constellation to demonstrate how the rhetors and writers within the

12 eDemocracy discussion are proposing to legitimate new models of democracy. Within this analysis, I will demonstrate how the extension of the value-laden concepts of democracy to the new models of eDemocracy can conceivably result in conceptual changes that mask current understanding of complexities and issues with democratic theory.

Chapter 9 will summarise and conclude the arguments, draw some lessons from the analysis, and point to possibilities for future research.

Before turning to the methodology and analysis, the next section will provide some background history of the Internet and the discussions around its democratic potential, and also introduce some of the language that has arisen that is specific to the Internet.

The Internet

The Internet is a series of interlinked computer networks which are connected via a standardised computer protocol called TCP/IP. It is a public network, and in theory, any computer on the Internet can speak to any other computer through this protocol. Technically, the Internet itself is simply the interlinked computers; it does not comprise the content, but is merely the network through which the packets of data flow.

While the two terms have come to be used interchangeably, the “Internet” and the “World Wide Web” are not the same thing. The Web is one of the services that operates using the Internet. It is a series of interlinked “pages” of data constructed using HTML (hypertext mark-up language), which allows these pages to be connected to each other through hyperlinks. Content on the Web can be located using a domain name, for example “webpage.com.au”, and each page on the Web has a unique URL (uniform resource locator), for example “http://www.webpage.com.au/page”. These pages are located

13 (hosted) in millions of computers around the world and use the Internet to transfer the data from the hosting computer to the computer requesting the information (downloading).

Email is another service that uses the Internet to send data between the interlinked computers around the world. For a long time, the sending of electronic messages was by far the most utilised of all the services using the Internet, but in recent years this has been overtaken by a new kind of messaging: social networking via the Web. Many of the services are now interlinked so that the separation between them has become less pronounced. For instance, the difference between email and the Web became blurred as web-based email services become more pronounced, and email services themselves have been replaced by social networking sites. We can get an idea of how the Internet is being used now by looking at some usage statistics. In December 2012, there were 634 million websites on the Internet; during that year, an average of 144 billion emails were sent every day, of which 69 per cent were spam; Facebook had 2.7 billion “Likes” every day; Twitter had 200 million monthly active users; and we spent on average 4 billion hours watching videos on YouTube per month (Internet 2012 in Numbers, 2013). From these statistics we can see that the traffic load of the Internet is extraordinary .

The technical capabilities of the Internet are indeed remarkable, and it is unsurprising that it has engendered debate about its social and political potential. It is an exceptional tool - there are several characteristics that are unique to the Internet as a communications technology – which perhaps makes it understandable that it has raised such high expectations and that it represents a break with the past. These unique characteristics are listed below:

- The Internet is capable of multi-directional and multi-casting interaction –everybody can send and receive, and more than one person can send and receive at the same time. - Time and space are no limitation for sharing information or networking.

14 - The World Wide Web provides unprecedented opportunities of information sharing – digital storage, reproduction and distribution capabilities. - It is primarily “pull” rather than a “push” medium, that is, rather than having information sent to you, the user has complete control over what is viewed. - All users can self-publish.

A Brief History of the Internet

Below is a brief political history of the Internet since it is directly relevant to understanding how the discussion around the Internet has evolved. This history shows the early development of a specific language around the technology, and the early application of the vocabulary of democracy to the Internet. The Internet’s initial developmental stage was in the early 1980s; after this, I have identified three stages of arguments about the Internet: the first was characterised by optimism, the second a little more tempered, and the third shows a resurgence of the optimism of the early days with the rise of Web 2.0.

The Internet has its origins in two stimuli. One was Cold War thinking about how to keep communication lines open after a major military attack, the other was to allow researchers to collaborate and communicate across distances using a distributed routing system, allowing for sharing of computer time, which at that was an extremely valuable resource (Brown 2009a, 4). The development of an extensive computer network was a key concern to computer scientists at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) under the US Department of Defence (Brown 2009a, 4). In the 1960s the development of “packet switching” was a major step forward, as it allowed data to be split up and transmitted across a network, then reassembled at the destination. Unlike circuit switching, which required a direct and stable connection between the machines, data sent by packet switching could take any route, be delayed, re-routed, and still be reassembled at the destination. ARPA’s first packet switching computer network, ARPANET, went live in

15 October 1969 with terminals a UCLA and Stanford. Later nodes were added over the ensuing weeks and months, and the network was demonstrated publicly for the first time in 1972. This network formed the foundation of what would later become the Internet (Brown 2009a, 4).

While this early history is interesting, in this research, I will be focusing on the time-period from when the Internet started to find its way into everyday life, from the late 1980s and early 1990s. While interlinked computer networks like ARPANET or BITNET were in existence prior to this, they were run autonomously using proprietary protocols, so not able to communicate with each other. It was only once TCP/IP became standard that the networks could become interlinked, and it wasn’t until the late 1980s that the Internet, the global interlinked network as we know it now, could be said to have emerged (Brown 2009a, 8).

From this time, I have identified three phases of Internet history. The first, or formative, phase is the heady days of the early 1990s, when enthusiasm for the Internet’s democratic potential was at its height. Commentators and theorists hailed the Internet as the missing link for mass democracy, allowing citizens to directly communicate with representatives, providing tools to run online plebiscites and polls, increase transparency and provide enough information for citizens to become truly involved in the otherwise passive parliamentary system. Many writers and theorists in this era were fervently hopeful for the democratic potential of the Internet, and the discussions were sprinkled with terms such as “citizen-based democracy” and “a move to direct democracy”. This phase coincides with an era when the whole Western world was, in the words of Wolfgang Merkel (Merkel 2010, 17), “infected by [a] ‘democracy optimism’”, and Francis Fukuyama declared that we had arrived at the “end of history” (Fukuyama, 1992).

The second phase started in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and is characterised by cynicism and the beginning of the commercialisation of the Internet. While the World Wide Web was introduced in 1991, it was only in the mid-to-late 1990s that it became

16 enormously popular. Big business got online, as did an enormous amount of spam and pornography, and it now seemed the Internet would go the way of all previous technologies and become merely another entertainment medium. This also coincides with a decline in the optimism around democracy (Carothers 2002; Ottaway 2003; Levitsky and Way 2002; Nathan 2003).

Then about seven or eight years ago, Internet idealism returned with a vengeance as the emergence of tools to upload user-generated content transformed the face of the Internet. This third phase has become known as Web 2.0, a term that was coined by O-Reilly Media in 2004 as a title for a series of conferences (O’Reilly and Battelle 2009, 1). This term gained immediate popularity, and is now used to describe the second generation of tools on the Web which have interactive and participatory characteristics: social networking sites, wikis, file-sharing, blogging, torrents. Web 2.0 is defined by user-generated content that is shared, embedded, commented on and emailed – harnessing collective intelligence (Carpenter 2010, 217; O’Reilly and Battelle 2009). The quintessential Web 2.0 sites are Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. The renewed enthusiasm for the Internet was highlighted by Time Magazine in 2006 when it named “You” as its person of the year, due to “Your” use of Web 2.0. The front cover featured “You” through a reflective metallic strip, intended to show the likeness of whoever is holding the magazine. The issue proclaimed that through Web 2.0 netizens were “founding and framing the new digital democracy” (Grossman 2006, 41). The hope and hype of the Internet was back.

This research will focus on these three phases of the Internet’s history, examining the ways in which the political potential of the Internet has been debated and the language used in this debate. While the technology can be considered new and unique, it is the contention of this research that the discussion around its political potential is the continuation of older arguments and discussions within the democratic tradition. Furthermore, it will be shown that the concept of democracy, and its related concepts, has been employed in a manner that in itself furthers the claims for the Internet’s potential.

17 Language and the Internet

From this condensed history we can see that the Internet has not merely been a technological achievement. It has also been a focus for opinions and judgements. Relatedly, the Internet has developed its own language from its earliest days. In the following section I will give a brief survey of this language, which reveals a theme explored in this thesis; the use of positive evaluative language to describe the Internet, revealing a tendency to be not merely descriptive but also appraisive of the possibilities gleaned in the technology.

The exceptional nature of the Internet as a communications medium is revealed in its spelling. No other technology has been given the distinction of being spelt with a capital letter in general usage, but the “Internet” is almost always written thus 2. Even when shortened, it is generally spelt as the “Net”. While this is understandable for “the Web” which is a specific entity, the Internet is merely a means of transferring packets of information around computer networks. Neither radio nor television is given an honorary capital letter, and yet these can be represented by something physical, that is, the actual device – the Internet cannot. The different spelling indicates that we regard the Internet as more than just a means for performing communications and information transferral processes. It is almost reified into something real – a place, and there is even a name for people who “live” there – netizens. The label itself, a portmanteau of Internet and citizen or denizen, hints at a political potential. It is interesting to note, too, the language used to describe how the Internet works. It is very personal and reflects a human need to anthropomorphise the tools we use. Hence, networked computers are described as “talking” to each other, speaking the same “language.” Jon Katz even referred to Internet connectivity as “one modem shak[ing] hands with another” (Katz 1995), which is the standard description for computers setting up a communications link, they go through a “hand-shaking” phase.

2It should be noted here that Wired decided in 2004 that they would no longer capitalise the “I” in Internet, arguing that the change was “necessary to put into perspective what the internet is: another medium for delivering and receiving information”, see: http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/08/64596

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Netizens are also bringing into existence a lexicon specific to the Internet, variously called “Netlish”, “Webspeak” or “cybertalk”, among other titles. It is hard to know if this will develop into a specific language, as Wired Style Guide asked, “When does jargon end and a new vernacular begin?” (Wired Style n.d). David Crystal believes that Netspeak is a genuinely new medium - it is not quite spoken writing nor is it written speech, but something fundamentally different from both (Crystal 2001, 238). Because of this it has the potential to “change the way we think” about language in a fundamental way (241). He is less interested in the specific vocabulary that is developing from the Internet, and more interested in embracing the fact that “the Internet is allowing us to once more explore the power of the written language in a creative way” (Crystal 2005, 2).

This lexicon includes genuinely new words, such as blog, and old words used in new ways, extending existing language, such as site, chat, friend, lurk, troll, flame which all mean different things online than offline. But a huge part of this lexicon consists of neologisms that play on words that already exist to describe actions online, such as netsploitation, cybersquatting, internaut or “hacktivist”.

The latter is an interesting example of how the lexicon is developing similar traits to all other languages, that is, words that function as more than just descriptors but also as value- carriers are emerging and being fought over. “Hacktivist” originally referred to hackers who reverse engineered copyrighted code to share it with the open source community, then broadened to refer to anyone who used the Internet to pursue a political end, and now the term is often used in the popular press to describe what used to be called “crackers”, those who illegally break into computer systems for destructive purposes (Castells 2002, 336). Netizens have traditionally always understood the difference between hacking and cracking; the former is considered admirable and can lead to hero status online, whereas the latter is widely discouraged as it disrupts the Internet (Castells 2002, 336). It is possible that labelling the two notions under the same heading is simply a misunderstanding by reporters using jargon they don’t understand. However, it is more probable that blurring

19 the lines between the two is purposeful. Putting both activities under the same heading undermines the positive nature of the term “hacktivist” and relegates these programmers to the same category as virus-developers. It is in the interests of major software companies, increasingly powerful online, to ensure that any break into software code, either to further the open source movement, or to develop a virus, are discouraged. By extending the definition to include activities that hacktivists themselves repudiate, the value of the label and its role in shaping identity online is diluted.

The language of the Internet has evolved as the applications have changed. On Twitter, which only allows tweets of 140 characters, the lexicon is extremely concise. The shorthand language on this service can function as a kind of collective identity, as acronyms such as RT (retweet), BTW (by the way), LMK (let me know) or IMHO (in my humble opinion), AFAIK (as far as I know), and the ever-present LOL (laugh out loud) can be inscrutable to those unfamiliar with the twitterverse . This latter term is one of many that have sprung up to describe the world inhabited by Tweeters, and again, hints that those who tweet inhabit a different space. A sense that users of this application form a specific group is bolstered by this playful language, which takes already existing words and incorporates a variation of “Twitter” into them, such as “twittonary”, the list of words in the Twitter lexicon; “twitterati”, the high-profile and highly popular tweeters; “Tweeterbox”, someone who tweets too much; a “tweetup” is when two people meet up after only communicating via Twitter; “tweepish” is the feeling you have if you regret sending a tweet; and having “tweet cred” describes an experienced tweeter. The use of the hashtag to mark topics or keywords on Twitter has also been modified, so that now specifically a “bashtag” is used to mark critical or abusive comments. This is only a small selection of the colourful language utilised by tweeters. “Twitter” has become such a widely used part of our language that in 2009, only 3 years after its introduction, it beat “Obama”, “deficit” and “foreclosure” to be ranked number one at the top of the Global Language Monitor’s (GLM) list of most used words for that year. Paul Payack, President of GLM, cited the ease with which you can play with the word, as in the above examples, as one of the reasons it appears in language so often (Lea 2009).

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The neologisms in “weblish” encourage the idea that the Internet is indeed something new, and therefore needs a new language to describe it. Whether the words are old words being used in a new way, or completely new words, there is a sense of departure from an existing discourse.

While online language is varied and colourful, there are several specific terms I would like to highlight here in detail.

Virtual

I find the use of the term “virtual” interesting in reference to the Internet, considering its traditional definition, which, according to the Oxford Dictionary of English is “Almost or nearly as described, but not completely or according to strict definition” (Soanes and Stevenson 2003a).

Under this definition, the term “virtual reality” would be an oxymoron, and terms like “virtual citizen” would have a different meaning to what is meant by those using it in reference to the Internet. Given that people add this adjective as a prefix to terms, such a “democracy” or “public sphere”, it would seem to imply that those using this term mean to say almost democracy or almost public sphere. However, it is clear that in using this word,, this is not what is meant. Internet advocates intend to use the term in its second and newer definition, meaning: “Not physically existing as such but made by software to appear to do so” (Soanes and Stevenson 2003a).

This definition also has problems, as it again only describes something that appears to exist, not something that actually does exist. Given this definition, it would mean that “virtual democracy” is not a democracy at all, but simply a simulacrum.

21 It was only in 1959 that the second meaning came to be acceptable use and only with the rise of “virtual reality” that the term has come to denote a means by which something can be created outside of physical space. Since the Internet was developed in the 1960s and the Web in the 1990s, everything written about the Internet has been able to consider both definitions of this word.. It still causes problems, however, as both definitions describe something that does not actually exist , which makes it an interesting choice for those advocating a new type of polity online.

Cyber

Another common prefix used for the Internet is “cyber”, which, like virtual, is used to describe things that exist in computer networks. It is generally agreed that the term is derived from “cybernetics”, a neologism coined by mathematician Norbert Wiener, from the Greek origin kubernetes (steersman, to steer) (Soanes and Stevenson 2003b). The rise of “cyber” as a means to describe actions over computer networks started after William Gibson coined the term “cyberspace” in a science fiction book in 1982. In this book, cyberspace was a spaceless world of electronic networks; where the body has vanished. A person projected their consciousness into cyberspace, and the real world was irrelevant (Gibson, 1984). It is in this way that the prefix is used in terms such as “cybercommons” or “cyberforum”, which implies a world that exists beyond physical space. In some cases, however, the abstract notion of cyberspace is used in a strong sense and treated almost as if it were physical space, as it was used by John Perry Barlow in the Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace as the “new home of the mind”.

The term “cyber” is much overused, and has far more useability that the prefix “virtual”, which seems to require a set of actions to be usable. Everything from sex, pets, banking, business, just about anything at all has had the prefix cyber attached to it some stage over the last decade.

22 “E”

The most ubiquitous prefix for describing actions online is the simple prefix “e”, which is shortened from “electronic”. Like “cyber”, pretty much anything you can imagine has been reinvented by putting an “e” in front of it. eCommerce, eTravel, eBanking, eZine, and of course, email. The “e” added to an already existing term, tends to have an evaluative effect, so that eBanking, eGovernment, eMedicine are perceived as being more accessible and more “modern” than the traditional versions of the same enterprise. Dieter Fuchs questions whether the Athenian a-gora that will perhaps become the “virtual e-gora”, utilising both “virtual” and “e” in one term. (Fuchs 2006, 47). In the words of Stephen Coleman, “e” has become “the 21 st century’s favourite “quick fix prefix; a metaphor in desperate search for tangibility” (Coleman 2004b, 1)”. Despite it’s not actually being a word, the American Dialect Society named “e” Word of the Year in 1998 (Crystal 2001, 21). To a certain extent, “e” has replaced cyber as the prefix of choice for Internet writers and commentators over the last decade.

The most common of all these terms is, of course, email. This term was first recorded as a noun in 1982 and as a verb in 1987 (Quinion 1999). At first, there was some confusion as to whether the “e” functioned as an abbreviation or a prefix, so it appeared in various forms such as e-mail, EMail, but now email is ubiquitous.

Coleman is sceptical about adding the “e” to democracy, pointing out that combining the contested concept of “democracy” to the popular catchword of the moment, we further obfuscate its meaning:

Can democracy – this term we throw around as if we all understood it and agree about it – can it, as a term, be regarded as having a coherent and substantive meaning when it is so often appropriated by the self-serving rhetorics of corporate, imperial and other exclusive interests. And when we combine such pliable and hybrid buzzwords and get e-democracy, can we

23 expect this to be a term that illuminates more than it hides? (Coleman 2004b, 1)

Coleman is a little cynical with his claim of appropriation by the “self-serving”, but in light of what will be argued later, he is on the right track to warn of the way the term is thrown around as if everybody knows what it means.

“My”

Another prefix that has gained prominence on the Internet is “My” used to denote personal content uploaded to a website.

Use of “My” for computing goes back at least a decade, when, as Andrew Shapiro pointed out in The Control Revolution (1999), software makers “recognizing individuals’ desire for control”, named folders My Documents, My Photos, My Music (as he points out, who else would they belong to?) (Shapiro 1999, 44).

Ironically, the “My” section of any website, for instance MyAccount, MyInbox, MyBlog, usually requires a user to surrender an enormous amount of personal information which is then held on external servers. The use of “My” seems to provide a reassuring sense of ownership, or control, for users that the information remains their own property. Governments are also trying to leverage this language, with the Australian Government launching MySchool, MyUniversity and MyHospitals.

“2.0”

After being first used by O’Reilly Media in 2004, the suffix “2.0” has gone on to have a life of its own, being listed by the Global Language Monitor as the sixth most used word for 2009 (Lea 2009). It is broadly used to describe anything that is in its second generation, but is often used to carry the value of its connection with the up-to-the-minute technology of

24 Web 2.0. For example, the Australian government’s taskforce to “make government more consultative, participatory and transparent” is called Government 2.0 (government 2.0 taskforce n.d). There is also Business 2.0, Education 2.0, Music 2.0, among others. The Pew report on the Obama campaign refers to “Politics 2.0” to describe the use of online tools to participate in the campaign, advancing the idea that it was a new type of campaign (Smith and Rainie 2008, 14).

Web 2.0 is portrayed as being “more new” than the Internet itself, however Tim Berners- Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, describes the term as “a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means” (as quoted in Laningham 2006). He says that the technology of Web 2.0 is just an extension of the original Web and does not warrant a separate label (Anderson 2007, 2). In many ways he is correct. While the interface may look different, Web 2.0 still relies on TCP/IP and is still essentially built on HTML. In addition, he points out, to describe Web 2.0 as different because it is collaborative and participatory is misleading, since providing an interlinked global collaborative space that everyone would be able to edit was always the idea behind the Web (Anderson 2007, 5). Using 2.0 to describe a new Web, or the next generation of everything is, then, a misnomer.

Even Tim O’Reilly, who introduced the term, says there are difficulties with using “2.0” to describe the Web, as it leaves people asking “what’s next?”, as it is understood to be similar to a software version number. He says he is constantly asked now about “Web 3.0”, whether it is the social web, the sentient web, some form of virtual reality, whereas, he says, he intended the 2.0 label to indicate “the second coming” of the Web after the dotcom bubble (O’Reilly and Battelle 2009, 1-2).

25 CHAPTER 2 - METHODOLOGY

In this research I will be evaluating concepts in discussions of the internet’s democratic potential following Quentin Skinner’s methodology for studying historical texts, outlined in Visions of Politics (2002), by looking not just at what people are saying, but also what they are doing in saying it (Skinner 2002, 82). Through this method, I intend to show that concepts are being employed intentionally not just to describe an action, but also to make an argument.

Skinner’s seminal work on methodology is primarily concerned with interpreting ideas in their historical contexts, that is, a contextual intellectual history. Political ideas have not been trans-historical phenomena that were the same through time, as much normative political theory has conceived. Rather, he says, such ideas must be considered in their historical contexts (Skinner 2002). There is a genealogy to the evaluative concepts composing the political vocabulary. Primarily, his methodology is a useful way of interrogating the language to answer the question - how are the concepts used.

Skinner is part of the “linguistic turn” since the 1960s, which has destabilised the “positivistic world of facts”, and increased our awareness of how language can be used as more than merely a vehicle for communicating our thoughts (Skinner 2002, 5). “Language is a resource, and we can use it to shape our world” (7), says Skinner. It is a tool that can be used to give authority to claims or produce an emotive response in our audience. It can “be exploited to underpin or undermine the construction of our social world”, to legitimate behaviour (5). “I wanted to treat the understanding of concepts”, says Skinner, “as always, in part, a matter of understanding what can be done with them in argument” (176).

On this point, Skinner draws on Wittgenstein, who asserted in Philosophical Investigations that “words are also deeds” (as quoted in Skinner 2002, 4), and later Quine, who asserted that there is no “unvarnished news” to report (2). This approach was later taken up by J.L.

26 Austin, John Searle and others (2), who considered how we are using language to do more than just communicate; we are doing something as well as saying something. Skinner also notes the contribution of H.P. Grice and others, whose work led to a shifting away from “meanings” towards questions of agency, usage and intentionality (2). From this work, Skinner makes a distinction between two dimensions of language – the first is the dimension of meaning; the second he describes, using Austin’s words, as the dimension of linguistic action, that is, what a speaker is doing when using words and language (4).

For Skinner, what people are “doing” with political words is to legitimate behaviour; the main aspect of a normative vocabulary lies in its legitimating potential (Palonen 2003, 79). Legitimacy is a crucial feature of political life, it is something political actors want, and something the rest of us will recognise and respond to (Mulligan, 2006, 351). Mulligan describes legitimacy as a “resource” and a “tool of battle” in a war where legitimacy is, in itself, the main prize (361). In the battle of ideas, the quest is to legitimate behaviour; the legitimacy has to be “captured”, that is, “by re-establishing the claim according to a new set of rules or priorities and thus denying the present legitimacy on the basis of some other” (349). The struggle over legitimacy sees domination pass from one set of principles to another (361). This is because different sides of a political debate are working with a “shared stock of concepts, observations and facts” (Floyd 2011, 28) and, we may add, political vocabularies, to which they appeal to convince wider audiences of argument. In rhetorical terms, rhetors and writers are drawing upon the same wells of doxa and endoxa.

Therefore, Skinner says, “we need to treat our normative concepts less as statements about the world than as tools and weapons of ideological debate” (2002, 177) in their various historical contexts. That is, all normative vocabularies have a moral perspective and therefore have a “rhetorical character” which is deployed by a rhetor or writer. “Innovating ideologists”, as Skinner calls them, were adapting “an available moral language to their own ends” as well as challenging “conventional beliefs” (178-9). Therefore, this thesis agrees with Skinner’s contention that “the various transformations we can hope to chart will not strictly speaking be changes in concepts at all. They will be transformations in the

27 applications of the terms by which our concepts are expressed” (179). This is at the heart of this research: examining the changing applications of political concepts in the democratic conceptual constellation in reference to the Internet.

Like Skinner, this research has an interest in both aspects of language: the meaning and the action. By looking at the meaning of the concepts, we can understand their complexities and contradictions, and by looking at what people are doing with the concepts, we can get a better understanding of how the social attitudes in these concepts are being employed to legitimate arguments about online activities. Value-laden concepts have been attached to online processes to give them authority.

Skinner’s work has attracted critics, most notably Mark Bevir, “the most pertinacious and certainly the most prolific of Skinner’s contemporary critics” (Stanton 2011, 71). But even Bevir has not overturned a contextual approach to concepts. In fact, they are working in similar fields (Stanton 2011). Indeed, Stanton points out that the gist of Bevir’s criticism is that Skinner has abandoned the claims of his earlier work (72).

Finlayson & Martin adapt Skinner’s approach to argue that we need to expose the “creativity of politics” and “the rhetorical arts through which phenomena can be redescribed, named, naturalized or problematized in ongoing processes of argumentation. One of the functions of rhetoric is to, as it were, transform preferences, engendering change through giving us new perceptions of old phenomena” (Finlayson & Martin 2004, 538). We can see why that creativity happens and what constitutes the material for the rhetoric when we probe our political vocabulary further. Specifically, we can see why such creativity and rhetorical arts persist due to the capacity of the concepts to engender argument in their criteria, their application, their social attitudes, and their relation to each other in constellations. The contestability, contingency and historicity of concepts lend them to argument. Therefore, it is necessary to essentially understand contested concepts.

28 Essentially Contested Concepts

When a concept is internally complex, has relatively open rules of application and is an appraisive term, then that concept is an “essentially contested concept” (Connolly 1993: 10). The contestation may arise from a dispute over the definition, but even assuming consensus on this point, disagreement may arise over the application of the concept, or over the judgment imputed with the concept. For such a concept, disagreement over its meaning, application and evaluation is a persistent and essential feature of its functioning in language (Ball 1997, 34).

The essentially contested concept thesis was first outlined by A.B Gallie in 1956. Skinner adapted Gallie’s framework in Chapter 9 of Visions of Politics in order to demonstrate the possibilities for continual processes of argument, dispute, social innovation and legitimation. In other words, the continual possibilities for persuasion.

Democracy is the classic essentially contested concept, and is one of the concepts originally chosen by Gallie to illustrate the essentially contested concept thesis, along with art, social justice and religion (1956, 180). The concept of democracy is almost always invoked in a rhetorical sense. To call something a “democracy” is not just to describe it, but to also give it a value (Connolly 1993, 22).

In his original delineation of the thesis, Gallie compared the complexity of disputes where people disagree over a contested concept to competing scientific hypotheses, where there exist agreed methods for determining a correct conclusion. In the latter case, a premise and an inference will lead to a true conclusion, whereas for disputes over the proper use of a concept, there can be no “knock out” (Gallie 1956, 179). Endless dispute over the proper use of a concept is the foundation of the essentially contested concepts paradigm.

29 Constellations of Concepts

The disputes over the criteria and application of any contested concept proliferate through their connection to other contested concepts. Defining any concept is to link it with others, that are themselves contentious, and those concepts are also connected to a wider network of concepts (Connolly 1993, 1). As noted by Connolly: “To make the concept of politics intelligible we must display its complex connections with a host of other concepts to which it is related; clarification of the concepts of politics thereby involves the elaboration of the broader conceptual system within which it is implicated” (Connolly 1993, 14).

The concepts that are used to illustrate democracy, such as participation, representation, deliberation, among others, are themselves contested. These concepts, all of which are continually used in the discussions around the Internet’s democratic potential, are linked to each other for elucidation of their meaning and function in language. They cannot be used in isolation but in “constellations, which make up entire schemes or belief systems” (Farr 1989, 38). As these concepts are linked linguistically and philosophically, they must be understood with reference to each other.

In this research, I will be using Skinner’s approach to analyse the rhetorical function of political concepts as they are employed in arguments around the Internet’s democracy potential. I will be focusing on the main concept of democracy, and other concepts that form part of its conceptual constellation – representation, participation and deliberation.

Political Disagreement and Rhetorical Arguments

Gallie’s contestability thesis puts language at the centre of political disagreement, rather than viewing political disputes as the result of an error in reasoning that could be resolved to the satisfaction of everyone given time, patience and an effective use of reason (Mason 1993, 3). The idea that political disputes arise from mistakes, what Andrew Mason calls the

30 imperfection conception , has a long history, connected with notions of self-evident and moral truths, governed by a rational method (1993, 2). It was espoused by thinkers such as William Godwin and John Locke, who argued that disagreement would only arise when people’s understanding was clouded by passion, or when people failed to make themselves clear (Mason 1993, 3). Later, Logical Positivists believed that the language of politics could be purged of inherited value, and made to behave with the (idealised) clarity of the language of science (Ball 1997, 30) – the natural sciences as a model for social sciences (Ball 2002, 15). Once the meanings of concepts were settled, and we cut through the inherited muddle, Logical Positivists argued, we can engage in meaningful debate, and get past disagreement. But, given the “exceedingly difficult, if not foredoomed, task” (Ball 1997, 29) of making language politically neutral, Logical Positivism was a short-lived movement among political theorists (31).

Gallie’s essential contestability thesis highlights the deficiency in the imperfection conception and instead sees conflict as part of political life, inherent in its very language, rather than as an aberration. However, Gallie’s original thesis has been questioned as itself “contestable and problematic” (Ball 2002, 24).

Terrence Ball believes that to say that political concepts are essentially contested is to over- emphasise the level of conflict in political life, and to say that agreement can never be reached, and therefore there can be no hope of establishing a civic community (Ball 2002, 24). Instead, he argues that, while concepts are contested, and that there certainly are disagreements about the meaning and application of political concepts, this isn’t always or necessarily the case. The original essential contestability thesis is, argues Ball, true as a valid generalisation of political language, but to argue that a particular concept is essentially contested is to take a timeless and ahistorical view of the character and function of political concepts (Ball 1997, 34). While conceptual contestation is a persistent and recurrent feature of political discourse, not all concepts have been contested at all times. He puts forward an amendment to Gallie’s thesis, which he calls contingent contestability (Ball 1997, 34). As an example, he points out that the “now ubiquitous” debates over what democracy

31 means are relatively recent. Democracy would have once had a settled meaning, and in addition, has not always carried the appraisive value it carries today, being at times seen as synonymous with demagoguery. He contrasts this with the once-heated dispute over the concept of “republic” in the eighteenth century, which no longer rages. The comparison of these two concepts, however, highlights a vital feature of the contestability thesis, and that is the appraisive aspect. The debate over “republic” has perhaps cooled because it is no longer valuable, with the concept of democracy taking its place in these debates, and even encompassing some of the values that were once attributed to that now less valuable concept. As democracy has become more valuable as a concept, it has become more contested.

Mason has refined Ball’s idea, agreeing that not all concepts have been contested at all times, but that it is a permanent possibility, and therefore the language of political discourse is essentially contestable, but the concepts comprising any political language are contingently contestable (Mason 1993, 58). Ball agrees that political concepts are essentially contest able , but contingently contest ed , and described Mason's distinction between the two as “quite sensibl[e]” (Ball 2002, 29). He also notes that the debate over which concepts are considered worthy of being disputed is itself a political disagreement (Ball, 1997, 36).

Contested concepts, then, are at the heart of political disagreement. They have no fixed definition, and can therefore be attached to many varied activities. It is questionable whether we can settle the meaning of any of them, hence they can be employed rhetorically in arguments. Furthermore, it is beneficial to keep the meanings of these concepts vague, as they continue to carry and bestow value.

The appraisive function of essentially contested concepts is difficult to overstate and is an important aspect of their contested nature. To employ these concepts is to do more than just describe something, but also to give that thing a value (Connolly 1993, 10). It is not merely to name something, but to characterise it. Instead, concepts carry with them the

32 “baggage” of their history, etymology, and their function within language and within a belief system. This can be in overt or covert ways (Farr 1989, 26). William Connolly encapsulates this thesis as follows: “The language of politics is not a neutral medium that conveys ideas independently formed; it is an institutionalised structure of meanings that channels political thought and action in certain directions” (1993, 1)

The appraisive element of essentially contested concepts is not accidental. Their definitions have not become broadened and disputed through inadvertent misuse. It is often in the interests of political actors for value-laden concepts to remain ambiguous to allow their application in varying situations. Their function as value-carriers discourages any attempt to pin down a specific definition and ensures their continued contested character. The two elements go hand in hand, and if the value were stripped away from such a concept, it would cease to have meaning. The concept would, in the words of Connolly (1993, 29), “lay idle… with no purpose to serve, the concept itself would fall into disuse”. In this regard, a concept can be said to be essentially contested, since once it ceases to be valuable, it ceases to be used or to be argued over, as Ball himself points out with a concept like “republic”, which has fallen out of favour.

So while Skinner’s methodology leads us to distinguish between meanings of concepts and the intention in their use, the essentially contested concepts framework shows how these two aspects interact. The contested nature of these concepts – that is, the vagueness of their meanings – is the very characteristic that allows for them to be used intentionally to bestow value or authority, and to be used for rhetorical purposes.

Eugene Garver (1978) has highlighted the role essentially contested concepts can play in political arguments. He draws a connection between essentially contested concepts and Aristotle’s account of rhetorical argument (Garver 1978, 156). The connection comes from seeing these concepts as not essentially contested due to some intrinsic attribute unique to these particular concepts but rather the contestation arises by their appearing in essentially contested arguments (159). This is similar to the point made by Ball about contingent

33 contestability, as it highlights how concepts can be considered settled in some contexts, but in others, they are essentially contested for rhetorical purposes. To illustrate his point, Garver compares how the concept of “happiness” is settled in Aristotle’s Ethics , whereas in the Rhetoric , the concept functions as an essentially contested concept (Garver, 160).

An essentially contested argument is, he says, what Aristotle calls a rhetorical argument. It involves choices and judgments by rhetors from “the existing means of persuasion” (Freese 1982, 13). Rhetors are not expected to construct an invulnerable argument, but to put forward the best argument for a particular situation. In a different situation, the same data may bring out a different argument (Garver 1978, 159). Rhetorical arguments do not settle anything (158). Like Gallie, he draws the distinction between these types of arguments and scientific argument, which are directed towards establishing a universal truth (157). However, he believes we have been distracted by the impressive progress of scientific demonstrations and refutations so that we have very little understanding of how essentially contested arguments can progress. Unlike Gallie, he believes essentially contested arguments can have standards and methods all their own, that are fundamentally different to the deductive arguments of science (169). Garver says that Aristotle showed us what the standards are for a good rhetorical argument (169).

More specifically, contested concepts’ varying criteria means there is the capacity for varieties of definitions to be advanced in arguments. Definitions of concepts constitute a shared social understanding about the objects of our world. As such, defining something is a political act, and persuading a community to accept a definition is a rhetorical act (Schiappa 1998, 1). Schiappa argues that we tend to take definitions for granted, but says we should put more emphasis on the normative and ethical ramifications of the act of defining (Schiappa 1998, 1).

The essentially contested concepts paradigm is useful then, not only in furthering our understanding of how complex the concepts themselves are, but also in understanding how they can function rhetorically in an argument. By drawing the connection from Aristotle’s

34 rhetorical argument to essentially contested concepts, Garver is highlighting how the contested nature of these concepts is about more than just disagreement over their meaning. It is a social dispute as well.

Conceptual Change and Legitimation

What exactly are we debating when we question whether a word ought to be applied to a particular action? Disagreements over the application of concepts are actually disagreements over our social world. Skinner stresses this aspect of appraisive terms, when he questions whether a disagreement over their application is ever a linguistic argument, but an argument about our social world itself (Skinner 2002, 163). A disagreement over the application of a concept is more than just a linguistic debate; it is “an argument between two rival social theories and their attendant methods of classifying social reality” (163).

Skinner gives the example of Marcel Duchamp’s inclination to designate familiar objects (for example pegs), as “art”, and having them hung in galleries. Some argue that designating these items as art helps to sharpen our awareness of everyday objects, whereas others argue that you can’t simply call a peg a work of art and expect it to be accepted as such (Skinner 1989, 11). Similarly, employing value-laden concepts to describe online activities is more than just a process of redescription, it is a means of changing the way we conceptualise our world.

As I have noted, one of the most important uses of evaluative language is to legitimate behaviour (Skinner 2002, 173). When we use a term in a different way, outside of its generally accepted use, we are then engaged in an act of persuading an audience to accept this new application. As a consequence new meanings will often be generated. This is something Skinner has called “rhetorical redescription” (179). He says some caution should be used in always seeing this as conceptual change, but rather as “transformations in the

35 applications of the terms by which our concepts are expressed” (179). Nevertheless the outcome of such a debate will be a form of conceptual change (186).

Conceptual change can mean more than just changing the way a word functions in language, it can also indicate a change in the world. Conceptual change is, in the words of Skinner, “one of the engines of social change” (2002, 178). Since our moral and social world is described by our inherited normative vocabularies, he argues, we are able to reappraise and change the world by reappraising and changing the vocabularies that describe it (Skinner 2002, 178). Ball agrees with this premise, saying, “Political innovation and conceptual change are two sides of the same old and still circulating coin” (1997, 36). Farr, too, sees the two as connected, saying to understand conceptual change is to understand political change (1989, 31).

Those who want to apply a valuable concept to a new process, for example calling the blogosphere a new public sphere, are engaged in this political process of rhetorical redescription. Persuading an audience to accept a new application of an existing valuable concept is a political act, an attempt to legitimate an argument by invoking a valuable concept. It is an attempt to stretch a concept’s application to take in new criteria, in much the same way Duchamp expected the concept of “art” to be extended to include pegs. This example highlights how not all definitions are accepted and used in the same way. Schiappa calls attention to the political ramifications of the act of defining something. He describes definitions as “rhetorically induced”, that is, getting a definition to be accepted is a matter of persuasion (1998, 1). This research will investigate how writers use value-laden concepts to persuade people to change or stretch a particular definition in reference to the Internet.

Conceptual change is never complete; it is a continual and inevitable consequence of political discourse. In the words of James Farr (1989, 24), “Constant change appears to be the only truly constant thing about our political concepts”. Skinner also points out that the meanings of concepts change over time, and says we need to be wary of writing a history of

36 a concept as if it doesn’t change. Such an action leads us to consider as “timeless truths” ideas that are actually just seen through the prism of our own social structure (89). There are no timeless concepts, he says (89).

A concept is only a placeholder; it is a symbol for an entity that may or may not take physical form, but nevertheless evokes a “real” image to the user of the concept. (With a contested concept, the image will look slightly different to everyone using that concept.) Changing the application of the concept changes the way a user will imagine that entity. Hence, a wide acceptance of identifying blogging with the public sphere not only provides this new process with a descriptive label, it also changes our understanding of the public sphere, and adds value and importance to blogging. While broadening the use of these concepts adds further to their contested nature, it is also part of an inevitable process in political language.

Essential to this thesis is the idea proposed by James Farr that people may change a concept in order to solve a problem; but the complexities inherent in the concept will arise again (1989, 34). The complexities of democracy are fundamental and, moreover, are well known in democratic theory. We should not let the “newness” of the Internet lead us to overlook democracy’s complexities. We cannot make complex and contested concepts fit what the Internet can do, nor can we design democratic procedures based on simplified or diminished ideas. The complexities of democracy will still arise. Utilising a diminished and reduced conceptualisation of democracy cannot lead to a deep and meaningful analysis of the role the Internet can play in modern democracies.

The introduction of a new technology into a political discourse has the potential to broaden and extend the application of political concepts, which can in turn change the nature of politics. This is in essence what has happened with the vocabulary of democracy and the Internet. As mentioned above, a normative vocabulary can be employed for its rhetorical potential to persuade an audience, and with the Internet, writers are making use of value- laden concepts for this purpose. In this research, I will analyse what the authors, the

37 rhetors, are doing with language. This area is very much a field of scholarly inquiry and has been considered worthy of comment by some of the most prominent scholars in democratic theory. Writers such as Benjamin Barber, Robert Dahl, Stephen Coleman, Jay Blumler, John Keane, Jugen Habermas, have all made a contribution to this emerging area of democratic theory. Arguments have also been put forward by noted political practitioners such as Dick Morris founder of Vote.com, Andrew Rasiej, founder of TechPresident, and by high-profile politicians such as Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and Kofi Annan. This area has also attracted the attention of futurists, technology writers and early adaptors, such as Nicholas Negroponte, John Naisbitt, Jon Katz whose works have appeared in the respected industry journal Wired , and Howard Rheingold, whose writings about his experiences on the WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectric Link) became hugely influential in early perceptions of the Internet and its democratic potential.

These writers are respected scholars, prominent industry writers and well-known politicians, who have put forward arguments for the Internet’s democratic potential. Collectively they have been writing since the early 1990s when the Internet first came to prominence. The early writers argued enthusiastically that the technology offered the promise of facilitating a more direct democracy, and that the appeal of such a system would drive an inevitably movement in that direction. Later claims became more restrained, but with the “deliberative turn” in democratic theory, arguments for the Internet’s democratic potential came to focus on how it could be used to improve deliberative processes.

This research will analyse the arguments of these writers and others to see what their language is doing to forward an argument for the Internet’s democratic potential. In this framework, these writers are treated as rhetors, making persuasive arguments that bolster claims. The analysis will demonstrate the rhetorical nature of their arguments.

In 1992, before the Internet had become an everyday tool, Neil Postman in Technopoly , described how technology can change not only the way we think, but the things we think about. They alter the “character of our symbols, the things we think with” (1992, 20). He

38 said, “Unforeseen consequences stand in the way of all those who think they see clearly the direction in which a new technology will take us. Not even those who invent a technology can be assumed to be reliable prophets” (Postman 1992, 15).

With the Internet, the concepts, the “things we think with”, are changed by altering the way they are applied in this new medium and this can change our social reality. We need to be aware about how value-laden concepts are employed to describe new processes. We cannot take for granted that the Internet will necessarily be democratic, and we need to be sure we are aware of, and question, the assumptions we make about the technology. In Technopoly , Postman goes on to say that, “In cultures that have a democratic ethos, relatively weak traditions, and a high receptivity to new technologies, everyone is inclined to believe that its benefits will spread evenly among the entire population” (1992, 11). This was a particularly perceptive statement to make, and one that has been confirmed by the Internet. As the next chapter will demonstrate, there is a succession of assumptions and biases that have shaped our expectations of the Internet that come, not from the technology, but from our culture.

39 CHAPTER 3 – MYTHS, MODERNITY AND PROGRESS

From its inception, the Internet has been subject to high expectations and surrounded by high ideals. It has been imbued with hopes for how it can be used to transform politics and engender a better democracy. Its unique characteristics – its apparently anarchistic, uncontrollable set-up – have driven a lot of the hype around the Internet and its use. In this chapter I will highlight how our expectations of this technology have been framed by much older ideas. This puts the Internet and claims for its democratic potential into its historical context. As noted in the previous chapter, Skinner has argued that concepts need to be considered in their historical contexts, as there is a genealogy to evaluative concepts. In this case, the concepts of democracy, progress and modernity have an interconnected genealogy, and since the 1990s have become intertwined with our expectations of the Internet. The connection between these concepts, and how they have shaped our expectations of the internet’s democratic potential will be outlined in this chapter.

The philosophies of progress and modernity underpin the claims for the Internet’s democratic potential, and this has contributed to the creation of a mythology around the Internet. The expectations of the Internet have been driven by a combination of philosophies and myths, that have seen the Internet as genuinely new, providing a break with the past, and being able to progress democracy to a better future. Hence there exists the enthusiasm to bring the Internet into our political systems.

From the age of the Enlightenment, the interlinked concepts of progres s and modernity have become two of the most influential ideas in Western societies, and both play an enormous role in our perception and expectations of technology. Our preoccupation with progress and the enduring influence of modernity supplies a teleological narrative of improvement in the future and of rupture with the past. This narrative easily comports with notions of democracy which encourage hope for renewal and redemption in the future. Thus, the evaluative language of modernity associated with technology has bolstered the evaluative language of democracy and created expectations of greater democracy with the

40 Internet. The values of these concepts are connected as each concept – democracy, progress and modernity – carries its own value, which is also enhanced by connection to each other. There is a cascade of concepts and values reinforcing each other so that anything, such as the Internet, which is claimed to advance these ideals is also showered with the same approbations.

Furthermore, I will demonstrate how many of the myths that are considered unique to the Internet are, in fact, just a continuation of a longer preoccupation with progress and modernity. Progress, the notion that we are inevitably advancing into a better world, and modernity, the rise of a scientifically driven society after the Enlightenment, underpin the claims for the Internet’s democratic potential.

The Mythology of the Internet

More than a decade ago, Vincent Mosco wrote about the role that myths have played in how we perceive the Internet. Indeed, he says we cannot understand the place of communications technologies in our society, in particular the Internet and cyberspace, without taking account of the central myths around them (Mosco 1998, 57). Reflecting on our expectations of the Internet by framing them in terms of a mythology is a useful approach, as it helps us to understand why we have had, and continue to have, such high expectations of this technology. It also explains how the discourse around the Internet has taken the shape it has, why complex concepts have been simplified, and why as a society we have expected the Internet to solve the perceived problems of democracy.

Myths are, says Mosco, stories that help us to deal with the contradictions and complexities in our world. For instance, he says, the mythology of democracy allows us to cope with the cognitive dissonance that arises out of our desire to retain control over our circumstances while giving up some control to bring about democracy; likewise, the mythology of

41 community helps us cope with our desire to retain our individuality while fully participating in a community (Mosco 1998, 58). A myth takes the messiness out of the complexities and contradictions of life, and makes them into a neat story. A myth “shelters the truth by giving it a natural, taken-for-granted quality” (58). A myth does not deny something, but gives it a clarity and a justification. By eliminating complexities and contradictions, the myth provides a “euphoric clarity” (59).

A myth also provides “protective covering” in its ability to transcend history (Mosco 1998, 59). The myth allows us to ignore history and to see something as genuinely new. This allows us to remove discussion from active human agency, and from the real world of politics (60). These characteristics can be observed in the in discussions around the Internet’s democratic potential as will be examined in this thesis. As I will demonstrate, there is a propensity in these arguments to use concepts as if they are timeless, for instance, drawing a line from modern representative democratic systems back to Athens, and so viewing modern democracy as a compromise; or seeing the role of participation in democracy as fixed. Furthermore, as I will demonstrate, many concepts are removed from human agency and outside of their political context.

We can see both these elements – simplifying complexities and denying history – in arguments around the Internet’s democratic potential. In fact, Vannobbergen describes mythmaking as “inherent to technological development”, as there will always be hyperbolic claims about its effect on society (2007: 2 [as quoted in Breindl 2010, 44]). That the Internet will be good for democracy has a “taken-for-granted” quality to it, as does the idea that, because the Internet offers tools for communication and political activism, people will take them up. As a result, writers have started from the assumption that the Internet would have a role of play in democracy, Likewise, we assume that the Internet represents “a rupture in history” (Mosco 1998 59) and a break with the past. Thus, there is no need to place it in historical context, nor is there any value in doing so because the time before is prehistory and is of little value. These are charactistics of a myth (59).

42 Furthermore, the rhetorical redescription outlined in this thesis, as writers draw on specific criteria of democracy to further an argument for the Internet’s democratic potential, , rather than embracing the contestation within the, takes out the messiness, and provides a neat explanation. We can see this myth-making, for instance, in the idea that the Internet will transform political participation. In order to make this claim, we must remove this discussion from the real world of politics, throw out everything we know about participation and motivation, and, instead of seeing the issue in terms of human agency, see it as simply a matter of finding a technical answer to a practical problem.

Mosco says, “When we begin to understand computer communication as mythology that speaks to genuine unmet needs and aspirations, we can understand its seductive power, why it is that people are so taken and taken in by it” (Mosco 1998, 61). The Internet seems to provide answers to our aspirations for democracy. This helps us to understand why, from its very beginnings, writers have had such high hopes for the Internet’s democratic potential, and why, despite more than twenty years’ history, these hopes are still expressed. It answers why we continually look for a link between the Internet and participation even though what we know about participation and motivation tells us the link won’t be found; why we are keen to see the Internet as a deliberative forum; and why we are willing to overlook history to invoke something we think is genuinely new.

In this chapter I would like to highlight these assumptions for what they are – myths that have given a “taken-for-granted” quality to many of the claims around the Internet and democracy. These myths are founded in the Western philosophies of progress and modernity.

Progress

Faith in progress has been dominant in Western thinking for centuries. JB Bury in 1920 described it as “the animating and controlling idea of Western civilisation (6). Robert Nisbet

43 in A History of the Idea of Progress (1980), stresses its importance, stating, “No single idea has been more important than, perhaps as important as, the idea of progress in Western civilisation for nearly three thousand years” (4). In the twenty-first century, this belief continues to be strong. Says Robert Wright, “despite certain events of the twentieth century, most people in the Western cultural tradition still believe in the Victorian ideal of progress” (Wright 2004, 3).

Progress is a very broad term, one that can encompass so much that its meaning becomes obscure. Nisbet provides us with an ostensibly straightforward idea of progress: that humankind has, and will continue to, advance from some primitive condition into the future (1980, 4). But he goes on from this simple statement to outline the problems with a definition of progress: what does “advance” mean? And how do we define primitive? These are the difficulties in assessing the notion of progress. It is impossible to outline any description of moving forward without passing judgment on the outcome, and here we find vastly different ideas as to what constitutes progress. De Benoist has put forward three key ideas that are present in all theories of progress: 1) a linear conception of time, oriented towards the future; 2) the fundamental unity of humanity, that all are evolving together in the same direction; and 3) the idea that the world can and must be transformed. These three ideas originated from Christianity, but were reformulated in secular terms with the rise of science and technology in the seventeenth century. (8)

It could be argued that a belief in progress has been a driving force for human culture for millennia. Nisbet points out that from Protagoras through the Romans, St Augustine and through the seventeenth century all the way down to the twentieth century, there is a “rarely interrupted conviction that knowledge… is to advance, to improve” (1980, 5). However, it was only from the age of the Enlightenment when progress came to be connected with rationality, secularism and the rise of the scientific method, that progress became overly dominant in Western society. We came to see technological innovation based on systemic research that would enable us to overcome the limitations of nature. The cumulative character of scientific knowledge meant that we will always know more,

44 and therefore everything will get better (De Benoist 2009, 10). This opened up the possibility of infinite improvement and “the idea of human progress was born” (Inglehart and Welzel 2005, 16).

Prior to that time, the binary contrasts of old versus new, traditional versus modern, and superstition versus scientific knowledge, were not as pronounced. Indeed, in the Renaissance, thinkers turned to the ancients for illumination and considered their scholarship and achievement superior to their own. In the post-Enlightenment world, this kind of non-linear progression would have been unthinkable. Post-Enlightenment humanity has been “future-oriented”, in the words of Anthony Giddens (1990, 84).

In the eighteenth century, the idea of progress was broadened and extended, and became involved with notions of freedom. One of the first to develop a comprehensive theory about progress was Jacques Turgot (Nisbet 1980, 179). He united the ideas of progress and freedom conclusively in his writings, and declared that the achievement of freedom, including freedom for women and slaves, was the true goal of human progress (182). While other philosophers looked to natural causes for differences in civilisations, for example race, it was Turgot who described the differences simply as differences in degree of advancement (183). He believed different societies represented different stages on a scale of evolutionary progress (it was this idea that would later legitimise colonialism as the “the white man’s burden”).

For the American Founding Fathers, progress was an inevitable and necessary condition of human development, “as real and as certain as any law in physical science” (Nisbet 1980, 7). They saw the extension of freedom and progress as inextricably linked, and so the idea of progress formed part of the thinking in the development of representative democracy.

Later, Herbert Spencer, who wrote extensively on the “law of progress”, also declared that the goal of progress was the ever-increasing realisation of freedom (Nisbet 1980, 236).

45 Spencer believed all societies were in a process of advancement until reaching the ultimate goal, which is a truly free society. Hegel also saw freedom as the ultimate goal of progress, declaring, “The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of Freedom” (Connelly 1993, 93). He argued that while individuals and even whole civilisations may suffer, it is not in vain as humanity continually progresses towards greater freedom.

After the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), the notion of progress gained even greater popularity, as evolutionism was applied to society and politics. Just as organisms evolved from simple forms to complex biological beings, society, it was assumed, would also inevitably progress from basic, primitive structures to a complex, modern, sophisticated polity (Cohen 1985, 22). All areas of human accomplishment were now viewed as moving in a predestined course towards a more advanced form.

The influence of progress continued into twentieth century political thought, hugely influenced by a truly modern philosophy preoccupied with progress, change and a teleology that was ‘future-oriented’ to a completely new political society. Marxism was the culmination of a century of thinking on progress, where stage-by-stage, human society would progress from one polity to another until the establishment of a communist society. For Marx, a necessary period of violence, revolution and even repression may be required along this progression, but ultimately political society would progress to a golden age of harmony and conflict would end (Nisbet 1980, 239).

Thus, the political theorists who so heavily influenced Western political thought, and the development of modern democracy, were themselves influenced by the theory of progress. Progress represented more than just a change from old to new, but was always envisaged as a transformation from bad to good. The enlightened man would always act rationally, reason would continually improve, and humanity would become morally better (De Benoist 2009, 12). Progress became a “modern” re-telling of the age-old narrative of evil being driven out of the world by good. This view of progress is summed up in the words of

46 Emmanuel Kant, from Principles of Politics :

“the human race is continually advancing in civilisation and culture as its natural purpose, so it is continually making progress for the better in relation to the moral end of its existence, and that this progress, although it may be sometimes interrupted, will never be entirely broken off or stopped” (as quoted in Nisbet 1980, 223).

In this quotation, Kant encapsulates the West’s preoccupation with progress as an inevitable process ultimately leading to a better world. This idea of progress has remained ascendant in Western political and social thought for two centuries.

Progress, Democracy and the Internet

The history of modern democracy is fundamentally influenced by and linked to the history of the idea of progress. Out of the Enlightenment grew a belief that “the growth in scientific knowledge and the emancipation of mankind marched hand in hand (Gray 2007, 2). This new “confidence in science and the works of Man” (Midgley, 2003, 14) meant that command over the natural world could be achieved, but only when limits were removed from the individual’s freedom to think and create. Progress would be driven further when men were free from oppression and able to develop their faculties and talents.

At the founding of the American republic, the influence of progress was in its ascendancy and the nation was established according to principles of liberty and freedom, end goals of progress. The ideas of progress and freedom became so intertwined that the extent to which a nation could be considered “progressive” was related to the degree to which its people were free, and the fledgling republic came to represent a standard by which the rest of humanity, the unfree masses, could direct their own progress (Nisbet 1980, 179).

While the term “democracy” would not have been used at the time, characteristics that

47 would later become incorporated into modern democracy, such as increased suffrage and protection of individual rights, began to be associated with notions of progress and civility. This has profoundly influenced democratic theory, as the connection between progress, freedom, individual liberty and ultimately democracy have become entwined.

The connection between progress, freedom and democracy continues to dominate today, so that democracy, as the polity ensuring the greatest freedom, and democratisation, the increase of freedom, are inseparable from the Enlightenment notion of progress, and the now dominant notion of modern liberal democracy as the final goal of political and social progress. Hence the persistent desire to make democracy “better”, and the promise of a better world through democratisation: it is the next step in an inevitable progression to the final goal of an ideal democracy. It is this ongoing drive to improve democracy that brings the Internet into this history. Technology, viewed as an instrument of progress, becomes an integral ingredient in democratisation. Technology has always been an important part of the modern notion of progress, since it is thought that through science and its practical applications of technology, that humanity would apply its ideas to harness resources and overcome society’s ills and scarcities (Wright 2004, 5). In the last two decades of the twentieth century, and into the new century, the Internet has been put forward as an instrument of progress. It has been assumed that it can improve democracy, and the claims put forward in this thesis are based on this assumption.

However, the idea that technological tools can be instruments of progress and democratisation is not a new idea. The crucial role of technology in progress was a prevailing conviction in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; it influenced the US Founding Fathers and played a role in the matters they chose to prioritise in their draft of the Constitution. According to US Constitutional scholar, Robert Goldman, the only passage in the Constitution as drafted by the Founders that makes explicit reference to an individual’s “right” is Article 1, Section 8 which secures for authors and inventors the right to their writings and discoveries (Nisbet 1980, 203). This section is specifically designed to “promote the Progress of Science” and to create an environment to protect the output of

48 the creative mind to give it freedom to flourish. For the Founders, progress and science were inextricably linked and it was of utmost importance to ensure the new republic fostered the development of science, and its technological applications.

This belief in progress has been so powerful an idea in Western social and political thought, that it can be described as the “real religion of Western civilization”, with happiness here below replacing salvation in the afterlife (De Benoist 2009, 7). David Morley also refers to the belief in the inevitability of progress as “an ultimately religious faith in the beneficial powers of science, technology and the “rational” economics of the free market” (2007, 314). In this “religion”, technology has become the deity, as it promises the capacity to build a better world. In today’s world, it is the Internet that is the latest manifestation of that deity. Says David Morley, the Internet has been “enshrined as the ultimate source of goodness and progress” (2007, 314). Wright also sees faith in progress as a “secular religion”, and adds, “like the religions that progress has challenged, is blind to certain flaws in its credentials” (Wright 2004, 4).

Bruce Bimber sees this “religion” as fundamental to American culture, stating that a susceptibility to an “unwarranted faith in the notion that new technology improves citizenship” is America’s “civil religion”, which he traces back to the influence of Enlightenment ideas at the founding of the Republic (2004, 3). Because of this, he argues, at moments of great technological change, people in the US have looked at technology and said not only that “the technology is getting better” but that “citizens are getting better” (2004, 4). The connection between the two is firmly linked in American culture. Langdon Winner has even equated the development of modern technology with political revolution, using language that is almost a call to arms: “What the American Revolution was for Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and Franklin – an opportunity to reshape the basic outlines of public life – the creation of technological infrastructures is for our generation” (Winner 1993, B2). Americans are far from alone in believing that technology itself will solve social and political problems, however, as the Enlightenment notion of progress pervades all areas of Western political and social thought.

49

This link between technology and social and political progress has continued into the twentieth century and has heavily influenced our expectations of the Internet. In 2005, then Secretary-General of the United Nations, Koffi Annan, highlighted how strong the connection still is between progress, freedom and technology, when he described the Internet as “one of today’s greatest instruments of progress”, and revealed an Enlightenment-inspired notion of what constitutes progress when he added “To defend the Internet is to defend freedom” (Annan 2005).

This link between technology and progress also forms the foundation of the twentieth century incarnation of modernity, deeply rooted in American culture.

Modernity

It would seem self-evident that technology and modernity are connected, after all technology appears to be the very quintessence of modernity. In current parlance, the word “modern” is frequently used to refer specifically to electronic gadgets and computers. Our current conception of modernity became preoccupied with technology as the driver of progress. Thomas Misa believes that theories of modernity that fail to give an account of technology are “hopelessly hollow” (Misa 2003, 10), while Philip Brey goes further, seeing the two as interlinked, arguing that “technology made modernity possible. It has been the engine of modernity, shaping it and propelling it forward” (Brey 2003, 33). But long before the Internet or even the computer was invented, modernity was already a powerful idea in our society, having its foundation in Enlightenment ideas.

Marshall Berman divides the history of modernity into three phases, the first of which he traces to as early as the beginning of the sixteenth century. The age of revolution and Enlightenment at the end of the eighteenth century is the second phase when “a great

50 modern public abruptly and dramatically comes to life”, and the third phase is the twentieth century, when the process of modernisation expanded, so that our modern world today has “lost touch with the roots of its own modernity” (Berman 1983, 17).

For Marx and Engels modern societies were characterized by unremitting and unceasing change – it is this fundamental process of change that separates the modern world from the pre-modern world (Misa 2003, 2). Berman continues this idea of continual change and uses a line from Marx to describe his notion of modernity: “all that’s solid melts into air”, which is also the title of his 1983 book. He describes living in a modern world as living a life full of paradoxes and contradiction, since it is impossible to grasp the modern world’s potentialities without fighting against some of them (Berman 1983, 14). Thomas Misa also sees change as an essential ingredient in understanding modernity, and while noting that what it means to be “modern” is “by no means clear”, he agrees that the term is bound up with “overlapping and controversial notions about the imperatives of change and progress” (Misa 2003, 5). Given the paradoxes, contradictions, and constant change that so defines what it means to be modern, we can see the attraction of myths, designed to simplify and tell a neat story, as one of the coping mechanisms of modern life.

Essential to the development of modernity was the replacement of society’s attachment to tradition and superstition with science, rationality and progress. As humanity’s sense of technological control over nature increased, the need for reliance on a supernatural power diminished (Inglehart and Welzel 2005, 17). This freed the individual from the bonds of tradition and produced a society open to change. So while a basic definition of modernity is difficult to establish, the fundamentals can be adequately represented by describing what it is not : traditional, superstitious, irrational, unscientific, technically undeveloped, and undemocratic. Modernity can therefore be understood through a series of binary oppositions which include a language of rupture with the past and of the expectation of improvement in the future.

Modernity as espoused in the twentieth century has its intellectual origins in the

51 nineteenth-century movement of Positivism, which elevated scientific methodology to the centre of all learning. This school of thought, founded by Auguste Comte and Henri Saint- Simon, argued that social science methodology is no different from that of natural science: anything can be known if it can be quantified. As outlined in the Methodology Chapter, this movement came to influence social and political theory, so that it was believed that the language of politics could be purged of inherited value and made to behave like the language of science.

Positivism was more than just an intellectual exercise: it was a path to a new kind of utopia. As the world adopts scientific method and absorbs its findings, then the chaos and divisions of society disappear (Gray 2003, 29). Similarly with political language; when the meanings of all concepts were settled, political theorists could engage in meaningful debate and get past disagreement, based on the idea that disagreement arose from mistakes – Mason’s imperfection conception . For modernists, scientific methodology applied to social and political questions would produce objective and rational answers. Faith in the “omnicompetence of science” (Midgley 2003, 14) was a central characteristic of this viewpoint: scientific decisions were regarded as being purely rational and would lead to accurate conclusions resulting from a series of logical steps. A new world could be created and a new kind of society built by applying technological fixes to social, economic and political problems. Marx borrowed a phrase from the founder of Positivism, Henry de Saint- Simon, to describe the ultimate goal of such a society: the government of men will be replaced by the administration of things (Gray 2003, 29).

This movement and its science-centric methodology have had an incalculable impact on Western society, which continues to the present day. Science and the scientific method have become “idealized, stereotyped and treated as the only possible forms for rational thought across the whole range of our knowledge” (Midgley 2003, 13). Positivism sees science and technology pushing progress forward, to an end result where the world is unified in its acceptance of science as the ultimate arbiter of what is right.

52 It is a new kind of utopian vision where scientific man replaces moral man. Grey sees the reiteration of the Positivist message throughout history and now into the age of the Internet:

For Saint Simon and Comte, technology meant railways and canals. For Lenin it meant electricity. For neo-liberals it means the Internet. The message is the same. Technology – the practical application of scientific knowledge – produces a convergence in values. This is the central modern myth, which the Positivists propagated and everyone today accepts as fact (Gray .2007, 42)

This statement encapsulates the most important themes in modernity, and shows its connection to technology and ultimately to the arguments that have been made for the Internet’s democratic potential. Technology is the instrument of modernity, steering society along a single, ordered, rational path, leading to the logical end-point of modernisation – a convergence in values and a better society. New is better than old, the modern surpasses the traditional, and technology is the driver from one state to the other. As societies become more modern, they become more alike, and at the same time they become better (Gray 2007, 1). Thus modernity’s unequivocal relationship with the idea of progress: the modern world is one that has progressed from some primitive, chaotic, superstitious past to a modern, ordered, scientific and technological future. Like progress, modernity can be seen as a kind of religion. Feenberg describes “the idea of a pure technological rationality” as “essentially theological” (Feenberg 2010, xix ). And for Inglehar and Welzel, rational science and its belief in technological progress replaced traditional religious authority (Inglehart and Welzel 2005, 17).

Here we can see the importance of the work done by Gallie, Skinner and others as part of the “linguistic turn”, that has been integral to destabilising the “positivistic world of facts” (Skinner 2002, 5). Because the influence of Positivism, through the language of modernity, continues to have such a strong hold on Western political thought, Skinner’s work in this area is an essential tool for deconstructing the language used in the arguments for the

53 Internet’s democratic potential. By highlighting the notion that language is more than just a communications tool, but is a way to shape our world, it is a challenge to the notion that language can purged of value to produce an objective result. Our political language is heavily laden with concepts that carry inherited value and can be used to channel thought. Concepts are not timeless and should not be treated in an ahistorical manner.

Modernity, myths and the Internet

The notion that the modern world is a complete break with the past is an especially crucial element of modernity with reference to the Internet. From its earliest days, the Internet has been considered “different” from previous media, not only as a technology, but also in its capacity to improve democracy. This idea that the Internet is an entirely new phenomenon has been at the heart of the expectations we have of this technology. Indeed, digital technology on the whole has been seen as bringing about a new world.

In Being Digital (1995), an early and influential book on the future of digital technology, Nicholas Negroponte spoke of a break with the past, in language that almost seemed to suggest that the new digital generation will be different people. “While the politicians struggle with the baggage of history, a new generation is emerging from the digital landscape free of many of the old prejudices” (Negroponte 1995, 230). This new generation will “appropriate a global information resource” and with it will have the ability to effect change, which is what will “make the future so different from the present” (231). This is an example of what Bimber meant when he said that our faith in progress leads us to think that citizens are getting better.. What’s more, in Negroponte’s new world, problem solving is even easier, since “in the digital world, previously impossible solutions become viable” (Negroponte 1995, 230). There is an assumption that the practical application of science, technology, in this case specifically digital technology, can solve problems and create a better world. Even the name of the book – Being Digital – suggests change even in

54 our very being; as if being digital is different to the kind of beings we are now.

The idea of the Internet as a completely new phenomenon that represents a break with the past has been part of our perception of this technology, and integral to the mythology that has grown up around it. John Perry Barlow, already mentioned above as the author of the “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace” and a Co-Founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organisation founded to fight for rights on the Internet, said in 1995 that the Internet means that “everything we know is wrong”, and that the ability to send data digitally was the most profound technological shift since the capture of fire” (as quoted in Barney 2000, 3). We can see here the tendency to see the Internet as entirely new, and to ignore anything past as now irrelevant. In addition, that sense of “newness” is incorporated into the name of the organisation dedicated to fighting for cyberspace rights, using the word “frontier” to evoke the idea of exploration into new territory.

In its argument for the unconstitutionality of the Communications Decency Act in 1996 (which was ultimately successful), the American Civil Liberties Union argued that “the Internet has no parallel in the history of human communication”, (as quoted in Wilhelm 2000, 42). In Rebooting America (2008), Fine, Levy, Sifry and Rasiej (the two co-founders of Personal Democracy Forum) said of the new world brought about by the Internet, “Our future does not have to be a continuation of the past or the present. We can create a new and better course—we just need to imagine it first” (2008, 4). Here the authors are tapping into the interlinked ideas of progress and modernity. Not only is there a break with the past, but the Internet is also put forward as the instrument that can “create a new and better course”. It demonstrates the sense that the Internet represents a complete rupture with the past; for these writers, the future is not even a continuation of the present.

However, while the technical specifications of the Internet are new, the way we talk about it, the expectations we have for it, and our hopes for its democratic potential are part of a longer discourse on progress, modernity and democracy. There is less of a rupture with the past than is often portrayed in discussions of the Internet. On the contrary, predictions and

55 hyperbolic claims about the effects of new technology on society form a “recurrent pattern”, repeating themselves throughout history (Vannobbergen 2007, 2 [as quoted in Breindl 2010, 44]).

For instance, it is not the first technological innovation to have raised such high hopes and been subject to disappointment. Bimber cites the steamboat, the car and the aeroplane as technologies that have been hailed as having the ability to progress democracy and freedom (2004, 4). In The Victorian Internet (1998), Standage describes in detail the expectations for the telegraph to bring about peace and, similarly to the Internet, to “annihilate both space and time in the transmission of intelligence” (90). In this book Standage makes the argument that the current hopes surrounding the internet had an earlier iteration with the telegraph and that there was similar hype as well as similar practices from flame wars to online weddings to chat rooms. Mark Surman has pointed out that similar hopes were raised for cable TV when it was first introduced in the 1960s. It was meant to “improve education, prevent crime and urban decay, break down social isolation, help people to communicate and enhance democracy” (as quoted in Thornton 2001, 128).

As Bimber has pointed out, there is an assumption that because people could use technology to advance citizenship, they inevitably would (Bimber 2004, 23). This failure to differentiate between capacity and motivation is the essential flaw in the modernist view of technology as the driver of progress. Moreover, it is an integral assumption in our expectations for the Internet’s democratic potential. This viewpoint has been remarkably durable with regard to the Internet, despite the experience with previous technological innovations proving that human agency plays a crucial role in any social and political development.

Thus, discussions of the internet that depict new interdependent borderless worlds continue a tradition of hyperbolic rhetoric that goes back to the 1920s to the radio and aeroplane and to the nineteenth century with the telegraph (Pemberton 2001 & 2002). Media analyst Armand Mattelart also sees parallels between our expectations for the

56 Internet and those of the telegraph more than two centuries ago. In Networking the World, 1794-2000 (2000), Mattelart says it was after the telegraph that the powerful idea of “the ideology of redemption through networks” first took hold (Mattelart 2000, 17). Introna and Nissenbaum also have a sense of history repeating itself, saying “these optimistic claims [...] have a ring of familiarity, echoing similar optimistic predictions concerning the democratising and empowering capacities of both radio and television” (Introna and Nissenbaum, 2000, 169).

This is the influence of modernity on perceptions of the Internet. According to Morley, for every generation in the modern era, a particular technology has carried the symbolic function of being “the superlative object” of their time (2007, 299). Throughout different eras, the telegraph, the car, the television, the mobile phone and other devices have represented the very essence of modernity. For our generation, it is the Internet. Mattelart also sees each generation of technology, whether it be railroads, undersea cables, or now the Internet, as providing a new opportunity to “propagate the grand narratives” of Western civilization (2000, 19).

Rather than seeing the discussion around the Internet as something entirely new, we can see that it is part of a larger, longer discourse on technology, progress and modernity. The idea that we have a break with the past is not unique to the Internet, but is part of the influence of the notion of modernity, which draws a distinction between an older, primitive less developed way of doing things, and a modern, better way. While the technology is new, our expectations for the Internet are actually part of a longer history caught up in ideas of progress, modernity, technology and democracy.

The value and symbolism of the technology is related to its connection to progress and modernity, the governing beliefs of Western civilization. The inevitable advancement and modernisation of our societies is deeply embedded into our cultural psyche and has been since the Enlightenment. Indeed, these concepts have become so crucial to Western political thought that they have themselves taken on mythical status. Misa (2003, 5), Gray

57 (2003, 2), Midgley (2003, 14), Morley (2007, 313), and Wright (2004, 4) all refer to progress or modernity as a myth or a legend, with Misa describing progress as “modernity’s defining legend”, and Morley describing modernity as “profoundly mythical”.

Our preoccupation with progress leads us to assume that society and politics are inevitably advancing, that our democracies are becoming more democratic, and the influence of modernity encourages us to believe that the Internet is a tool that can forward this goal. Underlying our discussions around the Internet and its potential role in democracy we have a series of assumptions that have developed into myths. As mentioned earlier, myths are narratives that can help us deal with the contradictions and the messiness of modern life, but they can also blind us to flaws in an argument. The remainder of this chapter will review some of the myths that have arisen in reference to the Internet, to highlight how heavily our expectations of the Internet’s role in politics have been based on a mythology.

Myth: The Internet Cannot be Controlled

“There has never been anything like this new Internet. This is the first time in the pockmarked history of humankind that a system of mass telecommunications has had (1) no owners – neither capitalist nor state; and (2) no gatekeepers – no station managers, no editors, no pyramid of authority. This new global system of interactive ICT was absolutely, totally, 100% uncontrollable and chaotic (Becker and Slaton 2000, 136) .

So said Becker and Slaton in The Future of Teledemocracy (2000), and the idea that the Internet cannot be controlled is one of the most persistent myths about the Internet. In this myth, we can see the influence of modernity in the idea of a break with the past. Old technologies were hierarchical, controlled by single individuals or corporations, and citizens were passive receivers of the information that was broadcast. Whereas now, everything has changed. For the first time in history, so the argument goes, we have a truly free and

58 uncontrolled information and communications medium. It is truly new and cannot be compared to anything in the past.

However, the Internet is not entirely free from control. The Internet exists within, and is very much influenced by, its political and cultural context, and it cannot be removed from these.

From a technical point of view, the Internet cannot be controlled or regulated: for a technically savvy person there are ways to get around any barrier that can be put up. Any person can publish a site on the World Wide Web, providing they have the right equipment. Anyone with reasonably good computer skills can get around most government censorship, and in the case where a political site is blocked, netizens can replicate the content on servers outside the jurisdiction of that government. Because of these technical features, the Internet was hailed the first truly free communications medium – a medium impossible to censor. John Gilmore, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, famously said in 1993 that, “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it” (as quoted in Elmer-DeWitt 2003). Here we can see an example of Skinner’s rhetorical redescription being employed to make a claim about the Internet. It is conflating the technical capabilities of the Internet with an ability to be able to detect censorship. As a packet- switching network the Internet is indeed capable of re-routing around a part of the network that is damaged; this was one of the original aims of the network. However, here Gilmore is redefining a political concept, censorship, to equal a technical problem, network damage, and the Internet is then assumed to have the capacity to be able to detect it and route around it.

This is indicative of the kind of colourful language used to claim this attribute for the Internet. Bill Clinton said in 2000 that trying to control the Internet would be like “trying to nail Jell-o to a wall”(as quoted in Kurlantzick 2010, 33). John Naughton, in A Brief History of the Future (1999), said “The Net provides the first totally unrestricted, totally uncensored communication system – ever. It is the living embodiment of an open market in ideas”

59 (Naughton 1999, 21), again, as with Gilmore, giving the Internet itself almost sentient characteristics.

However, governments have made many attempts to control and censor the Internet, and while the technology makes it exceedingly difficult to do so, this does not mean they have been totally unsuccessful. The Internet exists within a political context, and to say the Internet is uncontrolled because packets of data can be rerouted through a network is to simplify the issue. Beyond the technology there are other ways to impose control on the Internet.

In 1984, long before the Internet had emerged as a global communications network, the division of domain names was decided. Six top-level-domains (TLDs) were agreed: .gov, .edu, .com, .org, .mil, and .net, and 244 country codes were agreed: .au, .uk, .jp, an so on. These were chosen somewhat arbitrarily and had no technical significance at all (Klein 2002, 199). The decision to align domain names with geographic entities was a decision made by research engineers very early in the Internet’s history, and yet has had significant political impact. According to Hans Klein, the later interpretation by governments and others that cyberspace can be divided up into real-life political space stems from this decision: “Had they selected different alphanumeric identifiers – one could imagine colors, sequential numbers, the table of elements – then there would have been no basis for the one-per-country distribution of registries nor the subsequent assertion of national authority over registries” (Klein 2002, 205). That country codes seemed a logical way to divide up cyberspace is evidence of just how much the Internet exists within its political context and is a continuation of history, not a break from it.

This single decision, to divide domain names up through country codes, says Klein, has largely defined how the Internet has been perceived by users and by governments: it has allowed governments to assume they “own” the content that exists within their country code, giving rise to attempts to control that content (Klein 2002, 199). From the very

60 beginning, then, it was taken for granted that online space would “naturally” divide into the same political units as offline space.

The assumption that governments have a right to control their part of the Internet has been made clear on the several occasions that governments have “turned off” the Internet during times of political unrest. Nepal did it in 2005 following a declaration of martial law; Burma did it in 2007 during the “Saffron Revolution” (Wang n.d); Egypt did it in January 2010 during the protests against the rule of Hosni Mubarak (Knight, 2011). In that same year, the United States introduced legislation that would give the President powers over the Internet in times of national emergency. It has been named the “kill switch” bill (Grubb and Moses 2011; York and Crete-Nishihata 2011).

Evidently, governments see themselves as having a right to control online space, and have found increasingly sophisticated ways to do so. China’s famous “Great Firewall” is the most notorious, but it appears that governments are even collaborating on effective ways to censor the Internet, with Vietnam and Saudi Arabia for instance, bringing in Chinese specialists to work on their countries’ firewalls (Kurlantzick 2010, 33). Governments hack the email accounts of activists, installing spyware which allows them to monitor every electronic move (MacKinnon 2010). The OpenNet Initiative, in their 2010 report Access Controlled , noted a sea change in the last few years with regards to Internet censorship. In researching their previous report, Access Denied published in 2008, they found “coyness on the part of many states to admit to seeking to control Internet content” (Deibert et al 2010, 4). But in the 2010 report, “states no longer fear pariah status by openly declaring their intent to regulate and control cyberspace” (Deibert et al 2010, 4). Even in Australia, the government had a long-standing plan to introduce a mandatory ISP-level filtering system that would block content that has been refused classification under Australia’s classification guidelines (Day 2010). However, this plan has now been abandoned (Coorey 2012).

A further point, which is highlighted in the 2010 Access Controlled report, is the non- technical side of Internet censorship. In the early days of the Internet, it was believed that

61 repressive governments would struggle to find ways to restrict their citizens’ access to the Web, since filters can be circumvented by those with the know-how. However, repressive governments are able to stifle dissent online by simply using good old-fashioned techniques such as surveillance, intimidation and real life threats. Encouraging a regime of self censorship has become the method of choice for repressive governments. Eric Harwett and Duncan Clark, in their review of the control by Chinese authorities of the physical network, found actual hands-on control to be “schizophrenic”, since the Ministry of Information Industry (MII), which is responsible for network control, is also interested in collecting profits. In addition, several other government and party organs are responsible for content control. This makes the Internet difficult to control (Harwett and Clark, 2002). However, Yang points out that instead, the authorities tend to follow the rule of “killing the chicken to scare the monkeys”; occasionally arresting a couple of violators to ensure self-censorship (Yang 2003, 409). Yang also points out self-censorship is a requirement for a bulletin board to stay active in China. The Huazhi bulletin board, which she says “exemplifies the growth of a civil society group”, received warnings that they had “caused big trouble”, after a political discussion became intensified, and they were forced to shut down (Yang 2003, 420). They moved to a foreign server, but this became technically unfeasible over time. To “reduce political risks” it then instituted a system of moderators, who apparently maintain a mostly symbolic presence, but “warn users to stay within political and legal limits in their online behavior” (Yang 2003, 420).

The Chinese government has tried other ways to intimidate users into self-censorship. In a novel approach, in 2007 they introduced an animated police force to remind users that they are being monitored. The cute, animated officers walk, bike or drive across the screen every 30 minutes, warning users to stay away from illegal content. The virtual police officers operate on all websites hosted on Beijing-based servers. As an added helpful benefit, a user can click on the character to connect to the Internet surveillance centre to report any suspicious activities (“Virtual Beijing Police”, 2007). The authorities don’t need to find ways to technically filter or censor the Internet: they get the users to do it for them.

62 This is the side of Internet censorship that has been overlooked by those claiming the Internet cannot be censored. They emphasise the technological at the expense of the political, and remove it from its political context. While the Internet is a new medium, and one that is technically extremely difficult to control, the politics still take precedence over the technology. Repressive governments have realised that, even if they cannot control the technology, they can still control the political space within which its users exist. As the authors of Access Controlled note: “Just as with previous technological developments, as the Internet has grown in political significance, an architecture of control—through technology, regulation, norms, and political calculus —has emerged to shape a new geopolitical information landscape” (Deibert et al 2010, 3-4).

Comparing the packet-switching capabilities of the Internet to route around a damaged network with the potential for information to do the same, is providing a simple technical solution to a political problem. The claim that the Internet cannot be censored can only be made by removing the technology from its political context. From the very beginning, the Internet has been shaped by its “real world” politics, and exists within that context.

As outlined earlier, myths take the complexities out of modern life, provide a neat story and gives something a taken-for-granted quality. We can see all these characteristics of the myth in this claim for the Internet. It is presented as something genuinely new, that has features never seen before and so functions differently, and it speaks to a genuine aspiration for an uncontrolled free information network.. However, this assumes the technology exists within a political vacuum, when we can see that, given the difficulties of actually controlling information flows on the Internet, repressive regimes simply revert to “real life” control mechanisms to limit how users behave online.

63 Myth: The Internet is Anarchic

Another early idea that took hold about the Internet was that it is anarchic. In 1994, Fenchurch described it as “the world’s only functioning political anarchy” (as quoted in Ward and Vedel 2006, 210). However, contrary to popular belief, the Internet is not without some governance structures, and always has been. Standards at the network level, to ensure inter-connectivity, are set by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), and for the Web it is the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) (Brown 2009, 38b). However, the Internet in fact has a hierarchical structure and an overall governance body that ultimately controls access to the Internet. This is a fact that is not widely known, nor is its significance understood.

At the heart of the Internet lies the Domain Name System (DNS). Computers find other computers via IP numbers, (for example 192.168.1.10); humans access resources on the Internet via human friendly domain names (for example www.unsw.edu.au). A DNS server translates the domain name into an IP number. In order to exist on the Internet a computer must have a unique IP number, without which the computer cannot be found by other computers. Because each number must be unique, it must be held in a central registry, and this is controlled by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN is a private, not-for-profit corporation, set up in 1998 (Cogburn, 2009, 406). It is the closest thing to a governing body the Internet has, and yet most users have never heard of it. According to long-time observer of ICANN, Hans Klein: “Through its central control of essential Internet resources, notably domain names, ICANN [has] established itself as the cyberspace gatekeeper” (Klein 2001, 403).

To include a host computer on the Internet, a user must sign a contract agreeing to ICANN’s rules of behaviour, and if broken, ICANN can take down a website. While in reality there is probably very little chance of this happening, ICANN has actually taken this step, with a website called www.voteauction.com, which was ordered shut down by a US court for offering to sell votes, which is illegal. It was then hosted through an Austrian location, but

64 was later taken down by ICANN, who simply de-registered the domain name (McCullagh 2000; Anderson, 2000). Existing outside of ICANN controlled cyberspace is possible for those who have the technical know-how (if you know the exact IP number of the computer you want you can find it regardless of DNS servers), but in reality, being de-registered by ICANN is effective exile from cyberspace. As such, ICANN has the power to control who exists in cyberspace – a power not often admitted or understood.

In its history, ICANN has been responsible for making decisions that seem to be mere technical decisions, but have turned out to have far reaching political implications. This role for ICANN is explored by Klein, when describing the beginnings of the organisation (Klein 2002, 198-199). In 2000 it decided to assign the .ps country code for Palestine, thus giving it the same recognition and space on the Internet as all other countries. It should be added here that, according to the Wired News article cited by Klein, this decision was only taken after the United Nations decided to use .ps to represent the Palestinian Territories in its list of UN recognised countries (Cisneros 2001). So it appears that ICANN was taking its cue from the UN. Here we can see online actors following “real world” power structures. It is a political decision disguised as a technical one and reinforces the notion that online space and geographic/political space are connected. As such, ICANN formally “recognises” Palestine’s right to exist in cyberspace.

A complicating factor in ICANN’s history is its relationship with the United States Government. Given the Internet’s beginnings as an experimental computer network at ARPA in the Department of Defence, the link with the government has always been there. What began in a haphazard manner in the US Department of Commerce has grown into a distinct private corporation with an International board. However, the links with the US Government have never been severed, and this connection is still problematic.

In 2005, Internet commentators were given a reminder of the consequences of the link remaining between a national government and the governance of a global communications resource, when the US Government weighed into the debate over establishing a .xxx TLD

65 for pornography online. ICANN approved the addition of the .xxx TLD in June of 2005, but the Bush administration and conservative groups had objected to its creation, arguing it would create an online “red light district” (Cogburn 2009, 405). In addition, the ACLU and other civil rights groups have also argued against its creation, saying it would make censorship and filtering of content on these sites easier. Under pressure ICANN postponed the decision on this issue until “a future date” (McCullagh 2005a; McCullagh 2005b; Broache, 2005; Haines 2005). It was only in June 2010 that ICANN finally approved the establishment of the .xxx TLD (Sayer 2010). This issue highlights the troubled and unclear relationship between ICANN and the US Government, and also highlights how, regardless of the Internet’s technical capabilities, it still exists within and is controlled by its political context.

In 2000 the Government Accountability Office in the US issued a report entitled Department of Commerce: Relationship with The Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers , which states that “ICANN cannot cut off Internet access to a nation’s domain” in order to enforce payment of dues by other nations, but that the US Government has “reserved final policy control over the authoritative root server” (Judd 2000).

ICANN’s administration of the DNS and its connection to the US Government raise very real questions of control and power over the Internet. While it is unlikely, the fact remains that in an extreme situation, a country code could be deregistered. Non-payment of dues is not considered a serious infraction, but the desire on the part of the US Government to maintain its institutional link to ICANN indicates that they see a potential future situation where control of the DNS is a tactical advantage to US interests.

There has been some action to try to deal with this situation. At the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in 2005, there was a formal call for the creation of an independent governance forum for the Internet, and in February 2006 the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was established, under the aegis of the United Nations. It was intended that it would provide a forum where stakeholders from

66 government, the private sector and civil society could discuss issues of public policy related to the Internet, and, at its establishment, was “lauded as an innovative experiment in global governance” (Malcolm 2008, 1). However, Jeremy Malcolm questions this success, arguing that Internet public policy issues continue to be addressed outside the IGF in a largely ad hoc manner, and that the IGF has made no progress on the major issue of “unilateral oversight of ICANN by the US Government”, even though this was one of the main factors that led to its creation. During the US Department of Commerce’s 2008 mid-term review of ICANN’s oversight contract, it was proposed that the IGF might provide a “soft oversight” in lieu of the US Government. This idea was not taken up, but, argues Malcolm, this was not because of US objections, but because the IGF Secretariat found the idea “frightening” (Malcolm 2008, 4). This is evidence of how little the principals involved really view the IGF as a forum of importance in Internet public policy matters. It also goes to the heart of how much even the online community see real world governance as crucial for the “anarchic” Internet.

Any move away from US control of ICANN will be a complex issue and is still some time away. The US Department of Commerce has given no indication that it ever intends to relinquish control over the root zone file, and continues to contract ICANN to manage the tld. The current contract is valid until 30 September 2015 (Engleman 2012).

According to Malcolm, the IGF is failing to exercise an effective role in global Internet governance, and “the political will no longer exists for it to do so” (Malcolm 2008, 6). He argues that, since the establishment of the IGF was a compromise between the WSIS’s desire for a truly multi-stakeholder governance forum and the United States’ refusal to totally give up management of the root of the DNS, it is unrealistic for Internet observers to expect the IGF to truly work towards that goal. He points out that perhaps the IGF was only ever intended as an “aspirational first step” towards global Internet governance (Malcolm 2008, 5).

67 So while the content on the Internet is not controlled centrally, it is an inescapable fact that there is still an overall system underlying the technology that requires a central registry. Klein says the role of ICANN gives a lie to the “popular myth of a benevolent Internet anarchy” (Klein 2002, 205). ICANN is notionally an institution with a purely technical mandate, but its role as a policy-maker for the Internet has become a fact of life and despite the existence of the IGF, ICANN still “continues to struggle to overcome its own legacy as essentially a private sector contractor to the United States Department of Commerce” (Malcolm 2008, 1). In this regard, the Internet is similar to all other media that are limited by their control mechanisms. Even those calling for the end to ICANN’s relationship with the US Government want the oversight changed to the UN. Far from being “new” and “anarchic”, the Internet is still based on a traditional governance framework that defers to old power structures, such as the US Government and the UN. Indeed, Chadwick puts forward the argument that authoritarian governments want control of ICANN to be put in the hand of the UN as it would be more amenable to their influence than the current arrangement (Cogburn 2009, 405).

The US Government’s ongoing relationship with ICANN gives the Internet control characteristics similar to all other technology. In fact, more so. While the Internet may appear to be an anarchic collection of networked computers, the reality is that, since all IP numbers must be unique, they need to be held in a central registry. This has lead to the creation of ICANN, who can technically “switch off” the Internet. No other technology can be controlled centrally to the same extent as the Internet. Here again we can see that a central claim about the Internet has all the characteristics of a myth.

68 Myth: The Internet has no Gatekeepers

In Wired magazine in 1995 Jon Katz argued that the Internet is Thomas Paine’s “bastard child”. According to Katz, the free, uncontrolled and chaotic nature of the Internet “offers what Paine and his revolutionary colleagues hoped for – a vast, diverse, passionate, global means of transmitting ideas and opening minds” (Katz 1995). For Katz, the Internet provides a perfect space for sharing ideas. He saw the Internet as “swarm[ing] with the young and the outspoken. Its bulletin boards, conferencing systems, mailing structures, and Web sites are crammed with political organisations, academics, and ordinary citizens posting messages, raising questions, sharing information, offering arguments, changing minds” (Katz 1995). Here, Katz is leveraging the value of Paine’s name to further his claim for the Internet, arguing that the Internet is what Paine would have wanted, and again, we can see the Internet anthropomorphised to give it human-like characteristics, in this case being a “bastard child”, just to reinforce the image of its being untamed.

This vision of the Internet as a free, diverse space for sharing ideas and opening minds to new ideas is still firmly held by many Internet advocates. In her review of the Obama campaign, Cheris Carpenter said that “the proliferation of online campaign content has brought an end to an era of broadcast media dominance over US national politics” (Carpenter 2010, 217). Smith and Rainie, also looking at the Obama campaign, saw the Internet as offering a way for people to move away from the mainstream media that is filtered by gatekeepers (2008, 8).

However, the lack of specific gatekeepers on the Internet does not necessarily mean that there is no way of directing, or even limiting, the information accessed by users. The overwhelming popularity of sites such as Google, Yahoo! and others, means that while the Internet is infinitely diverse, most traffic stays in certain areas and on specifically directed paths. This situation has existed for a long time. For example, it was estimated that in its prime in the late 1990s AOL (America Online) directed traffic to such an extent that 80 per

69 cent of AOL users never ventured beyond AOL recommended sites (as cited in McChesney 2000, 166).

Part of the problem arises from the sheer volume of information available on line. There is simply so much information available, that it becomes difficult for individuals to determine which sources are trustworthy. Research done by the Pew Internet and American Life project found in 2011 that more than half of adults online found it difficult to tell what is true from what is false when it comes to the political information they find on the Internet (Smith 2011, 27). People’s ability to critically analyse information is severely limited if they cannot trust a source, or are lead to believe information that is untrue.

As the Internet has grown and become more complex, there has been less emphasis on free hyperlinking of information, and greater use of search engines to navigate through the vast amounts of information online. In their study of Internet users in Britain in 2007, Dutton and Helsper found that fully one-third of users depended on search engines to find information, up from one fifth in 2005. This is significant, since the same research also found that the Internet had become the “first port of call” for the great majority of users when trying to learn about something new, more important a source than family members, colleagues or libraries (Dutton and Helsper 2007, 4). Clearly, search engines have enormous influence over the information people are reading. It is the rise of Google as the omnipresent search engine online that has increasingly raised concerns about the role of portals as gatekeepers of information.

Nowadays, Google directs a large proportion of Internet traffic. The rise of Google as the Internet’s search engine of choice has been remarkable. From its humble beginnings in 1998 as a research project of two PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, its efficacy has made it the quintessential tool for navigating the Internet. Google changed the way search engines found information online. Previously searches were based on basic keyword recognition, but Page and Brin created software that used links not only to find content, but to rank those links according to their popularity, thereby using the collective intelligence of

70 the web to locate the most useful, or at least the most popular, information (O’Reilly and Battelle 2009, 2).

A decade ago, Wired magazine found that nearly four out of five Internet searches happen on Google or on sites that license its technology (McHugh 2003). This situation has not changed since, in fact, Google’s position has become even more prominent. Hitwise statistics on use of search engines by Australian Internet users show that Google.com.au is the most popular website in the .au namespace (Experian, 2013), and the volume of searches by google.com and google.com.au is over 90 per cent (Experian, 2013) Situations where Google has submitted to pressure by the Scientologists to take down a site criticising them (Thomas 2003) or even the apparent censoring of search results in China after the government blocked access to Google to Chinese users (McHugh 2003), highlight the power of this search engine to decide what does and doesn’t exist online. They are also examples, yet again, of how real world politics has an impact on what happens online.

Google’s omnipresence has lead to the emergence of its own lexicon: “Googling” has become a verb; “Google-goggles” are worn by those whose only life on the Internet is through Google; “Google-washed” is what happens when your link is removed from potential search results.

Google’s presence online has become so powerful that Hindman, Tsioutsiouliklis and Johnson (2003), have referred to the structure of directing traffic through the web as a “Googelarchy”. Their research challenges the notion that the Internet gives voice to the margins, and instead finds that a small number of sites receive a hugely disproportionate share of hits. This has important political ramifications, they argue. Contrary to the view of the Internet as a means to “democratise” the dissemination of information, Googlearchy means that people will continue to get their information from only a few sources, and therefore not take advantage of the “limitless information vistas of cyberspace” (Hindman, Tsioutsiouliklis and Johnson 2003).

71 The role of major search engines like Google and Yahoo! give rise to questions over their role as de facto gatekeepers online. Richard Rogers sees search engines as not merely technical but political matters. Because they are the primary means of accessing information on the Internet, he argues, they should be required to disclose their rules on indexing (Rogers 2004, 4). Challenging the vision of the Internet as a medium that flattens and equalises the status of information, he sees information sources in a constant and fierce competition with each other for inclusion and prominence (Rogers 2004, 4). The manoeuvrings behind that competition, for example for key words to be associated with particular sources, is information politics (Rogers 2004, 4). Rogers does not see search engines as neutral tools for locating information, but as forming a forum for information politics. Specifically, he see the Internet as a collision space between official and unofficial accounts of reality (2004, viii ), and is concerned that web results align with official accounts of reality, resulting in a demise of alternative accounts (2004, 2).

This is not a new finding; it was argued more than a decade ago. Research by Introna and Nissenbaum found that many leading search engines tended to give prominence to popular, wealthy and powerful sites at the expense of others (Introna and Nissenbaum 2000, 181). Since Google’s search results are ranked according to popularity, and pages that have more links to it are ranked higher, official sites, such as government or corporate sites, are more likely to be ranked higher as they will have more links to them. On the other hand, small amateur sites representing an alternative view will have fewer links and therefore a lower ranking. The way their technology works means that the search results on Google become a self-fulfilling prophecy – sites linked higher will get more hits, and will therefore stay highly ranked. It is easy to see how alternative views can be drowned out.

Polat highlighted this problem, noting that while there is an increase in the amount of information online, it is a quantitative not qualitative increase. He points out that search engines favour some websites over others and media conglomerates have merged their power to become massive online content providers, therefore, he argues that the diversity

72 of arguments “remains limited as a result of media gatekeeping processes” (Polat 2005, 438).

All of this makes for concerning reading for those expecting to see diversity online. But the idea that more media means more diversity has been disputed for some time. Abramson et al questioned this expectation two decades ago with regards to cable television and the then-new communications media of networked computers in The Electronic Commonwealth (1988). They argued even then that the “sheer size of media corporations is a concern in a democracy”, when media power is concentrated into massive corporations, it may even, they suggest, work against robust public debate (Abramson et al 1988, 280). Showing prescience towards the rise of the Internet, Abramson et al argued that, “The power of entrenched media giants over the new technology exposes the fallacy in the technological determinist’s claim that the new media are ushering in a golden age of diversity” (Abramson et al 1988, 280).

Again, we can see that the notion of an Internet without gatekeepers and free from corporate media control has many of the characteristics of a myth. It assumes that the Internet exists outside of its political context and removes the discussion from active human agency. It is taken for granted that, because the Internet can and does offer an enormous amount of diverse information, that people will seek it out. But the role of search engines, in particular Google, means that a huge proportion of traffic on the Internet is directed through the same well-worn paths.

Myth: The Internet Challenges Corporatised Media

“In cyberspace itself, market after market is being transformed by technological progress from a ‘natural monopoly’ to one in which competition is the rule” (Dyson et al 1994) .

73 In the early days of the Internet, there was a very strong view that the Internet would make media monopolies disappear, or at least become irrelevant. Again we can see the role of myth-making, that technological process will lead to a better world.

Francis Fukuyama argued the Internet is innately democratising and competitive and therefore unsuitable for public ownership or traditional forms of regulation. “Let the market decide and watch consumers take control while bureaucracies and dictatorships crumble”, he said in 2000 (as quoted in Freedman 2002, 437). This continues to be a strong belief around the Internet, and yet the major players online have the capacity to act like monopolies.

While Google may have started as a small-scale application designed to help people find things on the Internet, the current company bears little resemblance to the start-up whose motto was “Don’t be evil”. As outlined in the previous section, Google’s presence and power online is enormous. Moreover, Google has invested heavily in recent years to provide new ways of searching for information line, such as StreetView, and GoogleMaps, all useful tools, but ones that have put Google at the centre of more than just online content searches, and led to concerns over privacy. This situation has hardly been helped by the flippant comments of Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who suggested that people worried about having their houses photographed on StreetView “… can just move” (Hearn 2010). He also told the Washington Ideas Forum that “We know where you are, we know where you’ve been, we can more or less know what you’re thinking about”, and then went on to add that “Google policy is to get right up to the creepy line and not cross it” (Hearn 2010). Schmidt’s idea of what constitutes crossing the “creepy line” was perhaps changed when in 2005 an Internet news reporter, in an attempt to highlight the issue of privacy around Google, used the search engine to quickly locate, and then reveal, Schmidt’s home address (Kamen 2005, 12).

The move towards consolidation by companies on the Web is remarkable. Google has purchased more than eighty companies in the last ten years, most famously YouTube.

74 Yahoo! has a similar list of acquisitions and spent enormous sums in the pre-Web 2.0 days gaining control of websites, such as Geocities, EGroups, Flickr, that would position them as the providers of online community tools.

Google’s presence is so ubiquitous on the Internet that its role has become almost enmeshed with the architecture of the Internet itself. According to Geordie Guy, from Electronic Frontiers Australia, a lot of users aren’t aware that Google is a company (Hunt 2010). There is a belief, it seems, among some Internet users that Google is a kind of service, rather than a company like any other, driven by shareholder profits. Guy found in a survey (not focused on Google) that the responses were tainted and confused, because the question didn’t make sense to many of the respondents who didn’t realise Google was a company. It is perhaps difficult for people to understand the business of companies like Google (or Facebook or YouTube), as it is not obvious how they make their money. Unlike “real life” companies, there is no product, and there is no venue where Google advertise themselves and encourage you to use their product over another. Evidence of the interest in this question comes from Google itself. If you put “How does Google ” into the search facility of Google, the autocomplete will offer, firstly, “work”, and secondly “make money”. These are the top two choices for the autocomplete, so they must be the top two questions asked 3.

Yevgeny Morozov sees online corporations in a very negative light, arguing that repressive governments are essentially “outsourcing” censorship by forcing online companies to police the Web, and they comply. He points out that it’s a dream come true for repressive governments: “it’s the companies who incur all the costs, it’s the companies who do all the dirty work, and it’s the companies who eventually get blamed by the users” (Morozov 2010, 101).

3This is true entering these terms into Google as at December 2010.

75 In 2005, Yahoo! took action that starkly challenged the image of the Internet as a means to facilitate uncensored information to citizens of dictatorships, once one of the most cherished hopes of Internet advocates. Yahoo!’s Hong Kong affiliate provided information to the Chinese authorities on Shi Tao, a journalist who used Yahoo’s email service. His offence was to email information to a New York-based website regarding a government directive on how to cover the 15 th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. The information provided by Yahoo! led directly to his arrest, and he was sentenced to 10 years in jail for “illegally sending state secrets abroad” (Boot 2005, 15). Acts like these seriously undermine the Internet’s reputation as, and probably it’s potential to provide, an uncensored communications medium for citizens of repressive polities. It further highlights how much the Internet is part of its political context, not a challenge to it.

In the end, online companies work in the same business and political environment as offline companies. They need to turn a profit and are answerable to shareholders. While information may “want to be free”, companies still need to make money from it. McChesney pointed out more than a decade ago that, rather than bringing a diversity of views and opening up competition, digital media would instead make it “vastly easier, more attractive, and more necessary for firms to consolidate and strike alliances across the media, telecommunications, and computer sectors” (McChesney 2000, 163). Looking at massive online companies like Google, Viacom or Microsoft shows McChesney’s prediction to have been prescient.

While the Internet, as far as the actual technology is concerned, is almost impossible to control or censor, the reality of political life can and does undo that potential. The Internet and its users exist within a political context, and because of that, will continue to be limited by the same constraints.

76 Myth: Everyone has Access to the Internet

While the problem of a digital divide has been a part of the discussions around the Internet from its earliest days, it is an issue that is often sidelined in discussions over the Internet’s democratic potential. Indeed, it could be said that this is the myth upon which all the others are based, since you can’t have an open forum for deliberation, or a participatory democracy, or direct decision-making procedures via the Internet if you are not taking it for granted that all citizens will have access and the skills necessary to participate. Indeed, it is an example of the kind of cognitive dissonance for which a myth can provide a neat cover.

At a basic level, Internet access consists of having a computer with a modem and access to an Internet service provider (ISP), or at the very minimum, access to an Internet cafe or library. However, even with this equipment, a computer-illiterate individual would find it difficult to navigate their way through cyberspace adequately enough to use it as a political tool. Digital citizenship , which Mossberger, Tolbert and McNeal describe as “the ability to participate in society online”, requires educational competencies as well as technology access and skills (Mossberger, Tolbert and McNeal, 2008, x). Aaron Barlow talks of neteracy , which he says are a new set of skills that allow a person to easily navigate the Internet with ease and skill, and that will become increasingly necessary in the Web-connected world (2008, 20).

Moreover, universal access cannot be taken for granted. It is very easy to overstate the global and ubiquitous nature of the Internet. In reality, it is a medium that is very much still in the hands of the well-off citizens of the developed nations.

According to Internet World Stats (World Internet Users Statistics, 2012), there are 2.4 billion Internet users as of June 2012. While this number is continually growing, it currently represents only around thirty per cent (30%) of the global population. China now has the largest number of Internet users of any country, with 538 million users. This compares with the United States, who has the second highest number of users, with 245 million,

77 representing nearly eighty per cent (78 per cent) of their population. The countries with the highest percentage of Internet users in their populations are Iceland (97.8 per cent), Norway (97.2 per cent), Sweden (92.9 per cent) and Denmark (89.1 per cent). In 2001 Linda Main described the Internet map as a “medieval mariner’s chart”, with Africa, the Far East and South America showing many blanks (Main 2001, 85). This has changed significantly since then, particularly in Asia which is now home to nearly half of the world’s Internet users (44.8 per cent). However, the number of users within the countries of Asia tells a slightly different story. While China has the highest number of Internet users, it only represents 40 per cent of the population. India also has a large number of Internet users, 121 million, but this is only 11 per cent of their population. And still, only 7 per cent of Internet users are found in Africa. So while billions are online around the world, only wealthy countries come near to being fully connected, and in poorer countries, Internet access is still something available to less than half of the population.

In Australia, 89 per cent of the population are Internet users, which makes us one of the most widely connected countries in the world. However, according to the Australian Social Trends, June 2011 survey, location and income are still factors that influence a person’s likelihood to be connected. A household is more likely to have Internet access if located in a major city than in a regional area, and 90 per cent of households in the highest income bracket had home Internet access compared to only 40 per cent in the lowest income bracket (ABS 2011a). In addition, educational attainment was also a factor influencing Internet use and access. Survey results in 2010-11 show that the proportion of people who access the Internet increased as educational attainment level increased. In this time period 95 per cent of those with a Bachelor degree or above had home Internet access (ABS 2011b).

These figures show that even in wealthy countries like Australia, access to the Internet at the lower end of the socio-economic scale is still limited.

78 The English language also forms the foundation of the architecture of the Internet. Since the Internet was originally designed for military and government use in the United States, no thought was given to allowing non-alphabetic scripts. This has caused some difficulty as the Internet has become global. For example, all URLs must be written in alpha-numeric format, which is difficult for those who speak languages other than English or Romanic languages. More significantly, Hyper Text Mark-up Language (HTML), the language of the Web, is built on English language tags. Actually, it would be more accurate to say American language tags, since the spelling of the tags is American, and, where they differ, the English spelling is read by the browser as a mistake (eg a tag is unintelligible to a browser which will only read

). The rise of Chinese online notwithstanding, the Internet still has its foundations as a US technology. This makes some knowledge of English a necessary prerequisite to using the Internet effectively.

Alexander and Pal argued as early as 1998 that the Internet could bring about an information elite and a technologically displaced majority (Alexander & Pal 1998, 5). This was still a concern a decade later, as Mossberger, Tolbert and McNeal pointed out in 2008 that “Technology inequality is part of the larger fabric of social inequality in the United States” (Mossberger, Tolbert and McNeal 2008, x). The problems such as poverty, illiteracy, and unequal educational opportunities, which prevent people from full participation in society in general, are the same that prevent participation online (Mossberger, Tolbert and McNeal 2008, x).

Access to the Internet continues to be, in general, limited to the wealthy citizens of wealthy nations. While this has improved over the last two decades, with many wealthy countries such as Australia having an overwhelming majority of citizens having access to the Internet, socio-economic factors continue to influence whether or not a person has access.

79 Conclusion

Looking at the some of the claims around the Internet by framing them in terms of a mythology helps us to understand how we have, and continue to have, high expectations of the Internet. This framework also allows us to highlight how some of the claims for the Internet and democracy can be based on a flawed premise, but still appear appealing. This is the attraction of a myth; it takes the messiness and complexities out of modern life and provides a neat story.

The myths that have grown up around the Internet are underpinned by two of Western civilisation’s most enduring and powerful ideologies. From the age of the Enlightenment, Western society has been preoccupied with the idea of the inevitable progress of humankind, and the role of technology in driving society to a future that is new, modern, technically advanced and free. These ideologies have become inextricably linked with democracy, as the idealised future goal of progress.

These ideologies form the context for the hopes for the Internet in democracy, and provides an explanation for why we believe that not only is the technology getting better, but also, as Bimber pointed out, that citizens are getting better (2004, 4). As will be demonstrated in this thesis, this idea underlies many arguments put forward for the Internet’s democratic potential.

80 CHAPTER 4 –DEMOCRACY

From its earliest days, the Internet has been perceived as a technology that can play a role in democracy. Scholars, politicians, journalists and industry writers have put forward arguments for the Internet’s democratic potential, seeing the technology as a tool to improve democracy. As mentioned in the introduction, the sense of a democratic crisis and the desire to find a way to bring renewal to representative institutions that are viewed as alienating and elitist has heavily influenced how we have perceived the Internet. Following on from the previous chapter, I would like to explore the factors that have shaped our expectations of the Internet and its democratic potential. The ongoing desire to improve democracy is at the heart of our hopes for the Internet

Democracy

In 1939, HG Wells wrote “if many of us are to die for democracy we better know what we mean by the word” (as quoted in Keck and Sikkink 1998, 2). This statement appears straightforward, but it highlights our ongoing difficulty with democracy – defining what it is. Despite Wells’ advice, democracy remains the classic case of an essentially contested concept and we are no more able to pin it down at the beginning of the twenty-first century than we were in the middle of the last.

Democracy is a complex, value-laden term, which has been evolving over several thousand years. It is not the result of a straight line of political thinking over time, nor has its meaning and value remained constant over time. Rather, as an evaluative concept. it has been used as both resource and weapon over many epochs and cultures and enjoys a particularly rich genealogy, and so today is an amazingly broad term. As David Held has pointed out, “ancient and modern notions intermingle to produce ambiguous and inconsistent accounts of the key terms of democracy” (2006, x). This breadth has been noted by other democratic theorists, such as Barry Holden, who goes so far as to say that

81 the term has become so inclusive that “one can label anything one wishes a ‘democracy’” (Holden 1974, 1). In a perhaps ludicrous example in hindsight, but one demonstrating the issue of context and the desire to extend the concept’s application, Gentile, in The Philosophic Basis of Fascism in 1927, said “the fascist State… is a people’s state, and, as such, the democratic state par excellence ” (as quoted in Muller 2011, 4). To take someone with more repute, Robert Dahl sees democracy in similar terms to Holden, saying that “one could say that there are as many different visions of what democracy ought to be as there are individuals who think about it” (Dahl 1967, 18). Canovan describes democracy as “a repository of the aspirational characteristic of modern politics” (Canovan 1999, 11). Jan- Werner Muller calls the European twentieth century the “age of democracy” (Muller 2011, 4). Even Wells’ comment above, that we need to know what we’re fighting for, is an implicit admission that ultimately the Second World War was fought for “democracy”. Little wonder, then, that Gallie selected it as one of his original cases for essentially contested concepts.

As each new age adds criteria to democracy which are useful for their own needs, the complexity and contestability of the concept is increased. This is not a new problem for democracy, as Alexis de Tocqueville noted that use of the words ‘democracy’ and ‘democratic’ “brings about the greatest confusion. Unless these words are clearly defined and their definition agreed upon, people will live in an inextricable confusion of ideas, much to the advantage of demagogues and despots” (as quoted in Sartori 1987, 3). The age of the Internet promises to bring even more complexity to this concept.

Any attempt to grasp this concept is further complicated by the fact that democracy has become, in the words of Giovanni Sartori, a “universally honorific word” (Sartori 1987, 4), one that each country likes to apply to itself in the same way as, in the words of JR Lucas, every resident on an estate agent’s list is desirable (Lucas 1976, 9). There is a desire to capture a highly prized concept to one’s cause, as the Gentile example demonstrates, and so, in Skinner’s terms, legitimate that cause. This is in line with essentially contested concepts having an evaluative aspect, so that their employment in language has both a

82 descriptive and a normative function. This is especially so with democracy. When this concept is utilised, it is always doing something as well as describing something. Muller points out that throughout the twentieth century, many countries in Europe which were not democracies still felt compelled to defend their regimes by claiming to be democracies, engaging in “strenuous conceptual stretching” to make it plausible (2011, 1989, ??). He quotes Austrian Jurist Hans Kelsen who said at mid-century, “it seems that the symbol of democracy has assumed such a generally recognised value that the substance of democracy cannot be abandoned without maintaining the symbol” (as quoted in Muller 2011, 4).

The ascendancy of democracy in the twentieth century was amplified in the early 1990s by the fall of the communist dictatorships in Eastern Europe, and by a feeling of triumphalism regarding democracy, markets, and progress. At his inaugural address in 1989, US President George H.W. Bush declared “…the day of the dictator is over” (Bush, 1989). The perceived triumph of democracy was epitomised by Francis Fukuyama with his belief that we had reached the “End of History”, with liberal democracy as that end point. "What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post- war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government" (Fukuyama 1992, 4). We can see the influence of the idea of progress on Fukuyama’s assertion here. His description of mankind as being on a path of ideological evolution is the same re-telling of the narrative of evil being driven out by good that has become part of the modern story of progress. In this case, it is a transformation from a bad to a good political system. In Fukuyama’s vision, we have reached the endpoint of this progression, with a perfectly “good” form of government. We can also see De Benoist’s second principal of progress in Fukuyama’s idea: the unity of humanity, all evolving together.

This triumphalism coincided with the rise of the Internet, so that the two became entwined. It was believed that a new economy of global reach was evolving, driven by market forces. “Globalisation” became the buzzword of the 1990s, facilitated by the proliferation of

83 information communications technologies and the nascent Internet (Steger and Roy 2010, 21).

Typical nineties enthusiasm entwining the internet and globalisation was summarised by Hubertus Buchstein in 1997 who described the “optimists” with “high expectations for computer democracy” who thought: “Because it sets up discussions that cannot be controlled by any authoritarian power, the Internet creates democratic virtual communities. If they want to survive in the global economy, countries like China and Singapore will, as a consequence, be forced to become more open. The net enhances human rights and spreads democracy” (Buchstein 1997, 250). Buchstein noted the ready adaptation of Habermasian ideas of the public sphere to the Internet (250). The world was seen as more integrative, and democracy became the only legitimate model of political organisation acceptable at a global level. Again, we can see the influence of the aspect of progress that sees human evolution as a unified phenomenon. The world had reached the point of political evolution where everyone would accept democracy, and the Internet, which goes across borders, would enable it. Politicians, activists, international actors from all shades of the political spectrum, and others looking for legitimacy and acceptability, used the concept to describe various and varying activities, structures, and polities.

Into the twenty-first century, democracy remains in the ascendant as a desirable and valuable political label to those from all points of the political spectrum. Held highlights the continuing descriptive and normative function of the concept, and states that democracy is the “leading standard of political legitimacy in the current era” (Held 2006, x). Margolis and Moreno-Riano agree, saying that “in popular parlance, we use the word [democracy] as a catchall for everything that is good or desirable in society” (Margolis & Moreno-Riano 2009, 5).

The value of this contested concept encourages people to interpret its meaning in a certain way, to emphasise particular elements, to drop criteria, or to add new ones. At the same time, others resist the removal or addition of particular criteria. Giovanni Sartori has

84 described the democracy debate as a war of words; as the martial conflict was ended in 1945 the war over the word began. The rules of this fight were to “conquer the ‘good’ words and shell the ‘bad’ words into the enemy’s camp” (Sartori 1987 479-81). Those who advocate for change in democratic life through the use of the Internet, or who believe such moves must be resisted, have stepped into this war, although, it seems in most cases, unknowingly. Thus we have a true campaign for legitimacy waged with single 'tool of war'.

In an attempt to comprehend the conflict and contestation within modern democracy, Margaret Canovan (1999) has put forward a way of understanding the complexities of modern democracy by describing it as the intersection between two faces: the pragmatic and redemptive. The pragmatic is concerned with democracy as a form of government. It is defined by institutions and procedures and is “essentially a way of coping peacefully with conflicting interests and views” (10). On the other hand, the redemptive face has a strong anti-institutional bias and involves the people taking charge of their own affairs; it gives the promise of “power to the people” (11). The two faces do not describe different models of democracy, nor do the two correspond with notions of reality versus the ideal of democracy. Rather, they describe the ongoing struggle within modern democracy: between the “salvation” of the anti-institutional and “romantic” notion of popular power and self- government versus the stability and moderation that comes from managing conflict peacefully by putting power in the hands of institutions. Canovan sees the two faces as “a pair of squabbling Siamese twins” (10); they are a deep and inescapable conflict within modern democracy.

The coexistence of these two faces is “a constant spur to populist mobilisation” (Canovan 1999, 3), and within the context of a sense of increasing disengagement with democratic institutions, it is the promise of the redemptive face and the recurring desire to ‘get rid of the politicians’ and give power to the people that drives our optimism for new tools like the Internet.

85 Canovan argues that when people become disenchanted with their existing democratic systems, when the institutions that are set up to enshrine democratic values inevitably give rise to alienation, democracy becomes vulnerable to a populist reaction. Populism exploits the gap between the promise of a better world through action by the sovereign people and the performance of democratic institutions (12). Throughout this thesis I will demonstrate how the Internet has become a tool in this drive towards the redemptive face of democracy in the face of disengagement from democratic institutions. Internet advocates tend to draw on aspects from the redemptive face of democracy to legitimate claims for the Internet’s democratic potential. The strong anti-institutional impulse and the appeals to “the people” drawn from the redemptive face are motivations for people to put forward changes in democratic life through the Internet. But as Canovan makes clear, the conflict between the two faces is an inherent part of modern democracy. While the Internet is put forward as a tool to improve democracy, in fact it adds complexity to the Canovan tension.

In addition, Canovan’s model of modern democracy emphasises the constant promise of renewal in democracy. There is an underlying belief in a better, “more democratic” future. In this way, we can see democracy as “future-oriented” (Giddens 1990, 84), inextricably linked to the philosophy of progress. In the language that will be examined in this thesis, I will show the influence of progress on our expectations for the Internet, as there is a sense of inevitability about the claims for this technology with regard to democracy.

The Democratic Crisis

While this sense of inevitable progress led to the “end of history” moment in the 1990s, against this triumphalism of democracy, there has been a rising perception in Western democracies of a democratic crisis . As early as the 1960s and 1970s political scientists became preoccupied with a “crisis of democracy” and “political and economic decline” (Held 2006, 191). The idea that the world has become too complex, and that therefore “little” people cannot make a difference is a very common notion in contemporary society, and is affecting people’s faith in self-governing systems. Benjamin Barber expressed this

86 notion in 1984: “The crisis in liberal democracy is expressed most pungently in the claim that the world has become “ungovernable,” that no leader or party of a constitutional system can cope with the welter of problems that afflict large-scale industrial societies” (Barber 1984, xii ).

This sense of dissatisfaction continued after the fall of the communist dictatorships. The very existence of the former allowed for comparisons, highlighting the deficiencies of the dictatorships. But with the real-life alternatives removed, democracies were confronted with only themselves and their own ideals for comparison, against which they were bound to fall short. “As the evaluative standards rose, a vague but ascertainable atmosphere of democratic malaise began to spread” (Ossorio 1995, 310). Typical of attitudes that decade was the belief that Western democracies were suffering a crisis: “As democracy prospers, so it declines” (Inoguchi et al, 1998, 4).

Canovan’s model for understanding modern democracy as the intersection of a pragmatic and a redemptive face provides an explanation for the seemingly contradictory situation of democracy being both an ideal political arrangement but also deeply disappointing. It is the tension between these two faces – the promise of popular power versus the faceless institutions – that allows for these two situations to co-exist. The redemptive face of democracy gives the aspirational drive to democracy, a promise of progressing to a more ideal democracy that truly embodies the voice of the people. This is the democracy we look to as an ideal. On the other hand, the pragmatic face of democracy limits and controls political power by investing it in institutions; while practical, it is not particularly personable and gives rise to alienation from governing structures and disappointment in democracy. The democratic crisis is reflected in the collapse of trust in political institutions and political leaders, the serious disengagement of citizens in liberal democracies, and an increase in the belief by citizens that they cannot affect change in their own societies (Davis 2010, 146).

Coleman and Blumler state that “a pervasive anxiety characterises liberal democracy in the early twenty-first century” and that “a shared unease about what has come to be regarded

87 as a ‘crisis of disengagement’ dominated discussion of contemporary politics” (Coleman and Blumler 2009, 1). Lusoli, Ward and Gibson say “it has become increasingly commonplace to talk of a crisis in parliamentary representation” (Lusoli, Ward and Gibson 2006, 24). Aeron Davis says that at a minimum, there is a perception of political crisis, and adds that even the perception itself is damaging to the health and stability of democracy (Davis 2010, 146).

However, there is debate over whether the democratic crisis is indeed real, and whether it is empirically provable (Poguntke 2006, xiv ). Lusoli, Ward and Gibson, for instance, say that there has been a “significant” fall in electoral turnout in the decade to 2006 from 75 per cent to 60 per cent. However, they also show that turnout increased at the 2005 election, so it is not a straight pattern of decline. In the United States, the proportion of the voting- age population in the United States that has gone to the polls in presidential elections for the past thirty years has remained about the same – between 49 per cent and 60 per cent of those eligible (Wilson 163). Given these statistics, Wilson says the decline in voter turnout “has been more apparent than real”. Moreover, there is some evidence that the rate at which people have been participating in politics in ways other than voting has increased in recent years. One survey found that the proportion of citizens who had written a letter to a public official increased from about 17 per cent in 1964 to more than 27 per by 1976 (Wilson 2008, 161). Also, since the 1960s, public demonstrations, protest marches, and sit-ins have become a much more common form of political participation (Wilson 2008, 161). So contrary to the perceived sense of decline and disengagement, there is, according to Clarke, Sanders, Stewart and Whiteley, “no evidence to suggest that engagement with the political system has declined significantly since the early 1960s” (2004, 284).

It is not the intention of this thesis to evaluate the existence or otherwise of a genuine democratic crisis, but it is an important aspect to this research, as it is an impetus for many proposals for using the Internet in democratic life. It is the background of increasing concern about civic disengagement and a sense of democratic crisis that the Internet has been viewed as a possible medium for enhancing political participation (Jackson and Lilleker

88 2009, 237). As Canovan has argued, when people feel disengaged from their democratic institutions, the call to bring democracy ”back to the people” becomes stronger, and the Internet has been put forward as a way of doing this. It also highlight’s Mosco’s argument outlined in Chapter 3, that we can understand the “seductive power” of computer communication by seeing it as mythology. It speaks to genuine unmet needs and aspirations (Mosco 1998, 61). For the writers examined in this research, there is a genuine desire to address the shortfalls of representative democracy, and it is this that makes the Internet so appealing.

The appeal of democracy remains very strong, driven by the redemptive face’s promise of giving power to the people. The redemptive face is invoked by these writers to forward their arguments to improve democracy. For those advocating for change in democratic processes through the Internet, active engagement is a defining feature of democracy, and is made possible by the Internet. Moreover, political participation by the citizenry via the Internet is assumed to reduce the need for politicians (Rolfe 2008). The populist and anti- institutional bent of the redemptive face gives rise to appeals to “ordinary” people, or even the “silent majority”, exploiting popular mistrust of politicians and bureaucracies, taking pride in being direct and simple (Canovan 1999, 5).

However, the faces of democracy are two sides of the same coin. The Internet may make changes, but it cannot remove these fundamental tensions. In this way, the proposals put forward for the Internet are part of older and ongoing attempts to improve democracy. It is the promise of renewal, of “giving back” power to the people that makes the redemptive face so appealing. The notion that ‘true’ democracy is a tantalisingly short step away, that a simple tool can get us over the imagined hurdle if we just try hard enough, has influenced our expectations and engagement with the Internet from its earliest days. The Internet offers a marvellous array of tools that appear to provide solutions for overcoming the problems of alienation and disappointment and so it has been taken for granted that it can be a tool for bringing the people back into democracy, making real the promise of power to the people inherent in the redemptive face.

89

The contest between the two faces of democracy is reflected in the claims for the Internet in democracy, where the language of “revival” and “restoration” of democracy is coupled with the appeal to the populist aspects of the redemptive face of democracy. The context for optimistic claims for the Internet’s democratic potential is often one of using the technology to turn the tide against growing alienation of citizens from their governing institutions, closing the gap between “the people” and the “elites”.

Tsagarousianou, Tambini and Bryan argued that the “new media technology hails a rebirth of democratic life” (Tsagarousianou et al 1998, 5) and that information communication technology has “been seen increasingly as having the capacity to provide solutions to the growing alienation of the citizenries of advanced industrial societies and has been featuring in demands or proposals for democratisation and reinvigoration of their public spheres” (Tsagarousianou, 1998, 41). Inoguchi, Newman and Keane also viewed the Internet as having the potential to revive a more participatory form of democracy, saying, “Leaps of technology in electronic communication – some might even suggest a communications revolution – provide new opportunities for the transference of ideas and information and, perhaps, even opportunities for a revival of some form of direct participatory democracy” (Inoguchi, Newman and Keane 1998, 4). Stephen Coleman, noting the public cynicism and estrangement dividing representatives and those they represent, described information communications as a “reshaper of democracy” (Coleman 2004, 4).

The idea that technology can overcome political failings is not new, and not unique to the Internet. As noted in the previous chapter, the link between technology and social and political progress goes back at least to the Enlightenment. In 1977, prior to the rise of the Internet, Kenneth Laudon argued that “through innovations in telecommunications it is possible to restore to citizens and their organized groups a measure of political power and skills sufficient to countervail the mega-institutions that surround them. We shall call this the vision of citizen technology” (Laudon 1977, 2). He also cites “pessimism” over

90 “alienation from democratic institutions” as the reason for its “attractiveness”. While admitting that the same technology also threatens “telefacism”, made possible by communications technology, he also believes that “citizen technology is the promise of a renewal of democracy of more accountable elites, a less alienated and more active citizenry” (Laudon 1977, 2). Laudon’s condemnation of “mega-institutions”, and suggestion that we can use technology to overcome alienation from democratic institutions, which are run by elites, is a clear appeal to the redemptive face of democracy, favouring its populist aspects of giving power to the people over the pragmatic face’s capacity to limit and institute power.

Peter Ferdinand also sees the Internet’s capacity in terms of a democratic revival, or rather a restoration. “If new technology could enable citizens to come together in some ‘virtual’ forum, then it might be possible to restore a more genuine, and more profound form of deliberative democracy”(2000, 6). One of the activities that he argues is possible, and desirable, with the Internet, is “to organise regular plebiscites on important issues” (Ferdinand 2000, 6), again, highlighting aspects of democracy that favour the redemptive face and minimizes the role of representatives and institutions.

Richard Groper also described the Internet in terms of a revival, stating, “New communication technologies such as electronic mail have the potential to reinvigorate American democracy by allowing citizens to enhance the political discourse in this country without leaving their homes” (Groper 1996, 157). While making this argument, however, he points out that American citizens must be educated on the importance of participating in the democratic process, without which, reinvigoration is an “impossible dream”, and that this will “take a concerted effort” on the part of the government (Groper, 167). This is an interesting example that highlights not only the interdependence of the two faces of democracy but also demonstrates the tensions within the democratic conceptual constellation. The call for citizens to be more involved in their political system is an appeal to the populist notions of the redemptive face, while the suggestion that the government

91 would need to be a part of this effort, is an admission that institutions also have a useful, and perhaps even necessary, role to play in democracies.

This highlights the need to put these claims within a broader context of democratic theory. While many claim the Internet can “revive” democracy, and put forward suggestions for how that can be done, this research will show how these claims are part of an older, ongoing concern to improve the relationship between the people and the political class. Driven by a sense of disengagement from existing democratic institutions, and the promise of renewal in the redemptive face of democracy, writers have been hopeful that the Internet will bring about this change. But the tensions between the two faces of democracy will still exist: indeed the Internet adds complexity to representative democracy, and can increase the conflict between the governors and the governed, as will be shown in this research.

Democratic Theory and the Internet

Just as the steamboat, the aeroplane and the TV before it, the Internet has raised hopes for a democratic revival. There has been a taken-for-granted attitude towards democracy, as hopes for the Internet have been heavily influenced by the underlying myths of progress and modernity. As noted in the previous chapter, myths take the messiness out of complexities and contradictions, providing a neat story. But after more than 20 years, the Internet has not brought about the revitalised citizen-based democracy that was anticipated by the early Internet enthusiasts. By looking more closely at the arguments made for the Internet, and the language employed we can see the problems of arguing for a technological fix to a political problem.

As will be seen throughout this research, democracy is constantly invoked in reference to the Internet. However, the tendency to take the connection for granted means that the

92 complexities and contradictions in democracy are sometimes underestimated. In arguments for the Internet’s democratic potential, the concept is reconceptualised to focus only on a few aspects that are mostly drawn from the redemptive face of democracy. We can recall James Farr’s view that sometimes concepts are changed in an attempt to solve a problem, and here, the perceived problem is alienation and disengagement from democratic processes. By downplaying the complexity of the concept of democracy, for example by marginalising criteria that include institutions or political leaders, it then becomes easier to make an argument that the Internet can solve democracy’s problems. For the purposes of argument, we can see why this is done. However, as Farr noted, changing a concept, that is engaging in rhetorical redescription, to solve a problem does not remove the complexities; it may be a persuasive argument, but the complexities continue to arise.

Diminishing the concept of democracy to a few elements, and favouring the redemptive face of democracy over the pragmatic face, causes problems of its own. Canovan is clear that these two sides are interdependent, and that “it is an illusion to suppose that we can have one without the other” (1999, 10). A reductionist view of democracy ignores its internal tensions and contradictions. The problems that have always existed in democracy still rear their head because they are a result of democracy being internally complex. The Internet doesn’t remove these tensions, and in fact can add complexity to representative democracy.

Placing arguments for the Internet’s democratic potential within a wider context of democratic history and theory helps to gain a deeper understanding of how the concept of democracy, and those concepts related to it, have become part of the argument itself. Our expectations for democracy and our expectations for the Internet have become interconnected. The political concepts invoked in arguments for the Internet form part of an already existing normative political vocabulary, and because of this, they bring inherited meaning and value when employed with reference to the Internet. Concepts which appear to be employed in a descriptive capacity are, on closer inspection, functioning in a

93 normative capacity to further a particular viewpoint. As noted by Schiappa above, we tend to take definitions for granted, but the act of defining something, and persuading an audience to accept it, is a political act. This thesis will examine this language, and how definitions are used rhetorically to bolster claims for the Internet.

Having a better understanding of how language frames our expectations of the Internet is vital to understanding how this technology may or may not be changing our political processes or concepts, and helps us understand how proposals for change may work with existing processes. Conceptual change and political change are two sides of the same coin (Ball 1997, 36). This is a useful way of questioning the assumption that the technology will be good for democracy, and to evaluate where the political assumptions come from. An examination of the language helps to disambiguate the contradictions and complexities that arise from the discussions around the Internet’s democratic potential.

As noted above, contested concepts exist within constellations, and understanding the concept of democracy is reliant on linking it to other concepts that are themselves contested (Connolly 1993, 1). The democratic conceptual constellation is a broad one. In this thesis, I will be examining the claims for the Internet in reference to direct democracy; representative democracy; participation; and deliberation and the public sphere. Each of these falls within the democratic conceptual constellation. These have been chosen because of their ubiquity in discussions around the Internet’s democratic potential, and for their importance within the democratic conceptual constellation.

The next two chapters will analyse two models of democracy: direct and representative. Direct democracy has been invoked in reference to the Internet from its earliest days. The idea that the Internet might be able to bring about a more direct form of democracy has been a strong theme in this literature, albeit one that has become less prevalent in the post-Web 2.0 environment. Direct democracy as a concept continues to resonate as an ideal in the literature and in popular views of democracy.

94 Representative democracy is the existing model of democracy in the Western world, and so is therefore also the system most Internet proposals have in mind in their design for reform. These proposals form part of the ongoing attempts to improve representative democracy. Conflict around the relationship between the people and the political class in this system of democracy give rise to both the complexities in this system and the drive to improve it.

The following two chapters will look at concepts in the democratic conceptual constellation that are specific parts of democracy: participation and deliberation. The redemptive face of democracy offers the promise of giving power to the people and provides the drive of so many schemes to bring the Internet into political life. Given the background of the perceived crisis in representative institutions, the Internet is held up as a way to bring the people into the policy; to solve the disengagement problems of representative democracy by increasing citizen participation, hence the examination of this concept with reference to the Internet.

Finally, the “deliberative turn” in democratic theory has put deliberation and citizen-to- citizen engagement at the heart of democratic practice in the last decade. Given this, it is unsurprising that this has become a prominent aspect of discussions around the Internet. Claims for the Internet’s democratic potential have turned to looking at how the technology can improve this aspect of democracy, and Chapter 5 will analyse these claims.

These four concepts have, therefore, been chosen due to their relative importance within the democratic conceptual constellation and within the literature on the Internet. The next four chapters will focus on examining the claims for the Internet’s democratic potential in reference to these concepts, and will demonstrate that these value-laden political concepts are being used for rhetorical purposes to reinforce the claims for the Internet by the rhetors.

95 CHAPTER 5 – DIRECT DEMOCRACY

As early as 1988, Abramson, Arterton and Orren stated in The Electronic Commonwealth that “No political prophecy figures more prominently in the popular literature on the communications revolution than the prediction that a new age of direct democracy is dawning in the US” (Abramson et al 1988, 164). Even before the Internet became a part of daily life, the notion that information communications technologies (ICTs) could bring about changes to our political systems and engender a more direct form of self-government was already prevalent. With the rise of the Internet through the nineties, this notion became only more popular. Gordon Graham, in The Internet – A Philosophical Inquiry (1999), highlighted the role the Internet could play in “filling up the democratic deficit – filling the gap between representative and direct democracy” (Graham 1999, 69). He argued that “… the Internet puts within our grasp an unprecedentedly good form of democracy”, since it will bridge the gap between “the ideal of direct democracy” and the “necessity of representative democracy” (Graham 1999, 68). US political campaigner and commentator Dick Morris said in 2001 “The Internet offers a potential for direct democracy so profound that it may well transform not only our system of politics but also our very form of government” (Morris 2001, 1033). Like Graham, he saw the change arising from the removal of practical difficulties of direct democracy, indeed, he saw the technology not only spontaneously bringing about political changes, but saw it as inevitable: “Whether this greater public participation is desirable or not, it is inevitable as the Internet overcomes the logistical barriers that required delegation of decision-making to elected representatives in far-off Washington DC” (1034).

These statements encapsulate the kind of optimism engendered by the Internet, particularly in the 1990s as it came to greater prominence. In this line of thought, the Internet would not just be beneficial for democracy, but would for the first time in the modern era, facilitate a more direct form of democracy, as it removes “the logistical barriers that required delegation of decision-making to elected representatives in far-off”

96 parliaments. Graham even goes so far as to describe the form of democracy that the Internet would give us to be “unprecedentedly good”. This kind of optimism was based on the idea that direct democracy is “real” democracy, and that representative institutions are a compromise. The practical problems of establishing direct democracy in large nation-state can now be overcome through the Internet. We can also see in these claims the influence of progress and modernity. Morris takes for granted that the move to a more direct form of democracy is an “inevitable” development, and both he and Graham see technological innovation as a means to improve our polities, as an enabler to overcome their limitations. Graham’s description of an “unprecedentedly good” democracy shows both the rupture with the past, and the belief that progress represents more than just a change from the old to the new, but as a transformation from bad to good. It is indicative of the kind of religious fervour described by Bimber towards America’s “civil religion”, progress. He said there is a tendency to not just say that technology is getting better, but that citizens are getting better. Here Graham is saying that politics is getting better.

In this section, I will interrogate the claim for the Internet as a tool for “reviving” democracy by facilitating a more direct form of democracy. I will show that the claim is based on taking specific criteria to define democracy, criteria based on direct decision-making by the people, to the exclusion of other criteria. It is a form of rhetorical redescription that strips away democracy’s complexities. It is an appeal to the redemptive face of democracy with its promise of putting power in the hands of the people, but, contrary to Canovan’s notion of democracy as a contest between two interdependent faces, the claims put forward for Internet-enabled direct democracy have a tendency to sideline the pragmatic face, seeing institutions as a barrier to “real” democracy.

Reconceptualising to reduce complexity can be an attempt to solve a problem. However, as this chapter will show, democracy cannot be easily simplified. It is an internally complex and contested concept, and taking specific criteria at the expense of others does not remove those complexities; the problems remain. Democracy has had a long history, with each age adding to its character and therefore its complexity, which has led to the

97 contested concept we have today. The historic conflict between the people and the political class continues to persist even in the age of the Internet. In fact, the addition of the Internet adds to the complexity.

Direct Democracy

Until the end of the eighteenth century, ‘direct democracy’ is what was originally understood by the general label ‘democracy’. The world’s best known examples of democracies had been in the city-states of ancient Greece, and they were the closest possible approximation to a literal democracy, in that the governors and the governed dealt with each other on an equal basis (Sartori 1987, 280). These city-states gave us the original label “democracy”, from the Greek for people (demos) and power (kratos). All citizens were expected to participate in the government of the city, and human fulfilment was fundamentally based on the role of the citizen (Held 2006, 36). Governing required a citizen to devote himself exclusively to public life (Sartori 1987, 281), and there was no independence for the individual, who was completely absorbed by the community (286). The notion of the rights of the individual was entirely absent; this was a later addition to the concept of democracy (Birch 2001, 71). Consequently, freedom of speech was not prized and individuals could be ostracised from the city by a popular vote. Moreover, it did not function without leaders (politicians as we like to think of them), as famous names such as Pericles attest, and the assembly was dominated by those of high rank or birth (Held 2007, 27). So Athenian democracy had some of the same complaints we still have with democracy today.

The democratic city-states of ancient Greece endured for approximately two centuries, after which they were steadily eroded by internal problems and the aggression of rival states. At this point, the concept was largely ignored for more than two thousand years (Held 2006, 33). It did not help that democracy acquired a bad reputation from the likes of

98 Plato, who set out his critique in The Republic , and substantially set back debate of this concept until the twentieth century. Plato was heavily influenced by the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian war and the demise of that city’s greatness when it had lost its independence and was subsumed into a larger empire. He came to the view that political control should be in the hands of a minority (Held 2006, 33). Plato compared the state to a ship, pointing out the disaster that befalls a ship where the captain is “a bit deaf and short- sighted”, and the crew “all quarrelling with each other about how to navigate the ship” (Lee [Plato] 2003, 210). In his analogy, democracy ultimately fails because ordinary people lack the expertise to be at the helm of the ship of state.

The idea of democracy resurfaced in the eighteenth century in the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau took the Athenian city-states as his model, and so believed that a democracy could only exist in a small, homogenous community, such as his home city of Geneva (Held 2006, 44). In such a community, the citizenry would be active and involved, and all citizens would meet together to make decisions and enact laws. Similar to the Greek model, Rousseau’s set no limits on the power of the majority, and assumed that minorities would consent to their decisions (Held 1987, 75). Rousseau also shared the attitude of the ancients on the role of the citizen, which he believed was the highest to which an individual can aspire.

Rousseau’s model was the first to revive the ancient idea of democracy, and was clearly heavily inspired and influenced by the city-states of Athens. However, Plato’s views continued to be persuasive into the modern era, influencing the American Founding Fathers. They did not use the term “democracy”, as it conjured up images of the “passions of the mob”, and at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 some delegates spoke of the dangers that had faced the democratic constitutions of some of the colonies (Maddox 1996, 87). Instead, they formed a “republic” with representation set as a bulwark against those turbulent passions. Direct democracy was rejected and seen as unsuitable, not just for practical reasons, but for policy reasons (Browder 2006, 488). During the nineteenth

99 century, representation merged with democracy, to become representative democracy and designated a lineage back to ancient Athens.

There is, in fact, no direct link between the modern form of representative democracy and the direct form of Athens. Indeed, the two are not compatible - our modern democracies would fall short in many ways considered essentially democratic to Athenians, and many aspects of Athenian democracy would be considered unacceptable in today’s democracies. But the idea of Athens and the ancient democracies continue to exert significant influence upon our thinking about what makes for an ideal democracy (Holden 1974, 5). The image of this polity has “formed a central source of inspiration for modern political thought”, and its ideals of equality, liberty and respect for law and justice have shaped political thinking in the West (Held 2006, 13).

Direct Democracy and the Internet

The continuing hold of the image of Athens and direct democracy on our modern democracies can be seen in the enthusiasm with which we embrace initiatives that seem to embody the spirit of direct democracy and bypass representative institutions. In the United States, direct democracy initiatives have increasingly become an important part of the legislative process at the state level, and during the 1990s the number of initiatives and referenda increased exponentially (Garrett 1997,17) and has continued to grow with each voting cycle (Browder 2006, 492). In Germany, the Red-Green government coalition introduced a bill in 2002 to change the country’s constitution to allow for measures of direct democracy at the federal level (Zittel and Fuchs 2007, 1). Elizabeth Garrett has argued that the appeal of direct democracy initiatives increased with the growing public disillusionment with elected representatives (Garret 1997). Moreover, there persists a redemptive nostalgia for New England versions of direct democracy in much American discourse (see Shane 2004: 72; Barber 1998-99: 582; Froomkin 2004: 3, 17).

100 The appeal of direct democracy goes back to Canovan and the two faces of democracy. The pragmatic face of institutions and procedures is seen as a compromise, while the promise of popular power in the redemptive face is seen as real democracy. Athenian direct democracy is seen the manifestation of the latter. As will be seen, those who are enthusiastic for the role the Internet could play in facilitating direct democracy have a tendency to favour aspects of democracy drawn from the redemptive face. They assume that direct democracy is the ideal, and that representative institutions have only been devised as a way of getting around the practical problems of enabling direct decision- making in large polities. The problem usually cited is size, that the sheer size of modern nation-states presents direct democracy with an overwhelming obstacle, which has been “a pretext but also a reason to historically discard direct democracy as a form of government and to accept a representative assembly instead” (Ossorio 1995, 314).

Now with the Internet, it is claimed, we have the tools to get around this problem. “Direct democracy, for the first time in the history of the world, has become feasible with the advent of Internet voting,” says Rebekah Browder, in an article that warns against this development as “devastating to the United States form of Government” (2006, 489). This statement neatly appears to forget the history of Athens, which was of course the first time in the history of the world that direct democracy was feasible. We can again see the influence of the idea of modernity and a sense of rupture with the past; in this case, a denial of history. Moreover, it is an example of rhetorical redescription, as direct democracy is defined as simply having the ability to vote online.

Athens has been invoked frequently in reference to the Internet, particularly in the optimistic days of the 1990s. In 1997, then US Vice President Al Gore spoke of the ‘information highway” as being a “metaphor for democracy itself”, and imagines a “New Athenian Age” (as quoted in Buchstein 1997, 249). Howard Rheingold argued that one of the potential futures of the Internet is of “the utopian vision of the electronic agora, an ‘Athens without slaves’ made possible by telecommunications” (Rheingold 1995, 279). E- Democracy activist, Steven Clift, described his online community, Minnesota e-Democracy

101 as “a wired agora” (Clift 1999). The Santa Monica Public Electronic Network (PEN), the first interactive public network started and funded by a government agency, was described as a network that “that reconstructs an idealized Athenian democracy in America” (Rogers et al 1994, 26). In the case of these three writers, they are describing networks that are open and inclusive, yet invoking the image of the closed and exclusive Athenian assembly, which didn’t permit the inclusion of women, slaves or non-citizens, and which was dominated by those of high rank or birth (Held 2006, 27) – a situation that would be unthinkable in Rheingold’s WELL, Clift’s Minnesota e-Democracy or Santa Monica’s PEN. In addition, none of these networks is a forum for actual decision-making, so do not resemble in the Athenian assembly in its most important feature.

These writers are harnessing the continuing value of Athens as the archetypal democracy to legitimate their claims for the Internet’s democratic potential. By comparing the potential of the Internet to the polity in Athens, the value of one transfers to the other through the connection. Comparison is a potent means of argument, and even in situations where the connection is clearly not applicable, the comparison still carries force (Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca 1969, 242). Indeed, the comparison is still considered valuable even if it is being compared in the negative.

In a description of Amsterdam’s Digital City, Letty Francissen and Kess Brants, make reference to Athens when describing the use people made of the online discussion forums. The groups on computer technology, art and culture had greater participation from users than the groups on political issues, “strengthening suspicion that the Digital City was more a playground for computer fanatics than an Athenian-style agora for a new democracy” (Francissen & Brants 1998, 21). The reference to Athens here is to describe something that didn’t emerge from the Internet, and yet it's very use implies that an “Athenian-style agora” was a possible outcome of this project. While the outcome was negative – the Digital City more closely resembled a haven for computer fanatics than a space for political discussion – the comparison still carries value, because it brings the project and the Athenian agora into

102 the same sphere for comparative purposes. As Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyceta point out, even something that is beneath the standard is honoured by the comparison (1971, 244).

Invoking Athens is a way to highlight the deficiencies in current democratic structures, and the idea that our representative democracies aren’t real democracies because they differ so greatly from the supposed archetype. By drawing a line from the “electronic agora” back to Athens, Internet advocates are suggesting that representative democracy has been an aberration, rather than another purposeful development of democracy, and that Internet- enabled direct democracy is the true descendant of that ancient polity. But, as noted above, there is no direct link between our modern democracies and those of ancient Greece.

Democracy is not a timeless concept, and has meant different things in different ages. Skinner stresses that we should be wary of viewing a concept as if it doesn’t change, when really we view concepts through the framework of our own social structures (Skinner 2002, 89). Modern democracy has not come down to us as it was practiced in Athens, but has instead developed separately and become increasingly complex and contested over the last few centuries. These complexities will continue into the age of the Internet..

The Problems of Direct Democracy

The assumption that a more direct form of democracy should be established if the right tools could be obtained is rooted in the belief that direct democracy is the ideal and representative democracy has been a developed merely as a compromise. This notion is particularly prevalent in the discussions around the Internet, with the Internet put forward as the tool that can finally bring this ideal to realisation, and put an end to the compromise of representation. This idea is heavily influenced by the connection between progress, freedom and democracy, as outlined in Chapter 3. There is a persistent desire to make democracy “better”, and technology, viewed as an instrument of progress, becomes a tool

103 for democratisation. Furthermore, putting the Internet forward as the tool that can finally put an end to the compromise of representation shows the influence of modernity, and a sense of a rupture with the past. The Internet is an entirely new phenomenon, that at last will allow us to create the ideal model of democracy.

However, the direct model of democracy is not without problems, some of which have plagued democracy since the age of Athens. The remainder of this chapter will look closely at these problems and demonstrate that the Internet is unlikely to fix the problems of direct democracy. Democracy is extremely complex, and the Internet, far from facilitating a move to direct democracy is instead more likely to complicate the Canovan tension.

The problems of direct democracy fall largely into four areas: size and system capacity; complexity and competence; the need for leadership; and the “tyranny of the majority”. The analysis will show that direct democracy's problems are political, not technical, and therefore despite its enormous technical capabilities, the Internet is unable to alleviate the huge systemic problems in the direct model. It will be shown that Internet enthusiasts, in their desire to “revive” democracy, are in fact advancing characteristics of the redemptive face of democracy at the expense of consideration of the pragmatic – focusing on the direct voice of the people and overlooking the role of investing power in the institutions of democracy. Because modern democracy is a balancing act between the two faces, advancing one over the other does not remove the problems, and can in some cases make them worse.

Size and System Capacity

The first problem facing direct democracy is the most obvious: the vast size of modern polities, of both geography and population, and the attendant problems of getting all citizens to have a direct voice in decision-making. The ancient democracies of Greece had

104 significantly smaller citizenries than modern states and were far more geographically limited. Aristotle believed that a city should be no larger than to allow the voice of the town crier to be heard across the city and that every citizen should know the character of every other citizen (Crick 2002, 18).

The capacity of the polity to effectively involve the entire citizenry is severely limited in modern democracies. The ancient Greek city-states had an active citizenry of about 6,000. Geneva during Rousseau’s lifetime had a population of 22,000. Modern states’ populations number in the millions. This poses an enormous obstacle to direct democracy not only in terms of size – it makes it impossible for all citizens to assemble, or to know each other – but also in terms of the capacity of the system to accommodate the opinions and interests of every citizen. The larger a polity becomes, the more difficult it is to facilitate direct decision-making by all its citizens. Sartori says direct democracy over vast territories becomes an unusable formula (1987, 283), and Holden agrees, saying “this must surely be the correct view” (1974, 28).

However, in the 1990s, as the Internet started to make its way into homes and become part of everyday life, some people started to ask whether it could overcome the enormous hurdles of direct democracy. Roger Clark stated in 1994 that modern communications would allow a political process where:

“..major policy decisions can be instigated, formulated, and decided by direct democracy. Voters may choose to delegate the articulation of broad policies to their elected representatives, but even this can be subject to the over- riding of unpopular decisions, and the removal of representatives the electorate considers are not performing their functions.” (Clark 1994)

Clark sees representation as a necessary evil, which was required when it was the only practical way to make democracy work over geographically large countries (Clark 1994). Now, with the Internet, he proposes a kind of hybrid system, where representatives are

105 retained, but can be overridden or even removed for “unpopular” decisions, as if the only problem to be solved is the representatives.

In 1995, Lawrence Grossman put forward the idea of an “electronic republic” that would be “intensely responsive to the people” (Grossman 1995, 47). In previous times, while news and information took weeks or months to travel across the country, the public was precluded from becoming involved in day-to-day decision-making, and the only solution was to delegate to elected representatives (47).

John Naisbitt argued in 1998 that “with the electronics revolution, both representative democracy and economies of scale are obsolete. Now everyone can have efficient direct democracy” (as quoted in Simai 1998, 123). He went on to say that “The fact is we have outlived the historical usefulness of representative democracy and we all sense intuitively that it is obsolete” (as quoted in Wright 2006, 236).

Dick Morris also sees a move towards a more populist democracy through technology, arguing that “the Internet will stimulate the subservience of politicians to public opinion” (Morris 2001, 1048). He goes on to say that “The Internet… will likely usher in a new era of more direct control of public decisions by the voters themselves and will probably further constrain the discretion of our elected officials in making decisions adverse to those sanctioned by public approval” (Morris 2001, 1046). In the late 1990s, Morris put his money where his mouth is, and founded a website, www.vote.com, that allowed individuals to vote on topical policy issues, because “I trust the voters a whole lot more than the politicians” (vote.com/about). He envisaged a future democracy being driven by such sites, when “every major public policy debate will be heavily influenced by a massive online expression of public sentiment through the Internet. … tens of millions will go online to vote. Their votes will be the central influence in the outcome of the debate” (Morris 2001, 1046).

106 As recently as 2008, Andrew Rasiej stated in Rebooting America that “our corrupt system of distant, unaccountable representative democracy is going to get an overhaul, whether the representatives like it or not” (2008, 54). The current representative system in the United States, he says, is a “bastardised form of democracy” put in place as a compromise in a world where people were “too busy plowing fields, raising families” to get involved in politics. But “now that the Internet is marching its way through society”, and citizens are becoming more informed, they can be more involved in direct decision making, leading him to ask: “Do we really need representatives if we have morphed from panoply of organised minorities to one big organised majority?” (56).

The theme that ties these opinions together is the notion that direct democracy is the true democracy while representative democracy has been a compromise. All the writers, or rhetors, compare former times when the practical problems were insurmountable, to now when democracy can be “intensely responsive” by utilising the Internet. These writers are engaged in a process of rhetorical redescription. They are defining democracy using specific criteria, in this case gauging the views of citizens, and then persuading the audience to adopt this definition, in part by describing representative institutions as “corrupt”, “distant” and “unaccountable”. This is done for rhetorical purposes, so that it can be argued that the Internet is satisfying this reduced definition of democracy.

However democracy is more complex than this, and direct democracy would involve more than just gauging the direct opinions of the citizenry. Giovanni Sartori, writing before the rise of the Internet, saw that a kind of electronic ‘referendum democracy’ might be “technically feasible”, but he said, it would be “disastrous, and in all likelihood, suicidal” (1987, 283), since, in his view, it would not be democratic. Such a system lacks two vital democratic functions: it does not include direct interactions between citizens; and it would be very difficult under this system for the people to set the agenda themselves (112). So here Sartori is rejecting this definition of democracy, and therefore the argument that the Internet will improve democracy through this means. He reminds us of the complexities of democracy, and the ongoing problem of size and system capacity. Even in an Internet-

107 enabled direct democracy, it is hard to see how people could set the agenda themselves, nor is it possible that the system can acknowledge the direct views of all citizens.

The problem of size is still a factor, even when we have the technology to build a network that allows citizens to come together virtually and engage in political activity. The capacity for a polity to allow everyone’s initiatives to be considered, or even for everyone’s opinions to be heard, remains limited. But this has always been the case. Even in a polity the size of Athens, this would have posed a problem. Robert Dahl and Edward Tufte make this point succinctly in Size and Democracy (1973), when they explain that in Athens, every citizen had a right to speak their mind before war was declared. Even if a bare quorum was reached, and each citizen present were given fifteen minutes, it would take 150 days for each citizen to be heard, assuming they met for ten hours a day (Dahl & Tufte 1973, 69). This is why it was necessary to have leaders like Pericles to speak and persuade the assembly. It seems evident that, even in the “ideal” democracy, all citizens could not possibly have had their say on every issue, or even on most issues, nor could all citizens have put up proposals of their own to be considered.

As with Athens, and especially with a large nation-state, the size of the citizenry is still a factor, unless we reduce democracy to simple majority voting on issues put to citizens. The “efficient” Internet-enabled direct democracy that brings “economies of scale”, envisioned by Naisbitt, is still limited by the capacity of the system to take in the views of all citizens. Similarly, Clark’s notion that “major policy decisions can be instigated, formulated, and decided by direct democracy” suffers the same problem: not all ideas can be formulated into policy, and nor should they be. The claims put forward above by Naisbitt, Clark and Grossman underestimate democracy’s complexities. Direct democracy requires more than just allowing citizens to passively vote on issues put to them. The citizens must be able to discuss issues, to set the agenda, and to assemble together – an enormously difficult task even in the age of the Internet. No political system, no matter how technologically savvy, can be “intensively responsive” to all citizens. The capacity of the system is still limited.

108 We can also see the influence of modernity in the claims of these writers, especially in Naisbitt’s statement that representative democracy is obsolete, and that we have “outlived [its] historical usefulness”. There is a sense of a break with the past; previously we were “too busy plowing fields”, but now we can all get involved in politics. This statement also betrays the underlying influence of progress being about transforming to a better society, and again Bimber’s point that we believe that technological innovation can make us become better citizens. Rasiej asks, “do we really need representatives?” now we are no longer plowing fields, as if the time citizens have gained by not needing to farm will be given over to being active and involved citizens.

In the early days of the Internet, claims like these, that the Internet would bring about a more direct form of democracy, were quite common. But, they are based on reducing democracy to a few simple features. Drawing a line back to Athens and the assembly, the value of democracy as a concept is leveraged, while at the same time, it is diminished. The simplified notion of democracy is used for rhetorical purposes. Democracy is reconceptualised as simply a process of aggregating the opinions of the citizens, which allows for the Internet to be put forward as a way of facilitating this, therefore providing a technological “fix”. But as has been shown here, direct democracy still faces the problem of size and system capacity, which is not alleviated by the Internet.

Complexity and Competence

Reducing democracy to being simply a political process that enacts the opinions of the majority of citizens has repercussions beyond size and capacity; there is also the concern raised by Plato more than two thousand years ago that those who had “never learned the art of navigation” were unfit to sail the ship of state. What a ship needs, argued Plato, is a “true navigator” who understands there is an art to it, and studies “the seasons of the year, the sky, the stars, the winds and all the other subjects appropriate to his profession” (Lee [Plato] 1955, 210). In short, what is required is an expert governor, or as Plato understood it, a “philosopher ruler”.

109

This is an old and persistent concern for direct democracy. If citizens are to have a more direct role in decision-making, effectively bypassing the role of professional politicians, then the question of whether citizens are competent is a valid one. Many modern political theorists tend to agree with Plato’s assessment, and see the situation as even more grave now since the issues before the citizenry of Athens were not as complex as those facing a modern industrial state (Holden 1974, 28). Holden believes that any kind of direct democracy would fail due to the ‘inability of the mass of the people to decide upon detailed complex issues (Holden 1974, 29). Politicians today, more than at any time in democracy’s history, are specialist governors, and even specialise in specific policy areas backed by specialist bureaucracies. However, this issue does not appear to be a concern to many Internet advocates, who view professional governors as anti-democratic and elitist.

Grossman’s vision of the “electronic republic” saw the emergence of a far more populist government, aided by the growth of “new telecommunications media” (1995, 3). As mentioned above, he argued that now with the new media, news and information can travel across the country faster, so the public no longer need to be precluded from day-to- day decision-making. As the power of public opinion rises, he sees the “big losers” being the traditional political institutions that have heretofore been the intermediaries between the government and its citizens – political parties, unions, mass media experts, the governing elite (Grossman 1995, 16). We can in Grossman’s argument that is is drawing on aspects of democracy from the redemptive face of democracy, encouraging suspicion of elites and institutions. Politicians, political parties, unions and representative institutions are depicted as obstacles to democracy. The Internet, in this view, can bring citizens into the political process by allowing them to bypass the “governing elites”.

This is also the view of Ian Budge, who put forward his vision of how to update democracy in The New Challenge of Direct Democracy (1996). In his technologically determinist view, he argued that communications technology makes direct democracy technically feasible for the first time in a mass society, and “direct democracy can therefore be seen as the logical

110 way to modernize our existing regimes” (Budge 1996, 193). Civic competence is not a problem for modern direct democracy because, while we are living in an increasingly complex society, we are also the beneficiaries of higher levels of education. We can bring increasing levels of political sophistication to public policy deliberation, and this makes the need for representatives to make decisions on our behalf increasingly unnecessary (Budge 1996). Budge’s vision for democracy, like the other authors already noted in this chapter, is also based on taking a specific set of criteria for democracy. It assumes that the only problem in the past has been the ignorance of citizens. We can see, once again, a taken-for- granted quality to the arguments around the Internet. It removes political activity from human agency, assuming that because direct democracy is “technically feasible”, it ought to be put in place. This is a common argument for the Internet, and will be addressed in more detail in Chapters Seven and Eight.

Moreover, in Budge’s arguments for the competence of citizens, we can see the influence of progress and modernity Indeed, it is obvious in the very language he uses, describing Internet-enabled direct democracy as a “logical way to modernise” our polities. There is a break with the past, now that direct democracy is feasible “for the first time in a mass society”. Moreover, there is a sense that society is inevitably progressing to a better state; the competence of citizens is less of a problem in modern democracies because citizens are increasingly becoming more educated. We can now dispense with representatives and “modernise” our democracies, because our society and our citizens are so much more advanced than in previous times.

Research done by Arthur Lupia and John Matsusaka found that studies of direct democracy initiatives in America frequently show that voters are competent, and that past research in this area reveals that “common stereotypes about voter incompetence rely on shaky theoretical and empirical foundations” (2004, 467). Their research shows that voters have an incentive to seek information from credible sources but even when lacking information, can still be competent, as people base their choices, even complex and important ones, on a few rules of thumb (Lupia and Matusaka 2004, 468). “Voters with apparently low levels of

111 political information can use information shortcuts to emulate the voting behaviour they would have exhibited if they were as informed as the best-informed persons in the survey” (Lupia and Matusaka 2004, 468). Overall, their argument on civic competence is based on the notion that “the requirements for voter competence in direct democracy can be quite minimal” (Lupia and Matusaka 2004, 469).

In 2003, Caroline Tolbert, Ramona McNeal and Daniel Smith analysed data from the American National Election Studies (NES) in 1996, 1998 and 2000 to assess the effect of exposure to ballot initiatives on Americans’ knowledge of political affairs. Instead of asking whether citizens are competent enough to be involved in direct democracy, they turned the question around and considered whether experience of direct democracy initiatives increase knowledge (Tolbert et al 2003, 23). The study did find a correlation between living in a state with more exposure to ballot initiatives and having greater political knowledge. However, this held true only for 1996, and further investigation showed that it was a situation unique to the context of the 1996 presidential election. It is interesting that the 2000 results didn’t show this correlation, given that Internet access in that year would have been more widespread than in 1996. According to Marci Hamilton, voters involved in California’s direct initiative process have admitted they have “crossed their fingers in the hopes that their actual vote was accomplishing what they thought they wanted to do” since the initiatives were so often drafted in incomprehensible language that made it virtually impossible to tell whether a given measure requires a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ vote (Hamilton 1997, 10).

The Internet is host to massive amounts of political information, and we know that people are accessing it for political purposes. Research done by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that one quarter of all US adults (24 per cent) got most of their news on the 2010 mid-term election campaign from the Internet (Smith 2011, 2). This has grown more than three-fold since the 2002 campaign, showing that as the Internet becomes more a part of everyday life, so people are more likely to use it to seek political content.

112 However, it’s unclear whether this translates into greater political knowledge across the board. In their article analysing the Internet’s potential role in British politics, Lusoli, Ward and Gibson found that more than half the voting age public in 2004 and 2005 stated that they “did not know very much” or even “nothing at all about politics”. Furthermore, only 42 per cent of people were able to name their representative, which was a decline of 10 per cent when compared to the early 1990s (Lusoli, Ward and Gibson 2006, 25). It’s hard to see a causal link between the availability of political information on the Internet and greater political knowledge. In the Tolbert et al study, the statistics were actually better in the early 1990s when the Internet was not as widely utilised.

Looking beyond access to basic data, the availability of information does not necessarily translate into greater civic competence. Robert Dahl, who believes that the available evidence reveals “grave limits to citizen competence” (Dahl 1992, 45), questions whether access to information will impair or improve the competence of ordinary citizens. He agrees that the supply of political information has increased enormously while its costs have decreased. However, “more information does not necessarily mean greater competence or heightened understanding. The scale, complexity, and sheer volume of information imposes ever stronger demands on the capacities of citizens” (Dahl 1992, 51). It is the very quantity of information available online, as Dahl points out, that produces problems of its own. Of course, Dahl was writing before the subsequent explosion of information on the web which has astronomically compounded the problem he outlined.

The argument made by Budge and others that the Internet can be used to “modernise” our democracies by facilitating more direct democracy procedures is based on the assumption that citizens are competent, and willing, to be involved in these processes. It is difficult to determine the competence of a citizenry, but what is clear is that access to information, and a more educated citizenry than the past, does not necessarily translate into increase civic competence. This assumption is made to further the argument that people can be genuinely self governing now that we have the Internet.

113 The Need for Leadership

The suspicion of elites and institutions that defines the redemptive face of democracy is very much evident in the language used to make the arguments for the Internet. Grossman describes political parties, unions and other institutions as “big losers” (Grossman 1995, 3) in a new electronic republic, and Morris describes the raison d'être of vote.com by simply declaring “I trust the voters a whole lot more than the politicians”. However, institutions, parties and professional political operatives are as much a part of modern democracy as the voice of the people, as noted by Canovan, and the pragmatic side of democracy cannot be as easily sidestepped as it may appear by Internet advocates. A functioning political system still needs leaders. Leadership is an important aspect to any government, and in the words of English scholar James Bryce, “perhaps no form of government needs great leaders so much as democracy does” (as quoted in Sartori 1987, 163) .

The relationship between democracy and leadership is a difficult one; Dahl notes that for many fervent democrats, it is “awkward” to admit that democracy needs leaders (Dahl 1967, 78). However, he points out that whenever a democratic system is larger than a working committee, leaders will emerge who will participate more fully in decision-making than the average citizen (Dahl and Tufte 1973, 71). Even in Athens, leaders were needed who held certain offices or who acted as public opinion leaders. The Assembly was too large a body to operate without those who would prepare agendas and draft legislation. A Council of 500 had the responsibility of organising and proposing public decisions; this was aided by a committee of 50 with a president at its head, who held office for one day (Held 2006, 21).

So the notion of the citizens being totally self-governing needs to be understood within the context of the need for leaders in direct democracy. Elizabeth Garrett highlights the issue of leadership in direct democracy, showing that, contrary to popular opinion, direct ballot initiatives are just as much influenced by special interests with money as are legislative processes (Garrett 1997). She questions the common notion that the availability of direct

114 initiatives and referenda provide a safeguard to empower ordinary citizens. irect initiatives are carefully composed by leaders and presented to the people as basic yes/no choices. As with other forms of democracy, opinion leaders emerge to shape the debate. Browder also raises this as a procedural problem for direct democracy methods in the US (Browder 2006, 493). Getting a question on a ballot is not easy. It requires a small group to draft the initiative, then get the requisite signatures needed for a proposal to be considered on a ballot. The need for leadership and expertise not just in the policy area but also on the process is required from the beginning. It entrenches the power of special interest groups, who have the capacity to do this work, in a similar way that those of high rank in Athens had the time to pursue their interests and cultivate contacts. Thus leadership and expertise is still required in direct democracy processes.

It’s interesting that even Morris, who so mistrusts political elites, sees a role for experts in some policy areas, especially for when the “whims of the electorate” need checking (Morris 2001, 1050). He cites two examples of the “vox populi reigning itself in”, and that is in microeconomic management, and the general consensus that wars should be left to generals. So he appears to be arguing that the voice of the people is paramount in directing the actions of governors, except in cases he believes expertise is apparently needed, in which case the people should automatically know to delegate to their governors. So even some of the most ardent supporters of online direct democracy admit that leaders and experts are still needed. Arterton made a study of early “teledemocracy” initiatives in his 1986 book of the same name, and found that, of the plebiscitary projects that were investigated, the projects in which community leaders and government officials cooperated appeared to be the most successful, and that “undoubtedly their support contributed to the success of the project” (Arteron 1986, 148). This experience supports Bruce Bimber’s assertion that leadership is vital in electronic governance, and that “much of the dynamics of online democracy will frankly crystallize and work around opinion leaders” (Bimber 2004, 16).

115 Modern democracy, as Canovan has outlined, is an intersection between two faces: a redemptive side that prizes the role of the people and self-government, and a pragmatic side, that puts power into the hands of stable governing institutions. Both sides are vital to the functioning of modern democracy. Those who argue that the Internet should be used to bring about a more direct form of democracy are invoking the promise of bringing “power to the people” that is inherent in the redemptive face.. But the conflict between the people and the political class is an ongoing concern in democracy. As has been shown here, even with the Internet, direct democracy still needs experts, governors and leaders – the so-called elites of which the direct democracy advocates are so suspicious.

The question of civic competence and the need for leaders and experts presents a dilemma for online direct democracy, since the claims put forward tend to advocate direct decision- making by the people and a high degree of control over political leaders and governors. Those who advocate for Internet-enhanced direct democracy are doing so in the guise of creating a more responsive democracy, reducing the power of “elites” and institutional power, that is, they are leveraging the populist appeal of the redemptive face of democracy. However, the conflict between the governors and the governed is an ongoing conflict in democracy. The Internet doesn’t remove this problem, and in fact can complicate the Canovan tension. The ability of citizens to competently govern and the need for “elites” to lead are persistent concerns for the direct model of democracy. These are issues that date all the way back to Athens.

The “Tyranny of the Majority”

The final problem with direct democracy goes to the very heart of the tension between the redemptive and pragmatic faces of democracy, and also helps to define the main differences between the Athenian model of democracy and our current modern representative democracy.

116

The redemptive face, with its promise of putting power in the hands of the people, is what many Internet advocates hold up as an ideal – it sees the people as the only source of legitimate authority, has a strong anti-elitist bias and a desire to overcome alienation from institutions. These characteristics make this face of democracy particularly appealing in ongoing attempts to improve democracy, and has provided an impetus to those wanting to utilise the Internet to revive democracy. The pragmatic face, on the other hand, embodies different political ideals, such as stability and moderation, and invests power in institutions as a means of coping peacefully with the conflicts of modern societies through a collection of rules and practices (Canovan 1999, 10). These aspects of modern democracy have been developed specifically as checks against the vox populi vox dei excesses that could arise from a populist direct democracy. Modern democracies protect the rights of minorities and individuals, sometimes even against the rights of the majority. This is why the two faces are both vital for the functioning of modern democracy, and why the tensions between them are so great. Those who argue that a more direct form of democracy should be instituted simply because it is now technically feasible, are not only sidestepping these complexities in modern democracy, but are also overlooking the history of how representative institutions were developed.

When the American Founding Fathers were forming a new kind of polity for the New World in the eighteenth century, they rejected a revival of the Athenian-style direct democracy, not just because of the practical problems of size and civic competence, but also because this model lacks the power to balance the majority. There is no mechanism in a true direct democracy to hinder the majority from passing legislation that is destructive to the rights of minorities, or indeed to stop them from passing legislation that is ultimately destructive to the rights of the majority.. The Founders were well aware of the history of the ancient Greek democracies, where the lack of checks and balances had proved disastrous (Sartori 1987, 282). However unfair, they agreed with Plato’s notion that democracy was a means to institute mob rule. In fact, Alexander Hamilton went so far as to say that the ancient democracies “never possessed one feature of good government. Their very character was

117 tyranny” (as quoted in Delong 1997, 47). The danger from a tyrannous minority, for the Founding Fathers, was nothing when compared to the possible tyranny of majority rule (Dahl 1956, 9). As James Madison wrote in Federalist No 63 , “The true distinction between [the democracies of the ancients] and the American government, lies in the total exclusion of the people in their collective capacity”, and that this gives “a most advantageous superiority in favour of the United States” (Madison 1788). Hence the role preserved for representation in Madison’s scheme.

John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty (1859), also spoke of the dangers of the “tyranny of the majority”, borrowing the phrase from Alexis de Tocqueville. According to Mill, it is one of the evils society should guard against since it “practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression” (Mill 1991 [1859], 8). It is this particular flaw in direct democracy that was the greatest driver towards representative institutions, not, as suggested by Internet advocates, practical problems such as size or distance.

This is where we can see the advantage of Skinner’s methodology that views conceptual history as something that can contribute to the understanding our present world. Knowledge of the past history of concepts can help us “stand back from the intellectual commitments we have inherited” and look with fresh eyes on old problems (Skinner 2002, 6). Having an understanding that our current concept of democracy, while using the actual word from Greek, has not evolved from Athens but developed as a separate model, helps to highlight the complexities in democracy. It makes clear that the development of a model that includes representative institutions, checks and balances, and safeguards for minorities and individuals, has been for its own purposes, not just as a workaround and a compromise because direct democracy was impractical. It also shows that “reviving” democracy is more complex than simply building a virtual assembly, since the problems of direct democracy go deeper than just size and distance.

Of all the problems of direct democracy, it is the procedural problems of checks and balances and the competing rights of majorities and minorities that are raised most often.

118 It is noteworthy that this has been seen as a concern from very early on. It is indicative of the popularity of the idea that the Internet would engender a more direct form of democracy that it has been so vehemently argued against. As early as 1988, Abramson, Arternon and Orren argued in The Electronic Commonwealth that the Internet’s ability to bring about direct democracy processes could “undermine patience with the cumbersome procedures of representative democracy and shift the political process toward more direct, democratic forms” (6). Benjamin Barber, writing in 1984 about interactive two-way telecommunications facilitated through the television, believed that this technology overcame the problem of “distances that once precluded direct democracy”, but was concerned that it might give rise to a kind of push-button democracy, that will “marginalize thoughtfulness and complexity” (Barber 1984, 211). Marci Hamilton showed particular concern for the growing use and influence of the Internet combined with a readiness to give primacy to self-rule, as undermining our respect for representative democracy (Hamilton 1997, 1). She sees the Internet as one of the factors behind an attack on representative democracy in the United States, saying that reasons for choosing representative democracy over self-rule have been “buried or ignored” (Hamilton 1997, 3), and the idea that this promotes valuable democracy is a product of the self-rule myth (Hamilton 1997, 10). Despite the new technology and broader education, she argues, the framers’ original decision to adopt representative democracy as a bulwark against tyranny is still sound, and because of this, any move to a more direct democracy “should be stemmed” (Hamilton 1997, 10).

Edwin Black also raised direct democracy as a concern, seeing the ever-spreading use of digital information technologies as transformative of our representative institutions. He argued that “the computerisation of government could mean the end of meaningful public interest in representative government and its replacement by a plebiscitarian dictatorship under the guise of direct democracy” (Black 1998, xiv ). Even Grossman, who is otherwise optimistic on the prospect of technology empowering citizens, admits that an “intensively responsive” electronic republic could also open the way for the tyranny of the majority (1995, 6). Even if a majority is not tyrannical, representatives do function as intermediaries

119 to resolve conflicts between groups in society. Legislatures are chambers for reconciling differences over political issues which cannot be resolved through other means. In other words, arguments which invoke “the people” and tout their involvement assume too much unity of the people and overlook the implications of divisions over issues.

These writers highlight the concerns in the 1990s, as the Internet came to prominence, responding to claims that because the technology seemed capable of facilitating a more direct democracy, that the appeal of such a system would drive an inevitable movement in that direction. Anthony Wilhelm was concerned about how the technology itself might drive this change, and argued that we must critically examine the charms of the emerging information and communications technologies, particularly the claims that through new technologies, more direct forms of democracy will transpire. He pointed out that what can be done technically is not necessarily what ought to be done politically: “Although the drumbeat is often heard that liberal democracy is moving toward a more direct form of civic and political participation, in part due to teletechnologies that can enable home based engagement, a wide gap exists between what can be done, technologically, and what should be done, from a political and ethical point of view” (Wilhelm 2000, 103). Moreover, the influence of progress can be seen in these concerns, in the sense of inevitability about the technology being used in democracy. It is taken for granted that technology is the driver of change.

There were many initiatives and projects developed during the 1990s that experimented with allowing citizens greater direct access to the political system using telecommunications networks. One such example is Network Pericles, developed at the Communication and Media Laboratory of the National Technical University of Athens and launched in 1992. It was a closed network, not linked to the Internet, although utilising similar network technology, and was implemented only in a small area on an experimental basis (Tsagarousianou 1998, 56). The creators of the project intended to utilise technological infrastructure to enhance the democratic process and to enable citizens to participate directly in the political processes of their local authority (Tsagarousianou 1998, 42). The

120 main reasons for setting up the project were to overcome what they saw as the inherent problems of representative democracy, which they stated as the difficulty of developing a decision-making process that is responsive to the demands of the electorate of a large size, and the alienation of citizens (Tsagarousianou 1998, 44).

To overcome the socio-economic connection between income and computer ownership, which was particularly prevalent in the early 1990s, the project set up public terminals, and only permitted voting through these, although the network itself could be accessed through a home computer. This step was also designed to encourage citizens to see voting on motions as a public not a private act, and to encourage citizen interaction and discussion. The system, however, was based on strict majoritarianism, and while it wasn’t binding and was only an experimental project, its set-up relegated politicians to the role of mouthpiece for that majority public opinion. Initiatives like these saw technology and the rise of the Internet as a way to get citizens to re-engage with their polities, by creating processes that were both direct and majoritarian, the very concerns so many writers had with the rise of Internet-enabled direct democracy.

The design of this system is using a specific definition of democracy, one that equates it to simple majoritarianism. The stated aim of the set-up of the network was to address the problems of representative democracy, the main one being developing a decision-making process that is responsive to the electorate. We can see democracy being reduced to aspects drawn from the redemptive face, with the role of the representative being sidelined. Another interesting point with this initiative is to note its name, Network Pericles. It is a further rhetorical device to claim legitimacy by naming the network after one of the great orators of the ancient Athenian assembly. In so doing, the creators were leveraging the value of his name and of the appeal of this idealised direct democracy (it is ironic, though, that they named the network after a political leader and yet failed to recognise the role of leaders on the network). By invoking Pericles and Athens, the type of majoritarian direct democracy put forward on this network is given legitimacy as being authentically democratic, because it is the same as that practiced by “the first citizen of

121 Athens”. The article cited here about this project is even called “Back to the future of democracy?”, drawing a direct connection between this project and ancient Athens.

The concern that the rise of the Internet would lead to direct democracy, and what this would mean for our current political systems, is essentially a political disagreement over the application of the concept of democracy. By defining democracy as a direct form of democracy, and seeing it as a timeless concept that can be traced back to Athens, Internet advocates are highlighting the aspects of democracy that uphold their claim to be “restoring” democracy. In contrast, those arguing that this is problematic are highlighting the role of representatives and institutions in the development of modern democracy. They are arguing against a conceptual change that would diminish the place of these characteristics in democracy. Both sides are engaged in a process of rhetorical redescription, persuading an audience to adopt a particular definition in order to further an argument.

Since conceptual change can indicate a change in the world, these disagreements become about more than just the application of a concept – it is a disagreement about how we conceptualise democracy itself and how we describe our current political systems. Changing the application of a concept changes the way a user will imagine that entity, hence the reluctance to apply the term “democracy” to online majoritarian projects. Barber, Hamilton, Black and others are concerned that enthusiasm for the Internet coupled with an assumption that direct democracy is “real” democracy could change what we expect from our political systems. The vehemence with which so many writers argued against this in the 1990s shows that this fear seemed very real.

Direct democracy was not rejected in modern times simply because it was impractical over vast distances and large populations. It was also considered unsuitable because it lacked checks and balances, and had no protection for the rights of the individual or minorities. Drawing a line between Athens and our current democracies portrays a timeless and ahistorical view of democracy, disregarding its history and complexities.

122 Conclusion

This chapter has looked at claims for the Internet as a tool for “reviving” democracy by bringing about a more direct model. Within the context of a perceived sense of citizen dissatisfaction and alienation from democratic institutions, it is understandably appealing to see the Internet as a means to get people more directly involved in their political processes, even bypassing intermediaries. For the writers presented here, the Internet offers hope that democracy can be improved and representative institutions can become more responsive to citizens, thus decreasing the sense if disengagement felt towards them. But claims for the Internet are largely based on the idea that direct democracy, particularly Athenian democracy, is the ideal, and that representative democracy has only ever been a compromise. A specific definition of democracy is put forward, that favours aspects of democracy that fall under the redemptive face, while either ignoring the pragmatic aspects of democracy, or labelling them as elitist or unnecessary. This is done in order to further the argument for the Internet’s democratic potential.

The definition of democracy used in the arguments portrays a reduced and ahistorical vision of democracy. Arguments are couched in terms of direct democracy now being “technically feasible for the first time” (Budge), and “the public no longer need to be precluded from day-to-day decision-making” (Grossman), and the Internet’s move to direct democracy will “stimulate the subservience of politicians to public opinion” (Morris). An Internet-enabled democracy can be “intensely responsive” and “efficient”. But as has been shown here, the problems of direct democracy are not merely practical, they are systemic, and they are political. Modern democracy is internally complex and contradictory. The historic conflict between the people and the political class will continue even in an Internet-enabled direct democracy. Elites and thought leaders will still emerge, and the limited system capacity of our huge polities means that a huge proportion of citizens would still be unable to be directly involved. Proposals to bring the Internet into political life are part of the ongoing attempts to improve the relationship between the people, who are supposed to be self- governing in in some sense in a democracy, and the institutions of democracy, which

123 sideline most forms of direct political involvement. Concerns about this relationship are at the heart of the tensions of modern democracy, but the Internet does not remove these tensions, they are inherent in democracy and always have been.

Enthusiasm for direct eDemocracy was at its zenith during the 1990s, and was replaced by a more nuanced discussion in later decades, but, as the example from Rasiej shows, the vision of a more direct democracy enabled by the Internet continues to have a strong hold. Moreover, the criticisms of representative institutions that were raised by these writers have continued to be of genuine concern, and so the arguments that emerged from this period – the distrust of democratic institutions and a sidelining of the role of the representative – have continued to be strong themes in discussions around the Internet. These themes have become appended to discussions around the role the Internet may play in representative democracy, to which I will now turn.

124 CHAPTER 6: REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY

“It has become increasingly commonplace to talk of a crisis in parliamentary representation”, so said Lusoli, Ward and Gibson in their 2006 analysis of engagement with parliament in the UK (Lusoli, Ward and Gibson 2006, 24). Elizabeth Garret cited the “growing public disillusionment with elected representatives” as the reason for the rise in the US of direct decision-making initiatives (Garrett 1997, 17). Stephen Coleman describes the demos as “bored and demoralized” with their political institutions (Coleman 2004, 1).

This sense of alienation and disengagement from our representative democracies has been an important contributing factor in writers’ hopes for the Internet’s democratic potential. The previous chapter showed that one response to this has been to argue for more direct democracy facilitated by the Internet. In this chapter, I will continue looking at these Internet-enabled responses to the democratic crisis by focusing on arguments made for using the Internet in representative democracy. In this area, writers are highlighting the some of the problems with existing democratic arrangements and putting forward the Internet as a possible solution. As with the previous chapter, most of the arguments for the Internet in this area focus on re-engaging citizens with representative institutions. Lusoli et al list information communications technology (ICTs) as “one of the elements heralded as capable of assisting the parliament in reconnecting with the public” (2006, 27). Politicians have also seen the Internet as the answer to declining voter turnout. For example, the UK MP Douglas Alexander said in 2001 that “The 2001 UK general election gave us the lowest turnout since universal suffrage…. It is now time to… put eDemocracy on the information age agenda. Government should set out what it means by eDemocracy and how it intends to use the power of technology to strengthen democracy” (as quoted in Coleman 2001, 5).

As the Internet became more popular, enthusiasm around its potential as a tool to enhance representative democracy increased. As Ward and Vedel point out, “the Internet has emerged against a backdrop of concerns about apparently declining public engagement in politics, lack of knowledge about politics and heightened levels of scepticism about

125 politicians and mainstream political institutions” (Ward & Vedel 2006, 213), and therefore “there was a ready-made audience looking for solutions” (Ward & Vedel 2006, 220). The sense of disengagement from representative institutions provides the context for enthusiastic claims about using the Internet to increase citizen involvement. It forms part of a larger political concern about alienation from democratic institutions, and the arguments from Internet advocates are part of a larger critique of representative institutions.

This chapter will look at claims for the Internet within the context of representative democracy, and I will show that, similar to the last chapter, the claims are based on putting forward a specific set of criteria to defines the concepts under discussion, in this case not just democracy but also representation. As with direct democracy, Internet advocates favour aspects of democracy drawn from the redemptive face, seeing representative democracy as a process for enacting the expressed will of the majority of people. Consequently, representation is conceptualised through the same prism, with the role of the representative reduced to being little more than mouthpieces for the majority. I will show that this reconceptualisation is once again done for rhetorical purposes – to further arguments for the Internet’s role in democracy.

Representative Democracy

As outlined in the previous chapter, when democracy was first reconsidered for the modern era, this kind of governance had lain dormant for nearly two millennia. Prior to this time, it was not considered a desirable way of organising a polity (Held, 2006, 33). Images of democracy were informed by the ancient Athenian states and their eventual demise, along with Plato’s low opinion of this polity, and understood only in its direct form, realisable only in a community the size of a city, such as Rousseau’s Geneva. Later in the century, democracy in this form was rejected as a desirable polity for the new nation being created

126 in North America. James Madison distinguished between a direct “democracy” and an indirect, representative “republic”. Nevertheless, the two terms soon became conflated. John Stuart Mill used “representative democracy” interchangeably with “representative government” (Thompson 1976, 5). Thomas Jefferson saw the new polity as both democratic and representative, but also considered the establishment of the new system a complete break with the ancient democracies: “The full experiment of a government democratical, but representative, was and is still reserved for us…. The introduction of this new principle of representative democracy has rendered useless almost everything written before on the structure of government” (as quoted in Delong 1997, 48).

Despite this break with the previous incarnations of democracy, representative systems became synonymous with democracy, even with the many usages of the term that allow for various interpretations that are utterly undemocratic in origin, for example, the idea of the Queen being representative of her people. As Barry Holden points out, there is no connection between representation and the notion of power being in the hands of the people (Holden 1974, 31). Ancient Greeks would not define modern polities as democracies at all. The very limited scope for participation and decision-making in modern systems would be regarded as definitively undemocratic (Held 2006, 36). Rousseau was utterly opposed to the idea of representation as a means of facilitating democracy. He believed that from the moment a community elects representatives to govern in their name, “it ceases to be free” (Rousseau 1997 [1762], 115]. Even modern theorists such as Benjamin Barber have problems with representation’s place in democracy, and he states that “representative democracy is as paradoxical an oxymoron as our political language has produced” (Barber, 1984, xiv ).

Dahl believes it is unfortunate that the two systems have come to be referred to by the same name, as it has obscured the fact that they are fundamentally different political systems (Dahl and Tufte 1973, 27). He argues that it has been detrimental to our perceptions of representative democracy, as “stretching” the definition of democracy to cover the practice of representation makes it appear as though there is a wide disparity

127 between the direct and “ideal” form of ancient democracy and the indirect representative institutions of modern democracy. He believes this generates cynicism with our modern political arrangements (Dahl 1973, 25). Sartori also sees our perceptions of democracy as being shaped by the interaction between what we sense to be an ideal and our view of the reality, what he describes as “the pull of an ought and the resistance of an is ” (Sartori 1987, 8). As noted in the previous chapter, there is a tendency to view Athens as the archetypal democracy, and comparisons are made to highlight deficiencies in existing representative democracies.

While sympathetic to such arguments, Canovan is clear that her notion of modern democracy as the tension between redemption and pragmatism is not equivalent to the tension between ideals and reality, as Sartori does, because the pragmatic side also embodies ideals, such as moderation and stability, and provides a means for coping peacefully with the conflicts of modern society (Canovan 1999, 10). Representative institutions which may be described as “faceless” are also capable of dispassionately and effectively limiting power. In representative democracies, rather than putting power in the hands of individuals or “the people”, power is subjected to a set of rules and procedures. Canovan sees both faces as necessary for democracy, as the energy and inspiration provided by the redemptive face of democracy is “necessary to lubricate the machinery of pragmatic democracy” (1999, 11). Philip Pettit also rejects the image of representative government as being non-democratic or lacking in ideals, and sees the distinction between direct democracy and representative democracy as being simply rival proposals for the implementation of democracy. It is not an alternative to democracy, he argues, but an “institutional framework for realizing the democratic ideal of giving kratos to the demos (Pettit, 2010, 61).

For those founding the new republic in the United States in the eighteenth century, a representative institutions, were designed to ensure the triumph of critical reason over irrational desire (Delong 1997, 49). They did not view Athens as an ideal. Their vision of the direct democracy of Athens, influenced by Plato, conjured up images of the ‘passions of

128 the mob’ (Maddox 1996, 87). Instead, as discussed in Chapter 3, the American republic was founded on principles of liberty and freedom, end goals of progress. James Madison saw the role of government as enacting the reasoned opinion of the citizens, and also to curb the part passions may play in politics: “It is the reason of the public alone that ought to control and regulate the government. The passions ought to be controlled and regulated by the government” (as quoted in Delong 1997, 49).

Representation

In a representative democracy, the people do not govern directly, but are represented by others who govern on their behalf. This presents a formidable problem with representative democracy: how do representatives discover what “the reason of the public is?” It was a question the US Founding Fathers grappled with. It was not considered ideal that a representative should blindly follow the opinions of their constituents, as it would be difficult to determine what they actually are. Furthermore, as Madison argued, it was impossible to determine what their opinions would be , if they were “possessed of the information and lights possessed by the members here” at the Convention (Delong 1997, 48). Certainly not all opinions were to be considered, or at least considered equally. Only opinions that formed part of what Jefferson called “the common reason of society” and Madison called “the cool and deliberate sense of the community” would be taken on board (Delong 1997, 49).

The nature of the relationship between the elected and the electorate has raised controversies which have plagued representation for centuries (Birch, 1971, 19). Representation is a complex notion, and as would be expected of a term that falls within the democratic conceptual constellation, has differing and contradictory definitions. In the words of Hanna Pitkin, “there does not even seem to be any remotely satisfactory

129 agreement on what representation is or means” (Pitkin 1967, 7). The offerings of various theorists, she points out, are mutually incompatible (7). I will outline some of these below.

Eighteenth century statesman Mirabeau believed that “the representative body should at all times present a reduced picture of the people” (as quoted in Pitkin 1967, 77). John Stuart Mill believed this kind of representation was important, arguing that representatives should be “a fair sample of every grade of intellect among the people which is at all entitled to a voice in public affairs (Mill, 1991 [1861], 283). This is a microcosmic or mirror view of representation, also supported by contemporary political theorists such as Birch, who believes that “ideally, elected representatives should be similar to their electors, so that the assembly would be a social microcosm of the nation” (Birch 1971, 20). This view suggests that, regardless of how representation is performed, a representative assembly cannot be properly representative if it doesn’t resemble the electorate.

There are problems with this view, though, and Sawyer and Zappala remind us that “standing for” is not the same thing as “acting for” (2001, 9). This kind of representation, they point out, leads to the view that only members of the majority can represent the interests of the majority, and minorities can only represent the interests of minorities. This is in the interests of the status quo. It reduces the role of anyone who is not drawn from the dominant social group to a minor role, and reduces the responsibility of all politicians to represent all interests (Sawyer & Zappala 2001, 9).

Another point of view is delegated representation, which sees the representative as little more than a mouthpiece for the electorate. This representative acts as a spokesperson for their electorate, following their wishes as closely as possible. Thomas Paine was a supporter of this view (Jackson and Lilleker 2009, 240), and Mill subscribes to this view in part when he says that, in some cases, it may be necessary for the representative to have his hands tied to keep him true to the electorate’s interest. However, he only believes this to be the case when electors are represented by those who are inferior to themselves, for “they cannot be expected to postpone their particular opinion, unless in order that they

130 may be served by a person of superior knowledge to their own (Mill, 1991 [1861], 378). When electors choose “wiser men than themselves” to represent them, then they “should consent to be governed according to that superior wisdom” (Mill, 1991 [1861], 378).

This brings us to a third kind of representation, one that sees the representative as a trustee, an autonomous agent, using their “superior wisdom” to work for the good of the electorate, but not necessarily following their lead. This approach gives the representative considerable freedom to act according to their own judgment, pursuing the best interests of the community or the nation, but not following the specific desires of constituents.

This view was exemplified by Edmund Burke, outlined in his speech to the electors of Bristol in 1774. While allowing that the wishes of constituents should carry great weight with their representative, and that in all cases, he should prefer their interest to his own, he declared, “Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but judgment, and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion” (as quoted in Shapiro et al 2010, p 1). In this model, the representative is authorised, even encouraged, to act autonomously in the greater good, even against the outward wishes of the electorate. Delong likens this to a someone who stops a friend driving home from a party drunk – a paternalistic act to save someone from acting unwisely. (Delong 1997, 48).

Furthermore, the question of whether a representative is a delegate or trustee has become more complicated since the development of the party system from the late eighteenth century (Jackson and Lilleker 2009, 241). Parties now play an enormous role in determining the actions of a representative, policy development, political campaigning, and in deciding who a candidate for representation will be in the first place. Jackson and Lilleker even go so far as to say that “The consensus is that party dominates political representation (2009, 241).

These models outline distinctly different roles for representatives, yet each can be considered a valid form of representation. In working towards an understanding of the

131 concept, Anthony Birch recommends that we follow the approach of Wittgenstein, and view the relationship between differing usages of a concept as we would view the resemblance between members of a family. This way a student of political representation can begin by understanding the established usages of the concept, rather than trying to reduce all the assumptions into a single definition (Birch 1971, 14).

However, Pitkin highlights that even looking at usages of the concept can be complicated, by noting that the more a theorist sees representatives as superior to their constituents, “wiser men than themselves” in Mills’ words, the more he or she will justify a representative’s independence. On the other hand where they see a relative equality of intellect, the more a theorist will see independent action as arbitrary and unjustifiable (Pitkin 1967, 21). This is reminiscent of Madison’s view that people’s opinions would be different, and by implication more worthy, if they were “possessed of the information and lights” of their political leaders. This further complicates the issue of what makes for ideal representation, making it changeable according who the representative and the represented are at any given point.

The permissible scope of action of a democratic representative is a problem as old as representation itself. For Pitkin, what is most striking about the “mandate-independence” controversy is how long it has been going on, without getting any nearer to being resolved (1967, 18). This is unsurprising, given that it seems impossible to reconcile the two points of view: after all, it is impossible for a representative to both reflect the electorate and be superior to it; to act as a mouthpiece for the majority opinion and also use personal judgment. It is easy to see why Pitkin describes the various interpretations of representation as mutually incompatible (Pitkin 1967, 7).

The tensions between the different types of representation reflect the ongoing tensions between the redemptive and pragmatic faces of modern democracy. The appeal of the redemptive face, and the continuing vision of Athens as the ideal democracy, means that representative democracy is often viewed as simply a compromise, a cut-down version of

132 direct democracy, rather than as a distinct system with merits of its own. Representatives are seen as a necessary evil to solve the problem of size and distance, so that each representative simply speaks on behalf of a certain number of citizens, essentially acting as their mouthpiece. As such, the notion of representation predominantly put forward is that of the delegate, and with the rise of the Internet, its potential role is seen in terms of bringing the represented and the representative closer together so that the latter may more closely follow the wishes of the former. The autonomous agent, or Burkean, model of representation is entirely sidelined. The view that representatives can, and in some cases, ought to use their own judgement, even if it goes against the majority of their electorate, is seen as unacceptably undemocratic. Ferber, Foltz and Pugliese, in their study of interactive communication online, quipped that “it seems unlikely that Edmund Burke would have been a big fan of cyberdemocracy” (2007, 391).

Representative Democracy and The Internet

The sense of dissatisfaction towards representative institutions that characterises the democratic crisis is the context for many of the proposals put forward for using the Internet in democracy. This sense of disengagement and alienation from representative institutions has meant that the claims for the Internet have focused on two main areas: firstly, reducing the sense of alienation from the representative system by enabling greater communication between the elected and the electorate; and secondly, reducing the sense of dissatisfaction with representatives by increasing their accountability to the people they represent. In the next section, I will outline these claims and demonstrate how they are based on a specific view of representation that reduces the complexity of the concept.

a) The Internet and Representation: Communication

Even before the rise of the Internet, there had been a growing level of communication between representatives and their electorate throughout the latter half of the twentieth

133 century (Norton 2007, 354). Looking at British MPs, Philip Norton compares the situation now to that of the 1960s, “Even if an MP wanted to communicate with constituents, there were few resources available to do so”. (Norton 2007, 354). As constituents came to expect more of their representatives, allowances increased so that they now have a publicly funded office and staff, whereas previously they were lucky if they had a desk (355). With the Internet, says Norton, communication between the elected and the electorate can be both direct and inexpensive, “reshaping the form of politics through facilitating new organisational forms and enabling citizens to express views directly to legislators, without those of intermediaries such as journalists, editors and political parties” (Norton 2007, 355).

This was the prevailing position, as parliamentary websites and email accounts were moving towards becoming a necessary political instrument in the mid-to-late 1990s – that the Internet would allow citizens to “express views directly to legislators”, presumably so that they could then act on those views. From the language used we can see that these websites, from the very beginning, were envisaged as a tool that would enhance democracy.

J.A Taylor and Eleanor Burt undertook research in 1999 to look at examples from around the world where the implementation of a parliamentary website might “support public participation in the democratic process”. They saw the Internet as a possible solution to democracy’s woes: “For parliaments seeking to stimulate democracy, in an era when their status is judged to have been ebbing away, there are numerous ways [the Internet and the World Wide Web] might seek to support democratic activity” (Taylor and Burt, 1999, 516).

In their analysis of 30 parliamentary and government websites, they found that the Internet “promises the provision of opportunities for direct citizen expressions of policy preferences and for significantly closer and more direct communication between elected members and citizens” (Taylor & Burt 1999, 504). For Taylor and Burt, these websites would be more than just storehouses of political information, they “promise democratic enhancements” (504). These enhancements, evidently, take the form of giving citizens the opportunity to “directly”

134 make their views known to the representative. Their solution to the “ebbing away” of the status of democratic representatives is to increase their level of communication with their electorate.

Similarly, in their description of the establishment of the website for the German Bundestag, Mambrey, Neumann and Sieverdingbeck also see the Internet in terms of enabling the representative to be more informed of, and presumably in line with, the views of their electorate. They state that the site was set up to provide “a means to make parliament more responsive to citizens than before” (1999, 480). They describe the new forms of interaction available through the website as being successful in bridging the gap between parliament and citizens, and bolstering the transparency of events in parliament (Mambrey, Neumann and Sieverdingbeck 1999, 483).

In both these cases, the Internet, specifically parliamentary websites, was seen as a solution to citizens’ sense of alienation, by providing a new conduit for communication with their representative. Ott and Rosser saw this as an advantage of the Internet, saying that, “The electronic media has given a larger percentage of constituents than ever before the ability to easily and quickly transmit their opinions on public policy issues to their representatives” (Ott & Rosser 2000, 140). More recently, Grant, Moon and Grant investigated Australian politicians’ use of Twitter, seeing their use of this technology as providing a more direct means of communication. “Politicians throughout the democratic world have begun to embrace such tools [as Twitter] as a new way to connect with their constituents, shortcutting the heavily mediated connections offered by traditional media” (Grant, Moon and Grant 2010, 579).

Given the increasing popularity and prevalence of political websites and public use of the Internet at this time, it is unsurprising that we started to see ideas put forward for ways the Internet could be integrated into our representative democracies to improve the relationship between the representatives and the represented.

135 In 1997, Howard Delong provided a “sketch” of Jeffersonian teledemocracy as an idea that “might be fruitful” (he describes his aim as modest) in increasing the representativeness of democracy (Delong 1997). This system is based on Thomas Jefferson’s ideas for overcoming the difficulty of determining the will of the people in a representative system. Jefferson proposed that electorates be divided up into small political units called wards. On occasion, a general call of ward meetings would be put out, so the will of the entire state could be determined on one day. This was a mechanism that would express the “common reason of the people” and would provide a check on rulers who were tempted to stray too far from it. This system was never instituted, despite Jefferson’s “status as one of the greatest democrats of all time” (49), and Delong ascribes this to the idea “being ahead of its time” as it requires “a host of technologies, such as telecommunications, which did not exist then” (Delong 1997, 50). In Delong’s teledemocracy, it isn’t important that the people actually assemble together, as they would have under Jefferson’s original idea, but that their views are made available to the representative. As such, Delong sees Jefferson’s ward system as an idea whose time has come, since the Internet can now implement it.

Stephen Coleman, who has been thinking and writing about Internet-enabled democracy for nearly two decades, has also put forward an idea for using the Internet to enhance the communication between the elected and the electorate in representative democracy. He noted that in the early days of the Internet, cyber-democrats predicted that representative institutions would become obsolete, but that the discussion has evolved to become more about “strengthening the hitherto weak and neglected relationship between the representatives and the represented” (Coleman 2004, 1). He believes that the main problem with representative democracy is that the people don’t feel properly represented, because the system fails to forge meaningful relationships between politicians and citizens. He sees ICTs as being able to facilitate a close, conversational relationship, which he called direct representation (Coleman 2005, 1). The either/or debate over representative and direct democracy, he says, ignores the possibility that there are options in between. Direct representation would see the representative framework preserved, but the public would retain a degree of authority over representatives, through an ongoing, “full-blooded, two-

136 way relationship” (2005, 9). Coleman has pointed out that, unless one accepts a strictly Burkean view that a representative ought to be autonomous, then it is reasonable to expect that greater citizen input is more likely to enhance than weaken or threaten democracy (Coleman 1999, 384).

Both these proposals put the Internet forward as a way of improving the relationship between the representative and the represented by increasing the representative’s interaction with their electorate. In both cases, for Delong’s teledemocracy and Coleman’s direct representation, there is an assumption that increased communication resolves the problem of representation. But enhancing the communications channels between the elected and the electorate does not resolve the problem of whether a representative is a delegate or a trustee, or who he or she should listen to among divided opinion. Delong puts forward teledemocracy as a way of getting over the problem of determining the will of the people in a representative democracy, but that suggests that there is a universal opinion that belongs to the people. A representative just needs to find out what it is. Representation is, of course, more complex than this. Representatives are intermediaries to resolve conflicts between groups and over issues. Both these proposal, assume too much unity of the people and overlook the implications of divisions over issues. The people and the issues need to be represented.

Furthermore, in both cases, the proposals are leveraging the value in names for rhetorical purposes, using labels to give these proposals legitimacy. Delong’s “modest” proposal puts Jefferson, “one of the greatest democrats of all time”, at the centre of his argument. By describing his teledemocracy as an idea that originally came from Jefferson, the proposal is immediately given greater legitimacy. Jefferson’s ward system, he says, couldn’t get off the ground because it needs telecommunications technology. Now that we have that technology, it is inherently democratic to implement this system: Jefferson himself would have done it if he could.

137 Coleman too has invoked evaluative language to legitimate his proposal. By calling his proposal direct representation, he is leveraging the appeal of the populist notion of direct democracy. While Coleman does not see the Internet heralding the end of representative democracy, he clearly sees the Internet as a way to graft some aspects of direct democracy onto representative institutions in order to strengthen the relationship between the representatives and the represented. While this relationship is certainly problematic, and the democratic crisis indicates that the relationship can be improved, the implication is that adding aspects from direct democracy makes the system more democratic. This portrays representative democracy as stand-in democratic system, to be chipped away at as technology allows.

Enthusiasm for using the Internet in this way has not only generated political proposals from academics seeking to improve this relationship, it has also found its way into “real” politics. In May 2001 Mark Latham, Federal Member for Werriwa in New South Wales, Australia, set up a website for his constituents that he called “the first example of Internet- based democracy” (Kane and Patapan 2004, 203). On this website, Latham put up questions on issues to the electorate of Werriwa, who would then give their opinions by voting via the website. Latham promised to “act on the majority view” and stated that this process would make him “more accountable as an elected representative” (Bishop, Kane and Patapan 2002, 57). He claimed this is “real democracy in action”, and a way of “restoring the public’s faith in democracy” in Australia, since it is so dominated by powerful elites that it was effectively “broken” (Kane and Patapan 2004, 203).

A more recent example is the 2007 launch of Australia’s “first and only Internet based political party”, Senator Online (SOL). Their website allows everyone on Australia’s Electoral Roll to vote on policy issues and on every Bill put to the Senate, and then the SOL senators vote as the majority direct. SOL has no stated policy positions; given that the views of their senators will be determined by online polls, they state that it is “inappropriate” to have predetermined policies on anything. The stated purpose of this political party is to put "democratic" back in democracy: “Using the Internet we can return to a system of

138 representation that reflects your true position on important issues. It’s a revolution – taking back power from the politicians, special interests and lobby groups and putting it back where it belongs: In your hands – now we can” (SenatorOnline, n.d.).

Both these examples show strong parallels with the views of those who argue for more direct democracy, outlined in the previous chapter, but in this case, they don’t want to dispense with representative institutions, but to make them more “democratic”. By democratic, they mean making the representative bound by the wishes of the majority, that is, they are equating representation with the delegate model. Latham declared he would follow the majority opinion of his electorate, and SOL candidates are required to commit “in writing” that they will be directed by the majority opinion on the polls (SenatorOnline, n.d.). The complex and contested concept of representation is reduced to delegation, and in the case of SOL, it is extreme. Their candidates provide no policy positions at all, but instead resemble a kind of political automaton, mechanically enacting the majority opinion.

The rhetorical redescription here is similar to that outlined in the previous chapter, and done for the same purpose. The definition of representation put forward is that of the delegate, to the exclusion of any other interpretation. The Internet is then put forward as the solution to making possible much closer relationships between the people and their delegate. Under the existing “broken” system, representatives are removed from the people, elitists, mere “politicians”.. Moreover, arguments are framed in terms of returning democracy to what it ought to be. SOL argue their party is a “return” to the true nature of representation, that they are “taking back power from the politicians”, while Latham’s proposal will “restor[e] the public’s faith in democracy”. The role of the representative is framed only as individuals acting as instruments of the will of the people, so that any process that increases the representative’s knowledge of, and ties to, that opinion can be considered to be enhancing democracy.

However, the concept of representation is complex and contested for a reason. The role of the representative within representative democracy is extremely complicated. Latham’s

139 declaration that he will follow the voice of the people through the polls on the website brings up considerable practical problems. Apart from the obvious problem of actually getting people to give an opinion on a constant stream of legislature during parliamentary sittings, there are also issues such as, how is the “majority view” defined? Would it be assumed from the people who took the time to vote, or would there need to be a quorum of the electorate for the view to be considered? Would the system ensure that only members of the Werriwa electorate took part in the poll, and that each constituent voted only once? What role would opinion leaders in the community have in this system? What if an issue is evenly split and a majority opinion cannot be found? Again, the initiative assumes there is a unified will of the people that the representative just has to tap into.

In addition, these initiatives conflate direct democracy with majoritarianism. Both these initiatives describe themselves as democratic, leveraging the value in that concept, but they are basically online polling projects. Latham said of his initiative, “We need to give people a direct say in the decisions which affect their lives" (Bishop, Kane and Patapan 2002, 56). But the citizens of Werriwa were not given direct access to decision-making, they were merely given the opportunity to voice their opinion on issues put forward by the person already empowered to make decisions on their behalf. There was no chance to set the agenda or to search for alternative solutions. By calling his initiative “Direct democracy in Werriwa” he was leveraging the value, credibility and the appeal in giving people a direct say in decisions, but the initiative provided very little scope for doing this. The value of democracy also extends to the representative. Latham used this initiative to claim to be a better, more “democratic” representative increasing his credibility with the public by claiming he was with them, a “true” representative in touch with their needs, and willing to act on them. It is perhaps ironic to see elected representatives reach for concepts like direct democracy that diminish their own role to one of mouthpiece.

Furthermore, the Direct Democracy in Werriwa initiative also ignored the complex relationship between the representative, the electorate, and political parties, a complexity that became impossible to ignore during the life of the project. When the majority of

140 respondents answered contrary to the stated policy of the Australian Labor Party, of which Latham is a member, he did not follow the majority opinion as expressed in the online poll, but voted with his party (Bishop, Kane and Patapan 2002, 59). As already noted, the current representative system is extensively intertwined with the party system and this curtails the scope of the representative to act as either a delegate or a trustee. This is an example of where the Internet is adding to the complexity of the relationship between the represented and the representative, rather than ameliorating it.

Underestimating the complexity of this relationship has brought trouble to other politicians in their zeal to use the Internet to connect with the people. In November 2009, Joe Hockey, Federal Member for North Sydney, also in New South Wales, Australia, decided to canvass his Twitter followers during a contest over the leadership of the Liberal Party of Australia. In particular he sought their views on the highly contentious issue of bringing in a carbon emissions trading scheme (ETS). This had been negotiated with the Labor Government by the previous Liberal leader, Malcolm Turnbull, who faced rebellion over this issue by the climate-change denying wing of his party. Hockey tweeted, "Hey team re the ETS. Give me your views please on the policy and political debate. I really want your feedback” (Penberthy 2010). Hockey had been a supporter of the party’s ETS policy, but was indicating his openness to changing his mind according to feedback from random tweeters, who he apparently sees as part of his “team”. He was roundly condemned by party supporters for such communication in the middle of a delicate time for the party and ridiculed by the media and the Labor party (Melouney and Milne 2010). As with the Latham example, the party’s decision on this policy was made by the party room, and Hockey was not free to act on advice from the Twitterverse.

Senator Online would not have this problem, as they have no party policy positions to defend, but this initiative would have similar practical problems to the Direct Democracy in Werriwa initiative. The same issues arise about how a majority would be defined. In the case of SOL, these issues are even more critical because the online polls provide the only

141 context for how the senator would vote. And while they have no party platform, a problem could arise if the senator disagreed with the majority vote on a matter of conscience.

The vision of representation put forward in both the SOL and Werriwa initiatives has the tendency to turn a representative into a ventriloquist’s dummy, having no opinion or judgment, just mechanically parroting the will of the majority. There is no allowance for the complex and contested nature of representation, nor of democracy, which seems to be defined as simply a process for enacting the aggregated opinions of the majority.

Moreover, Jeffersonian teledemocracy, Coleman’s direct representation, Latham’s Direct Democracy in Werriwa, Senator Online, and any other initiatives that call for increased communication between the representative and the represented are all limited by a significant practical obstacle. As I have already noted in the previous chapter on direct democracy, the capacity of the polity to effectively involve the entire citizenry is severely limited. This was a problem in Athens and it remains a problem in modern democracy. Representative democracy has been able to partly ameliorate this problem by giving representatives the authority to act on behalf of the interests of many, and also by aggregating sets of political ideals under party platforms. Proposals that advocate increasing the interaction between citizens and representatives, limiting the scope of action of representatives to acting merely as a delegate for majority voice, risk undermining this advantage of the representative system.

Increased communication between the elected and the electorate may at first appear like an obvious enhancement to representative democracy. But the increased communication load could simply work to burden the representative and increase feelings of alienation by citizens. Nigel Jackson, while describing email as “the political ‘killer app’”, admits that there is a danger that members of legislatures and their staff may spend too much time dealing with irrelevant emails, and not enough time building traditional relationships with constituents (Jackson 2003, 6). According to research by Fitch and Goldschmidt, the volume of email and postal communications to the United States Congress increased by

142 nearly 300 per cent from 2000-2005 (Fitch and Goldschmidt 2005, 7). In 2004 the House and Senate combined received more than 200 million postal and email messages (Fitch and Goldschmidt 2005, 7). The data shows that email is not substituting postal mail, it is compounding the number of constituent communications that pour into congressional offices. One House Legislative Director stated: “We just try to keep our heads above water” (Fitch and Goldschmidt 2005, 23). The report finds that the unanswered emails pile up, and staffers reply weeks later by postal mail (Fitch and Goldschmidt 2005, 26) . The increased opportunities for people to “quickly transmit their opinions” touted by Internet advocates may simply fill up a representative’s inbox with thousands of emails that cannot possibly be read, replied to or acted upon.

This problem is highlighted by an Australian MP Bruce Billson who, in an interview, said he can receive 800 emails a day. While this is problematic, sifting through and finding the ones that ought to be replied to is the hardest part of the job. There are five staffers in this representative’s office, and they are all busy. Says the Billson of this transformation in electoral communication, “welcome to my nightmare” (Panichi 2011).

The capacity problem is exacerbated by the fact that our political system is currently based on geographic representation, whereas the Internet has no borders. There is no way to know that any feedback or interaction a representative receives online is actually from a member of his/her constituency. Representatives in the US attempted to introduce a system to overcome this problem, by asking email correspondents to include their mailing address to ensure they a constituent. However, this has failed as email campaigns are able to easily cut and paste addresses from the electorate (Shirky 2008, 287). Jackson acknowledges there is a possibility that representatives could become “swamped under an avalanche of non-constituent campaigning garbage” (Jackson 2003, 6). Stephen Coleman cites an example of a British MP putting his email address online, only to be inundated with emails from American politics students (Coleman 1999, 385). This is one of the problems highlighted by Billson. Sorting emails that involve genuine concerns and questions from

143 constituents, from “a tide of nationally orchestrated campaigns that hit the computers of all federal MPs” can be difficult and time-consuming (Panichi 2011).

According to Clay Shirky, email as a political tool has actually become the victim of its own success, and email campaigns are now “near useless” (Shirky 2008, 287). Previously, a handwritten letter from a constituent indicated that something like two thousand people in that district cared about that issue (287). Now that email has lowered the transaction costs of sending a message, it has become meaningless in providing a representative with an indication of importance in the electorate. This massive influx of emails may actually be making it more difficult for constituents to be heard. Jane Schacter says Congressional offices are “overwhelmed by the deluge” of emails and that this actually makes it harder for individuals to make their voice heard to their representative (2009, 665). This could act to increase, not decrease, the sense of alienation from the political system.

The research into communications at the US Congress by Fitch and Goldschmidt reveals a similar problem. A large percentage of the increase in email messages received by Congressional offices is from mass mailings, multiple copies of the same email sent by different constituents. This has lead, say Fitch and Goldschmidt, to congressional staff feeling that email has reduced the overall quality of constituents’ messages, and that while more messages are being sent to Congress, less actual communication is occurring (Fitch and Goldschmidt 2005, 7) .

Dahl believes the representative system is reliant on the fact that most citizens will never act on their right to participate. As the scale of a polity increases, the number of citizens “who can directly engage in face-to-face communication with their elected representatives begins to encounter physical limits” (Dahl 1992, 53). As he did with the Athenian assembly, Dahl again makes calculations to show the limited system capacity of a representative system. If every adult in an average electorate wanted half an hour a year of their representative’s time, he says, the member would need to listen for ten hours a day for twenty-five years (Dahl 1967, 131).

144

Coleman suggests that the answer may be that representatives need increased staff support to deal with the increased level of engagement with the electorate (Coleman 1999). But this acts to further remove the citizens from their representative, as the communication is no longer direct but through a political staffer. Surely this is not the “rich, full blooded” relationship Coleman envisages the Internet is engendering.

While seeking to improve the relationship between the representative and the represented is an admirable goal, and the Internet seems an obvious tool to facilitate this, as this chapter has shown, it is a far more complex problem than can be easily fixed with technology. Tensions between the people and the political class have been an ongoing concern for democracy throughout history, and the proposing to use the Internet is another incarnation in attempts to improve that relationship. However, these proposals tend define representation from the delegate point of view, and then proceed to put forward an argument that shows how the Internet can be used to tie a representative more closely to the views of the majority of the electorate. It is a view that is concerned with how a representative enacts the will of the people, but is less concerned with how that is to be determined, or even how a representative can decide from amongst the electronic mountain of opinions conveyed. The Internet adds complexity to representative democracy, and instead of improving the relationship between the representative and the represented, can actually further complicate it.

b) Representative Democracy and the Internet: Information

The Senator Online site describes the Internet as “a great enabler of information” (SenatorOnline, n.d.), and in some respects they are correct. The Internet has brought about enormous changes to how we access and share information, and has facilitated greater access to political information.

145 Taylor and Burt described parliamentary Internet sites as “vast riches” of information that can be “plundered at will rather than simply administered” (Taylor & Burt 1999, 503). Representatives are using the Internet to provide information about their actions, decisions, media releases, political speeches and personal details. Websites of representative institutions include general information such as a description of how the parliament or representative assembly works, a history of the legislature and biographical and contact information of representatives. Most sites allow a person to enter their postcode to find their member. Most provide a calendar of sitting days, list members’ declared interests, their committee memberships, their portfolios, and much more detailed information about representatives. In Australia, Hansard, the official record of the proceedings of the parliaments of Australia, has been available online since 1995, and since mid 1996 the Department of the Parliamentary Library has been publishing the full text of its research publications, including research notes, current issues briefs, background briefs, monthly economic and statistical indicators, and bills digests (Magarey 1999, 408). Hansard online is also searchable, so that a citizen can easily find out what their member has said, or what has been said on a particular issue. Senate committee reports and Senate Estimates Hearings are also available in full text. Since 1998 the Parliamentary News Network (PNN) has been audiostreamed through the ABC website. Such services are fairly typical of many legislatures around the world.

In addition to sites run by the parliament or government offices, representatives and political parties also have their own websites, which often include a blog, bio information, local information relevant to their constituents, recent events and speeches. These sites often also include a Twitterfeed, YouTube videos, a link to Facebook, and a representative’s email address.

Other political websites aggregate political information to help citizens identify the positions of their representatives on specific issues. This is particularly important in representative systems like the United States, where representatives are less bound by party discipline and so have greater scope to act, both in support of their published political

146 platform, or against it. Websites such as Project Vote Smart let a person put in their zip- code to identify their representative, and then lists detailed information such as voting records, campaign funding and their positions on issues (votesmart, n.d.). Politifact is a fact-checking site where journalists and editors check the veracity of statements made by politicians. Their Truth-O-Meter, also available as an app, gives statements a rating such as true, half true, mostly false, and even “pants on fire”(Politifact, n.d.).

A lot of this information, particularly parliamentary information, has always been available to the public: PNN was broadcast through ABC Radio, Hansard was available through the Parliamentary Printing Office, speeches, reports and details of representative’s activities could be obtained through representatives’ offices. But now it is readily available and downloadable through the Web, it is searchable, and there are also more ways for citizens to find out what kind of information is published and available. Kirsty Magarey sees the availability of all this information as an improvement, as parliamentary information was previously difficult to identify, and sometimes a challenge to obtain, since legislatures have a complex and sometimes obscure structure (Magarey 1999, 409). “By increasing access to this information the Parliament has, in an immediate and practical way, enhanced its democratic processes which, in order to flourish, depend on the availability of information” (409).

This increased availability of information has the potential to enhance the transparency and accountability of representative systems. Since citizens in representative democracies do not govern directly, the question of how to make those who do govern accountable to those they represent is enormously important. Representatives must give an account of their actions to the people who elected them, and the people need to be able to see that a representative stands by publicly stated policy goals. Not surprisingly, the Internet, by facilitating access to political information, has been seen as a tool that can transform processes of accountability in representative democracy.

147 Says Cheris Carpenter, YouTube is “an instrument of ‘checks and balances’ for the American electorate” (2010, 224). Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s co-founder, declared his company’s mission “is to make the world more open and transparent by giving people the power to share information” (as quoted in Schultz 2009, 8). Rasiej argues that increased access to political information is “creating more transparency and illuminating the inner workings of government in ways never imagined possible” (2008, 57). Craig Newmark agrees, seeing the Internet reinforcing the role of the media in keeping representatives accountable, saying “The Internet provides tools and information for journalists to aid them in their effective scrutiny of governmental accountability” (Newmark 2008, 140).

Employing an accountability thesis put forward by James Snider in 1996, Bruce Bimber examined how the Internet might enhance accountability. In Snider’s version of accountability, citizens need only be potentially informed in order to hold government to account. His theory is based on the notion that as long as public officials perceive that citizens have access to information to become informed in the future, then they are likely to act accountably in the present. Since political information is now easier to access online, citizens who do not access or understand information prior to government decisions, or even citizens who are currently indifferent, still have the potential to seek this information later and call a representative to account. This would mean that the information available on the Internet enhances accountability whether citizens access it or not. Bimber saw this capacity as “perhaps the strongest claim for how the Net can alter politics without actually bringing about large-scale change” (Bimber 1998, 144).

Jane Schacter, reviewing the Internet’s potential to increase accountability in the United States Congress, discusses the same phenomenon, which she calls “accountability by prediction” (Schacter 2009, 664). Under this scenario, similar to Snider’s, a representative cannot take for granted voter ignorance and must carefully assess the degree to which an issue may likely one day cause them trouble. In the absence of actual accountability, she says, the values underlying accountability may still be realised if representatives need to anticipate a future public backlash. Schacter points out that the vast amounts of political

148 information available online remain untapped by citizens, a phenomenon she calls “wasted transparency”. And those who do access this information are already politically knowledgeable. The information rich are getting richer (668). To put this another way, it is still the case that the politically interested are involved and the wider population are not, and the representative may listen to the former who are noisy rather than the latter who are quiet. This is an old problem of representation. Because of this, the Internet is unlikely to transform levels of accountability and transparency, since it doesn’t really change the system. A representative has always had to heed the problem of potential accountability, or accountability by prediction; it is not reliant on the Internet. Those who are interested have always been able to get hold of politically relevant information, and so are no more able to keep representatives accountable than they were before. Bimber also emphasises the role of intermediaries in potential accountability, the “active stratum of knowledge brokers and mobilizers”, who have always and will continue to pose the main threat of awakening the public’s interest in an issue.

The Internet does not necessarily make available more information, it just makes it more accessible. Parliamentary websites publish electronically, information they have always published in some form. Websites such as Project Vote Smart, described by Taylor and Burt as “a powerful tool for the achievement of public accountability”, are excellent sources of information, but they aggregate publicly available information. Moreover, Schacter believes the Internet is unlikely to make transparent actions that take place out of public view. “If a legislator quietly kills a bill in a cloakroom deal, that action, in theory, will not be any more visible simply by virtue of the Internet” (Schacter 2009, 649).

Despite this stark admission from Schacter, some Internet enthusiasts argue that, not only does the Internet enhance accountability, but also suggest a challenge to the role of the representative. Naibitt and Rasiej, as mentioned in the previous chapter on direct democracy, have argued that our representative systems should be overhauled, since the level of political information available via the Internet means citizens are just as informed and their representatives. Naisbit declared that “we know as much about what’s going on

149 as our representatives and we know it just as quickly” so that representative democracy is “obsolete” (Naisbitt [2000], as quoted in Wright 2006, 236). And Rasiej argued that the ability to aggregate and share knowledge has become democratised, leading to an “exponential explosion in the amount of information available” and new ways for people to become involved in decision-making (2008, 57).

Simon Beth Noveck sees the Internet as being able to facilitate a more active form of accountability, but even further, she comes close to Naisbitt and Rasiej’s views of representatives becoming increasingly sidelined, or at least facing competition as decision- makers:

Ordinary citizens have more to offer than voting or answering polls. People can work together to gather and analyze information, and even make decisions. The official no longer needs to be the sole decision-maker. This is a radical idea, but one whose time has come. In the world before the Internet, it made sense to believe that accountability in a democracy could only happen once every few years at the polling booth, where individuals go to throw out unqualified elected officials (Noveck 2008, 194).

Noveck sees citizens working together to use the information available on the Internet to develop a more active accountability process than simply voting every few years. It’s clear from the language she uses that she doesn’t see the current system as adequately representative. Indeed, she doesn’t use the word representative or even politician, but calls them “officials”, making them sound more like faceless cogs in a bureaucratic machine rather than a local member elected to represent the interests of his or her constituents. She also describes elections as a process of “throw[ing] out unqualified elected officials”: presumably citizens using the Internet to gather and analyse information are more qualified. We can see the influence of progress here and the myth of the Internet as something completely new, as “the world before the Internet” was different a different

150 place. There is also a sense of the inevitability of this change in the role of the representative as it’s an idea “whose time has come”.

Stephen Ward and Thierry Vedel also see information as a means to bring the people into the decision-making realm of their representatives, closing the gap between citizens, and the “elites” who govern them. They suggest that parliamentary websites might be used “to provide more open forms of decision-making that would improve both the accountability and transparency of elite level decision-making (Ward and Vedel 2006, 217).

The relationship between access to greater political information and citizens having a greater say in politics is not new, and in this respect, those arguing for a change in relationship between the representative and the represented through the Internet are in esteemed company. As noted above, Mill believed the only conditions under which a person should postpone their own opinion was in cases where the representative is a person of superior knowledge to their own, and Madison considered the electors’ opinions would be different if they were possessed of the information of the members of the Convention. They both clearly see the role of the representative differently, and more constrained, if the electors are as informed and knowledgeable as their representatives.

However, it is knowledge not raw information that is useful to citizens. This requires information to be contextualised to give it meaning (Polat 2005, 437). As Bruce Bimber has said: “Providing information online, and encouraging people to participate in online voting procedures does not necessarily increase an individual’s ability to understand many complex issues” (Bimber 1998, 140). Information itself may not be overly useful. It does not equal knowledge or political judgment. And while there is a parallel with Mills’ and Madison’s views that the people should have a greater say if they are more capable, sheer access to data via the Internet does not necessarily lead to the “superior wisdom” envisaged by Mill.

151 Coleman, Taylor and Van de Donk have rejected out of hand the claim that access to politically relevant information should stimulate greater decision-making by citizens or compel representatives to be tied to the wishes of their electorate, stating that “such an argument lurches into the kind of quasi-utopian zeal that emanates from the assumption that a better informed citizenry can become directly self-governing” (1999, 368).

The Problems of Simplifying Representation

Proposals to use the Internet to improve representation are part of the ongoing struggle in democracy to improve the relationship between the governors and the governed. The conflicts between these two groups have always been there, and the balance between the two is an ongoing question in representative democracy. The introduction of the Internet can in fact add complexity to representative democracy not simplify it due to the increasing prominence of so-called cybermediaries who acquire reputations and followers as representatives of causes and issues against political representatives and each other. Groups such as Getup! In Australia and MoveOn in America are notable examples of this.

The “quasi-utopian zeal” of Internet advocates leads to a tendency to view representative institutions as awful compromises of democratic perfection, to see the delegate view of representation as the most democratic, and the populist aspects of the redemptive face of democracy as the ideal, However, as has been noted above, when democracy was reconsidered for the modern era, direct democracy was discarded not only because it faced insurmountable practical hurdles. It was actively rejected in favour of the development of a new system that would put power in the hands of institutions. By so doing, power could be limited and contained, and the “passions of the mob” could be filtered through legislative procedures, where allowances can be made for the views outside of the majority. Canovan cites this as one of the virtues of the pragmatic face of democracy, that institutions are a “way of making power relatively accountable” (1999, 11) and to allow for the compromises necessary for democracy to be enacted.

152

Internet advocates, by emphasising the delegate model of representation, can undermine the very accountability these writers claim to be enhancing. If representatives are required to be intensely responsive and enact the opinions of the majority of their electorate, then they are constrained in their ability to act on any other impetus. They would be unable to act according to their own judgment, their own conscience, or even to stand by their own stated policy positions. In this case, they would carry less responsibility for their actions, because they are merely enacting the wishes of the people. If the Senator Online party were to have a candidate elected to the Australian Senate, what responsibility could that senator take for their actions, given that they have no stated policy positions but are merely there to vote according to majority opinion? Furthermore, a citizen would have no way of knowing what to expect from such a senator in terms of policy priorities for their term, so how could such a representative be held accountable? Against what criteria could their actions be assessed?

In Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992), Neil Postman saw the consequences of this. While agreeing that representatives are supposed to follow the interests of their constituents, he was concerned that the ascendance of polling, enabled by the increasing sophistication of technology, would undermine representatives’ sense of responsibility. He argues that polling “shifts the locus of responsibility between political leaders and their constituents”. Before the ascendance of polling, political leaders had to consult not just the wishes of their constituents, but also their own experience and knowledge (Postman 1992, 135). This meant that they were “judged on their capacity to make decisions based on such wisdom”, and that therefore they “were responsible for the decisions they made” (Postman 1992, 135). Now, in the “American Technopoly”, representatives are “under increasing pressure to forgo deciding anything for themselves and defer to the opinions of the voters, no matter how ill-informed and short-sighted those opinions might be” (Postman 1992, 136).

153 Marginalising the effects of any ill-informed and short-sighted opinions in the political system was one of the objectives in developing representative institutions. Representative institutions, the dispassionate institutions from which we feel so alienated, were considered a means of checking irrational desires and ensuring cool and deliberate procedures to limit and contain political power. But in proposals for using the Internet to improve democratic institutions, the definition of representation put forward sidelines these aspects. Instead, the Internet is prized for bringing such opinions to the fore. Premier of the state of Queensland, Anna Bligh said in 2009, “Engaging with the community online is a great way for me, as Premier, to get feedback on the decisions and actions of my government . . . Twitter in particular is a frank and spontaneous way for people to share their views and thoughts – it’s not filtered or tempered by second thoughts, it’s raw and immediate, and it’s 24/7” (as quoted in Grant, Moon and Grant, 2010, 579).

Use of language such as “raw”, “spontaneous” and “not tempered by second thoughts” does not conjure up images of the reasoned opinion of the citizens Madison imaged representative government enacting. Far from improving the relationship between representatives and their electorate, such conduits of communication could leave a representative merely more knowledgeable about their electorate’s whims. British Prime Minister David Cameron gave his opinion of the value of Twitter to a representative in 2009 when he said “The trouble with Twitter, the instantness of it – too many twits might make a twat” (“David Cameron Apologises”, 2009).

One of the advantages of the representative system is that it provides professional governors who can be across many issues, can bring specialist knowledge into policy discussions and use their own judgement to make decisions. By binding representatives to the majority opinion, this advantage is undermined.

In addition, a representative who is across issues and aware of a broader picture is able to take minority interests into consideration in decision-making. This is another advantage of the representative system that is undermined by binding the representative to the majority.

154 One of the primary concerns with the direct democracy model is that it provides no check on the wishes of the majority. This was one of the reasons for its rejection by the Founding Fathers when creating the new polity in America. But insisting that representatives enact the wishes of the numerical majority undermines this advantage. It would, in effect, entrench the majority view. Mill was aware of this flaw in the system, and considered the possibility that all legislation be decided on the part of the numerical majority to be one of the dangers of representative democracy (Mill [1861] 1991, 302).

Simplifying representation to the delegate view which binds representatives to the opinions of their electorate, does not improve the relationship between the governors and the governed. This conflict still exists, but moves the balance to the other side. Representation is a complex and contested concept, and the tensions between the different types of representation reflect the ongoing tensions between the redemptive and pragmatic faces of modern democracy. In this case, writers are putting forward a specific definition of representation that favours some criteria and downgrades others, and attempts to persuade people to adapt to that definition to the exclusion of others. In this way, the Internet can be put forward as a solution to improving representation.

According to Bryan Garsten, disputes over representation and what it means is precisely what the representative system in the United States was designed to accommodate. “The constant contestation over how the popular will should be interpreted gives political life in liberal democracies much of its vitality and energy”, he says. “It drives politicians to explore different interpretations and to try to make their interpretations persuasive” (Garsten 2007, 11). Representative government instigates constant debate about what the popular will actually is (Garsten 2007, 11). Lilleker and Jackson agree that commentators have been divided for over 200 years on the nature of the relationship between representatives and electors, and they argue that representatives cherry-pick their style of representation depending on the circumstances (Lilleker and Jackson 2009, 240), using the contested nature of the concept for their own purposes.

155 Representative democracy was designed to have multiple points of representation, to encourage contestation about what the will of the people really is. No single representative or point of power could be said to be acting for the people. As well as a suspicion of “the mob”, the Founding Fathers had a suspicion of the representatives. Jefferson didn’t see the fact that power was shared by many representatives as security against despotism – “one hundred and seventy-three despots would surely be as oppressive as one” (as quoted in Garsten 2010, 8). The key to avoiding tyranny was keeping the power of the people and the power of representatives separate. “Representation properly understood requires a distinction between the representatives and the people. This is the distinction that demagogues aim to obscure whenever they claim to fully represent the people” (Garsten 2007, 10). Both the delegate and trustee model of representation are valid within the system. Those who subscribe to Madison’s point of view and think government should enlarge and refine public opinion, or those who want the popular will to be enacted, can find a place for their views within the representative system (Garsten 2007, 11).

There are tensions between the mandate and independence role of the representative, but they are not mutually exclusive – both play a part in modern democracy. The tensions between the different models of representation reflect the tensions between the two faces of democracy, and the contested nature of the concept. The appeal of the delegate model of representation is based on the appeal of the populist aspects of the redemptive face, “the promise of a better world through action by the sovereign people” (Canovan 1999, 11). But Canovan makes clear that the relationship between the two faces is one of mutual necessity (Canovan 1999, 7). Both faces play their part so that “democracy may be regarded as a self-correcting system” (Canovan 1999, 14).

Representative democracy is not a compromised or cut-down version of direct democracy. It was devised as a different way of expressing democracy, and embodies democratic ideals of its own, such as stability, moderation, and the control and limitation of power. Proposals for using the Internet in representative democracy sideline this history, and instead invoke the direct democracy of Athens as the democratic ideal, and therefore view representation

156 only through the prism of being an instrument of the popular will. This is done for rhetorical purposes. It simplifies the problem to be solved – citizens’ sense of alienation from representative institutions – and then offers a simple solution – increased responsiveness of representatives using online tools.. Simplifying the complexity of a concept can be a way of solving a problem, but with representative democracy, the complexities and internal contradictions are inherent in this form of government. Simplifying the concept of representation cannot simplify the complexities in the system. As this chapter has shown, this runs the risk of weakening some of the ideals, and undermining the advantages of representative democracy.

Conclusion

The aim of this chapter has been to show how the vocabulary of democracy has been employed in a specific manner in order to further an argument for the Internet’s democratic potential. In a process of redescription, the concept of representation is defined, primarily as an expression of the will of the majority, in a way that makes it easier to then put the Internet forward as a solution.

Given the sense of disengagement from representative institutions that is prevalent in Western democracies, it is unsurprising that the Internet has come to the fore as a means of reviving democracy. But this is not a new situation. As outlined in Chapter 3, this is not the first time the advent of a new technology has given rise to hopes that it will improve democracy. The underlying faith in progress in Western thinking provides a drive to constantly improve democracy, and new technological tools are seen one way of doing this. In this way, the Internet has become caught up in a larger and much older movement: how to improve democracy. However, while proposals for using the Internet in democratic processes are appealing, it is important to see them as part of this ongoing debate within the democratic tradition.

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The problems and contradictions are the same as those that have surrounded democracy for centuries, and cannot be easily overcome by the Internet. Modern democracy is defined by the tension between the redemptive and pragmatic faces. The promise of the redemptive face, and the desire to ‘get rid of the politicians’ and give power to the people lies behind many of the proposals for the Internet. However, these arguments in favour of the Internet’s democratic potential are involved in the political act of defining something, in this case, representation. Writers put forward a definition of representation that takes in certain criteria, and then attempt to persuade people to adopt this definition to the exclusion of others.

The definition put forward by many internet advocates is one that sees representative democracy as a comprise that ought to be overcome once we have the technology to do so, and that a truly democratic representative is one who is intensely responsive. Both these aspects of representation find their foundation in the anti-elistism and anti-institutionalism of the redemptive face. To borrow a phrase from Canovan, those who want to see change in representative democracy through the Internet are “happiest gazing on the redemptive face of democracy” (15). Just as Duchamp hoped we would see pegs as art so we could see beauty in the everyday, Internet advocates are hoping we will see majoritarianism, polling projects and delegate representation as democracy, so that we can see more democracy in the Internet.

This is more than just a dispute over the application of a concept. Changing the way a concept is used is a means of changing the way we conceptualise our world. A concept is a symbol for an entity, and so changing how it is used can have real world consequences. Constantly utilising a concept in a specific way, with specific criteria attached, has the potential to change the way we view democracy and our current representative systems. The fact that this risk is very real forms the basis of the negative quotes in the introduction: Barber describing new technologies as “dangerous”, Carr seeing the rise of “the mob” armed with YouTube, and Dahl’s concern that telecommunications threaten to “further

158 enhance the plebiscitary aspects of modern democracy without at the same time enhancing its deliberative aspects” (Dahl 1992, 56). These statements are indicative of the ongoing conflict between the people and the political class and the struggle to find the balance between these two groups.

Conceptual change is never complete, and the concept of democracy is in a constant state of change. As mentioned in Chapter Two, Skinner encourages us to question timeless truths, and in the case of democracy, this is particularly important. Democracy is not timeless: modern democracy is not a political system that can trace its roots directly back to Athens. Its history is far more complex. Representative democracy is not a compromise, but a separate system for enacting democratic ideals. The proposals for using the Internet in democratic processes further complicates the Canovan tension, so that the age of the Internet will change these concepts again, but cannot remove entirely the underlying tensions of representative democracy.

159 CHAPTER 7 – PARTICIPATION

In the previous two chapters, I demonstrated how the value-laden concept of democracy has been invoked using a specific definition to further an argument for the Internet’s democratic potential, and it has been shown that reducing this concept to a few criteria at the expense of others does not solve the problems of democracy, but can in fact increase the complexity of representative democracy. In this chapter, I will continue to analyse the language in the arguments for the Internet’s democratic potential, looking more closely at claims for its capacity to engender new forms of political participation and increase grassroots mobilisation.

For writers putting forward the Internet as a way to improve democracy, the lack of opportunities for meaningful participation is seen as major weaknesses in representative democracy. In fact, Frank Bealey has cited the lack of citizen participation as the main criticism of modern democracy (Bealey, 1999, 235). Robert Putnam has described in detail the decline of civic life in America, coining the term “bowling alone” to describe a society where people pursue privatised activities rather than communal ones (Putnam 2001). Membership of political parties is in freefall, leaving them at risk of becoming, in Stephen Coleman’s words “eccentric associations of the elderly and the obsessed” (Coleman 2005, 2). His research also indicates that even the most passive act of citizen engagement, information gathering through news and political analysis, is in decline (Coleman 2005, 2). The level of citizen engagement is now so minimal, says Coleman, that he has used the term “the disappearing demos” to describe the decline of public interaction in democratic politics around the world (Coleman 2005, 2). It is against this background of increasing concern over civic disengagement that the Internet has been put forward as a solution. This chapter will look closely at the claims for the Internet as a medium to increase political participation, and I will show that, similar to the previous concepts under examination, the concept of participation is employed using a specific set of criteria at the exclusion of others to further the claim for the Internet’s potential.

160

Tim O’Reilly, the Internet entrepreneur who first coined the term “Web 2.0”, has described Web 2.0 as having an “architecture of participation” (O’Reilly 2005, 2), a phrase that has been repeated often, particularly online. Julianne Schultz in 2009 said the Internet was bringing a “new era of participatory politics”, which contrasted with the situation before the Internet , where “the era of mass politics depended on, and cultivated, passivity” and where “taking action was the exception” (Schultz 2009, 8). When Time Magazine named “You” as its person of the year in 2006 it was due to “your” use of Web 2.0, describing the “new” web as interactive, free, easy to use, and having the potential to give “power to the people” (Grossman 2006, 42). We can see here again the influence of progress and modernity. There is both a sense of rupture with the past, that the Internet is something completely new, and the notion that through technology we can progress to a better form of politics.

As will be shown there are also aspects to these arguments that are similar to Mosco’s description of a mythology: the tendency to ignore history and to see something as genuinely new. This allows a discussion to be removed from active human agency, and from the real world of politics (Mosco 1998, 60). The arguments for the Internet’s potential to increase participation tend to see the act of political participation as removed from human agency. The technology, rather than a person’s desire to get involved, is seen as the primary incentive. The problem of participation is seen as being a systemic problem with current political institutions, and thus open to be solved by the Internet introducing more participation, rather than as a more complex and perennial problem of democracy. There is a strong techno-determinist aspect to the arguments for online participation, that assume the existence of increased opportunities to participate will translate into increased participation – the “build it and they will come” idea – even though there is no evidence of a causal link between the two, as will be demonstrated in this chapter.

This latter point is important because researchers have been looking for a link between the Internet and increased broad civic engagement for decades and as yet have found very little

161 indication that there is any positive correlation between the two. Rather, the Internet appears to be offering new ways for the already engaged to participate in politics. The search for this link is interesting. It demonstrates the influence of progress on our worldview; that we have an expectation that we are inevitably progressing to a better world. In the case of this claim, we can see very strongly Bimber’s argument that a belief in the progressive power of technology is so strong that, people in the US have looked at the technology and said not only “the technology is getting better” but that “citizens are getting better” (2004, 4). There is a sense of a break with the past, of John Perry Barlow’s idea that “everything we know is wrong”.

It is also driven by the aspirational aspect of the redemptive face of democracy that gives the promise of power to the people through a more participatory democracy. The Internet is seen as a way to make this promise real. It explains why, when study after study finds no link between the Internet and increased political participation, we continue to look for it. There is an aspirational assumption that by using Internet we can progress to a better kind of democracy where people will actively engage using the technology. The pragmatic face, on the other hand, reminds us that political participation takes place within institutional structures and procedures, that it can therefore require specific skillsets, and that our expectations of what the Internet can deliver need to be understood within this context. Here we can see the utility of highlighting the assumptions that underlie the arguments for the Internet, as outlined in Chapter Three. Our hopes and expectations for the Internet to bring about democratic renewal are based more on older ideas about progress and modernity than being specific to the technology.

Participation

Like other concepts in the democratic conceptual constellation, participation is a contested term that has great value in our political system, but also has widely varying definitions and applications in language. Yet often participation is used as if there is a generally understood

162 meaning of the concept, and arguments proceed as if there is a shared understanding of its meaning. Perhaps this is because it would be hard to find a concept in the democratic conceptual constellation that is more valuable or more indisputably linked with democracy than participation. It seems intuitive that no definition of democracy would be complete without some notion of participation by the people and that “democracy is inconceivable without citizens’ participation” (Poguntke 2006, xiv ). However, defining what participation means in modern democracy is exceedingly difficult, and moreover, it remains unclear how much citizen participation is appropriate or desirable.

In the direct democracies of ancient Greece, active participation was an essential part of being a member of the polity; citizenship was synonymous with political participation (Held 2006, 36). In fact, Held argues that Ancient Greeks would have a hard time locating “citizens” in modern democracy, since the limited scope for participation in political life would preclude that term being used.

Even in representative democracies, the concept of participation has not remained constant, but has meant different things at different times. Carole Pateman points out that the idea of participation in democracy became particularly popular from the late 1960s. Prior to this, she says, it was accepted among political theorists that participation by citizens ought to be minimal (Pateman 1970, 1). After the totalitarianisms of the early and mid-twentieth century, a preoccupation with the stability of the political system lead theorists to see the dangers in widespread popular participation in politics (Pateman 1970, 1). In this vein, Joseph Schumpeter put forward his notion of modern democracy, a so-called “realistic definition” (Pateman 1970, 3), and the level of involvement he considered appropriate for citizens, in Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942). It contrasts sharply with the type of active and ongoing political engagement of the ancient democracies. Schumpeter believed the only full participants in the system should be members of the elite in political parties and public office (Held 2006, 184). He saw the democratic political process as simply a method for choosing decision-makers through a competitive struggle for the votes of the people. In his notion of modern democracy, the role of the citizen is very limited.

163 Voting is the only political act required of the people and any other form of participation is irrelevant, or even an unwanted infringement on the smooth functioning of political decision-making (Maddox 1996, 95).

Schumpeter’s idea of the level of participation appropriate in democracy is a very minimal one. Held says the lack of participatory opportunities in Schumpeter’s competitive clash of elites, “puts considerable strain” on its claim to be democratic (Held 2006, 184). Both Anthony Birch and Giovanni Sartori agree that providing the opportunity to vote in periodic competitive elections is the minimum requirement to qualify as a democracy (Birch 2001, 104), and Sartori goes on to say that meaningful participation must be something more; that to deem voting and participation as synonymous is a very minimal view of democracy which “leaves us with a very weak and overly diluted meaning of the term” (Sartori 1987, 113). Sartori also warns us, however, that an activist kind of participation is “the ruinous and self-destructive element of democracy” (Sartori 1987, 158). We can see that the role participation plays in democracy is very complex and contested.

From the late 1960s, says Pateman, the idea of participation became more popular with an “upsurge of demands for more participation” (Pateman 1970, 1). She goes on to say that the widespread use of the term in the mass media has “tended to mean that any precise, meaningful content has almost disappeared” and that the term has come to be “used to refer to a wide variety of different situations by different people” (Pateman 1970, 1). J.R. Lucas, writing a few years later, agreed with this assessment, saying that participation “has come into vogue… but like many vogue words, it is vague”. He goes on to say: “Everybody wants it [that is, participation], but it is not at all clear what ‘it’ is.” (Lucas 1976, 136).

Held points out that the intermingling of ancient and modern interpretations of democracy produces ambiguity in the meaning of political participation (Held 2006, x). For the ancients, participation meant direct involvement in decision-making. In modern democracy, participation can take many forms; it can encompass direct civic action such as standing for office, or passive activities such as watching the news, but in representative democracy, it

164 specifically excludes the citizenry from direct decision-making. Lucas says that even “merely to know what decisions are being taken, and why, is to be in them” (Lucas 1976, 136). Dahl envisages something more active, saying effective participation means giving citizens the opportunity to place questions on the agenda and to express their preferences throughout the process of making binding decisions (Dahl 1989, 109).

One of the most significant obstacles to developing a notion of effective or meaningful participation is this breadth of application. When participation can encompass both Athenian-style active decision-making, or Schumpeterian-style passive personnel choice, and the entire spectrum in between, the complexity becomes clear. The addition of online forms of participation further stretches its application, with participating being broadened to include just being heard, or having a sense of participation. In modern democracies, where the sheer size of our polities makes direct participation in political decision-making a practical impossibility for the vast majority of the population, the question becomes where on this spectrum to place meaningful participation. In fact, Pateman cites the stability of democratic systems as the reason why the notion of participation, what it means and how much is appropriate in a political system, has remained unanswered by political theorists for so long (Pateman 1970, 2).

We are here reminded of Skinner’s argument that there are no timeless concepts. Ideas are seen through the prism of our own social structures, and meanings of key concepts change over time. Participation has not always been invoked in the way we understand it today. The ancients had a very active view of political participation, whereas Schumpeter, for instance, saw active political participation as a hindrance to the effective functioning of democratic government. In representative democracies, limits on even basic levels of participation for all citizens have, at times, been considered acceptable, the obvious example being the exclusion of women from voting and standing for office until the early twentieth century. At the time the United States Constitution was ratified, the vote was limited to taxpayers or property owners (Wilson 2008, 161). John Stuart Mill believed that universal education should precede universal enfranchisement, and while it was necessary

165 that suffrage be open to even the poorest individual in the community, he considered it “wholly inadmissible that any person should participate in the suffrage, without being able to read, write, and perform the common operations of arithmetic” (Mill 330). The role that participation should take in democracy, what level is desirable and what limits are appropriate has not remained constant, but has changed and continues to change. The rise of the Internet has coincided with the increasing popularity of a more active kind of participation in democracy, as described by Pateman, and the Internet has been offered as the means to facilitate this. Thus, an active version of participation is put forward in proposals for the Internet, reflecting our current ideas about participation and our aspirations for democracy. Despite this, though, there is a sense to utilise the concepts as if it exists outside of its political context. Political participation must still be undertaken within the existing political system, even on the Internet, so the dynamics of who participates and why will still be shaped by that system, not the technology.

Participation and the Internet: Who Participates

The relationship between the Internet and political participation has been of great interest to scholars from its earliest days. Since citizens are not actively self-governing in a representative democracy, the extent to which citizens participate in their polities is not clear-cut, and yet their involvement is crucial for a polity to be considered democratic. The issue of participation goes to the heart of the tensions between the political class and the people that have always existing in democracy. With the Internet, it is the perceived decline in citizen participation that lies behind the desire to see the it as a participatory medium. Accordingly, scholars have looked for a link between the rise of the Internet and increased levels of political participation, hoping to find the former effects the latter. But the results of studies have proved disappointing, since they have failed to find a correlation.

As early as 1999, Pippa Norris spoke of an emerging consensus in the American literature on the Internet that favoured the reinforcement view: that the Internet would strengthen,

166 not transform, existing patterns of political participation (Norris 1999, 10). In her own research of Internet users in the mid-1990s Norris found this same result (Norris 1999, 10). Those who used the Internet for political purposes were more likely to be already politically active. However, since Internet users at the time were drawn from more affluent and educated social strata, a characteristic conventionally shared by the politically active, it was believed that the reinforcement thesis was linked to the demographics of the nascent online community, not to the Internet itself (Norris 1999, 10). Norris pointed to the use of the Internet for political purposes by the younger generation which provided some counter- evidence to the reinforcement thesis, since this group is usually least involved in traditional political activities such as voting (10). However, later research has shown that the reinforcement thesis appears to be a consistent result.

Bruce Bimber has researched the participatory potential of the Internet at length. In 2001, he found that while more political information is available than ever before and at low marginal cost, it does not appear to increase the level of political participation of ordinary citizens. He found that individuals’ ability to screen and interpret new information depends on past attitudes and habits, and therefore the already information-rich are best suited to utilise the new information resources online. He believes that this may increase the political capacities of those already politically active, leading to larger inequalities in information access (Bimber, 2001). Of the citizens that pursued political information online, he found it was predictive of one form of participation only – donating money to a political party (61). “The search for effects of the Internet on participation”, he declared, “therefore ends here” (2001, 62).

A few years later, though, he continued the search for a link between the Internet and increasing participation, clearly unable to let the question “end here”. In this research, given the previous results, he divided the question in two in order to make the results less ambiguous (Bimber 2004, 7). The two resulting questions then were: does the Internet lead more people to participate?; and does the Internet lead already active people to participate more in different ways and on different issues? The answer to the first question is,

167 according to Bimber, “not much”, but the answer to the second is “yes” (Bimber 2004, 7). He evaluated National Election Studies survey results from 1996-1999, and found very little effect on levels of overall engagement from the Internet. But he did find that those who were already politically engaged were the ones who used the tools of the Internet for political purposes (Bimber 2004, 7).

Corinna Di Gennaro and William Dutton evaluated British Internet users using data from the Oxford Internet Surveys in 2003 and 2005, and found that people who reported that they were “very interested” in politics were much more likely to have carried out an online political action. Their study also found that widespread inequalities persist with regard to Internet adoption, as Internet users were more likely to be male, younger, more highly educated and from a higher income bracket (Di Gennaro et al 2006, 302). Furthermore, those who sense the government responds to citizens’ concerns were more likely to use the Internet for political participation (309). So those who used the Internet to participate in politics were already disposed to become involved; factors external to the technology influenced their decision to take up the opportunities offered by the Internet to be politically involved. In fact, the survey results showed that the disengaged are even less likely to use the Internet to search for political information or to contact a politician than they would offline, indicating that “inequalities in offline participation tend to be reproduced and magnified in online participation” (305). It seemed that the consensus Norris spoke about more than a decade ago, that the Internet reinforced existing patterns of participation, was still proving true, even though the Internet was now far more widespread.

Stanley and Weare found similar results in their study of a congressional plan to solicit public input via the Internet for a motor safety experiment. This study started with the premise that it would challenge the findings of Bimber and others, that the Internet has not had a significant effect on political participation; they hoped to find something other than “politics as usual” (2004, 505). Their results, however, show that new participatory opportunities are being created by the new technology, but that they remain concentrated

168 among the politically active (2004, 505). Furthermore, the politically active online have similar demographic characteristics to the politically active offline. Stanley and Weare believe the main reason the Internet is unlikely to affect participation levels is the strong findings of the central role that socioeconomic status plays in explaining political participation (Stanley and Weare 2004, 507). In the case they studied, participation via the Internet represented a deepening rather than a broadening of participation by those already active (2004, 520). They do not preclude some mobilising effect, and believe the tone and content of messages strongly suggest some new voices, but it is statistically very small. They estimate it would take tens of thousands of successful projects similar to this one to generate a 1 per cent increase in the overall number of individuals contacting public officials (2004, 520). This is similar to Bimber’s finding that those who are being energised into political participation by the Internet are “so small in number, they are statistically difficult to work with” (Bimber 2004, 9).

Given the skills and motivation required for active political participation, it is not surprising that any stimulating effect from the Internet will work to increase levels of participation for already engaged citizens (Bimber 2004, 5). The Internet does not exist outside of its political context, nor do its users. Samuel Best and Brian Krueger looked into the representativeness of online political participants in 2005, and found that of all variables, the one of greatest impact was the possession of Internet skills (Best & Krueger 2005, 193), and the second was interest in politics. Their results find that those with the conventional resources required to participate offline – skills, education and interest in politics – also disproportionately possess the skills needed to participate online – Internet skills (Best & Krueger 2005, 203). Their findings also suggest that, while the Internet may alter the resources necessary to participate, individuals still require the psychological motivation to engage in online political activity (Best & Krueger 2005, 201). These finding are unsurprising. Regardless of changes in technology, the motivations and skills needed to engage with the political system have not changed.

So while the Internet offers new avenues for political participation, it appears that those

169 who are using them are already engaged in politics in some way. This finding is backed up by research done by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. In their study of online news gathering during the 2006 US Congressional mid-term elections, Lee Rainie and John Horrigan found the emergence of a new class of online political activist. This cohort is socially upscale, tech-embracing and well educated, and in particular, consists of “highly active and engaged citizens, not only on the Internet, but in civic life in general” (Rainie and Horrigan 2007, 17).

This same Pew research also analysed the demographic characteristics of the online population, and found that it was far more diverse in 2006 than the 1996 report, and that race and gender had ceased to be dividing lines (Rainie and Horrigan 2007, 17). But the research still showed that the online population was disproportionately composed of people with university degrees and those who live in households earning more than $75,000 (Rainie and Horrigan, 11). Moreover, those who considered the Internet as an important political news source were relatively young – under 36 years old, and have broadband connections at home (Rainie and Horrigan, ii ). So it appears that the Internet is, in fact, providing greater participatory opportunities to those who are already engaged and have the skills to do so, rather than stimulating participation in the majority of citizens who are currently not active participants.

This result was also found in a study by Weber, Loumakis and Bergman, who concluded that “the Internet appears to exacerbate the socioeconomic bias already exhibited by civic and political participation” (Weber et al 2003, 39). This result was repeated in a study by Jeffrey Cohen who found that those who were more likely to use the Internet to contact government had the same profile of those who are already active and engaged in politics, and they tend to be relatively advantaged in terms of education and income (Cohen 2006, 52). A Pew study of the 2008 US presidential election showed that the “online participatory class” was composed “largely of politically active young adults” (Smith 2009, 13).

170 This link between the already politically active and the politically active online may be giving an impression that the Internet encourages political participation, when in fact the people who are on the Internet are those most likely to participate anyway. For example, Tolbert and McNeal found that those with Internet access are more likely to vote, and that “this shows the mobilizing potential of the Internet during elections” (Tolbert and McNeal 2003, 184). However, those who are socioeconomically most likely to vote and those who are most likely to have Internet access are the same demographic group. These figures may not be showing an increase in political activity but simply confirming the link between these two factors.

This is a significant concern for those looking at the Internet as a participatory medium. Socioeconomic status and Internet access are still strongly correlated, and those who already participate in politics are generally of a higher socioeconomic level of society, so these two factors may work to reinforce the existing pattern, not challenge it.

Involvement in politics depends on capacity and motivation: citizens must want to participate, and they must have the capacity to do so (Bimber 1998, 142). The Internet doesn’t change the people who have these characteristics. Unequal participation remains “democracy’s unresolved dilemma”, says Arendt Lijpart (as quoted in Krueger and Best 2005, 185), and the Internet has been put forward as tool to try to solve this dilemma. However, the Internet appears to be deepening the participatory experience for already involved, rather than broadening participation out to those currently disengaged.

We can see that scholars have been searching for link between the Internet and increased political participation since the mid 1990s. Given the ongoing aspiration within democracy for renewal, it is unsurprising that this remarkable technology has been put forward as a means of solving one of democracy’s most complex problems. However, twenty years of searching have as yet failed to find a positive correlation between the two. Regardless of the Internet’s “newness”, it still exists within its political context. It does not represent a break with the past, or lead inevitably to a “better” participatory democracy. But there is a

171 sense of disappointment that it has not been found, indicating an expectation that a link will, or ought to, be found. This is driven by the influence of the idea of progress and the promise inherent in the redemptive face of democracy, that we can progress to a new and better kind of democracy facilitated by technology. As mentioned above, there is a tendency to see the Internet as something entirely new, and so the old rules don’t apply. The sense of a rupture with the past leads us to see a new environment for political participation, but the Internet doesn’t change the requirement for skills and motivation.

A New Participatory Democracy?

This sense that a new participatory democracy can be created continues to be a theme in the discussion around the Internet. Despite findings that have consistently shown that the Internet is a complementary participatory tool for those already engaged in the political process, the idea that it can engender a new kind of grassroots citizen-based democracy is still asserted.

In 2006, a group of researchers from the ICT&S (Information Communications Technologies and Society) Center for Advanced Studies and Research in Information and Communication at the University of Salzburg put forward their vision for eParticipation , a kind of all encompassing grassroots participatory democracy enabled by ICTs.

The authors, Fuchs, Bernhaupt, Hartwig, Kramer and Maier-Rabler, are interested to see how technology can be used to enhance participation, and provide an outline for using ICTs to maximise the involvement of people in political discourse and decision-taking. This is in contrast, they say, to our current political systems, where “uncontrollable institutions” (Fuchs et al 2006, 36), and the “centralised bureaucratic power” (5) of elites and experts make decisions without the direct involvement of citizens. eParticipation is a means to empower individuals so they can involve themselves in the information society, and “from these communication processes an alternative participatory society that is self-managed

172 and self-organised could emerge” (Fuchs et al 2006, 6). It is a process where instead of a “limited group of political experts” making decisions for everyone, all people are enabled to become “capable of acting as political experts” (36). The technologies they favour include online discussion boards, mailing lists, wikis, political blogs, political chats (which they admit are very rare), online petitions, and online protest campaigns (6).

This proposal is reminiscent of some of the proposals put forward in the earlier phases of the Internet’s history, in the enthusiastic 1990s; it verges on calling for a more direct form of democracy. It is a techno-determinist view that makes a direct connection between the capabilities of the Internet and empowerment of individuals. The bias shown towards the anti-institutionalism and anti-elitism of the redemptive face of democracy is unmistakable. The current system is described as “alienated”, consisting of “uncontrollable institutions”, and its leaders are “elites”. The institutions of representative democracy are not seen as sufficiently participatory, whereas the digital democracy engendered by eParticipation is “bottom-up”, “grassroots” and specifically “avoids the formation of political elites” (6). This proposal is an attempt to find a way to use the Internet to improve democracy by increasing participation. However, while these scholars highlight the flaws in existing representative institutions, primarily that they are alienating, the proposal appears to disregard the benefits of representative institutions, The institutions are described as uncontrollable, sidelining their benefits as a way of controlling and limiting power. Representative democracy is depicted as barely being democratic at all, and is reduced to being a system where a “limited group of political experts” make decisions for everyone else. Here we can see how a definition with specific criteria is put forward to the exclusion of others to make an argument for the Internet’s democratic potential.

Furthermore, we can see the tendency to take political participation out of its political context and removed from human agency, a common theme in this area as noted above. These authors argue that a “self-managed and self-organised” participatory society “could emerge” from communications processes. It is again reminiscent of Bimber’s idea that we believe that not only is the technology getting better, but that citizens are getting better. It

173 is techno-determinist view that appears to see the mere existence of new avenues for participation enough to engender a new kind of participatory democracy. It is interesting, though, that eParticipation is described as enabling all people to become capable of acting as political experts. It’s a tacit admission that expertise is required in governing.

Fuchs et al are not alone in hoping to see an increase in a broad grassroots participatory democracy emerge from the Internet. John Keane has also put forward an outline for a new kind of participatory democracy enabled by ICTs. In 2009, he described a form of “post- representative democracy” which he called monitory democracy (Keane 2009, 81). For Keane, new mechanisms for monitoring power are bringing an “historic sea change, one that is taking us away from the old world of representative democracy towards a form of democracy with entirely different contours and dynamics” (81). This democracy, “the most complex form of democracy yet”, is changing the rules of representation, accountability and participation by stimulating “constant public scrutiny” (82). In this new kind of democracy, the people are empowered by “new methods for restraining power”, using information communications technologies to constantly monitor and scrutinize their elected leaders (83).

Keane is clear that he doesn’t see an evolution to direct democracy, it is “not motivated by efforts to capture the (imagined) spirit of assembly-based democracy”, noting that many contemporary champions of democracy tend to “speak as if they were Greeks” (Keane 2009, 87). Rather, monitory democracy is based on representation, and unlike many other writers in this area, he sees his proposal for Internet-enhanced democracy as part of longer ongoing attempts to improve democracy. Indeed, he calls it the next step in the “struggle to improve the quality of electoral representation” (88). However, in this new age of media saturated societies, democracy, he says, is about more than just elections, people are coming to learn that “they must keep an eye on power and its representatives” (101). In monitory democracy, he says, “those who make decisions are subject constantly to the ideal of public chastening, tied down by a thousand Lilliputian strings of scrutiny” (100). So while claiming that monitory democracy “thrives on representation”, he also seems to pit the

174 representatives and the people against each other. Moreover, he seems to be sidelining the role of representative institutions as mechanisms for restraining power, a role for which they were originally devised, arguing instead that citizen use of ICTs are the new method for restraining power (83).

The age of monitory democracy began around 1945, he says, and has witnessed the birth of nearly a hundred new types of power-scrutinising institutions unknown to previous democracies (Keane 2009, 84). These include such diverse things as focus groups, think tanks, local community consultation schemes, research facilities, advisory and advocacy services, democratic audits. While the Internet is not the impetus for this new form of participatory democracy – he sees its birth in the marriage of democracy and human rights after the catastrophe of the Second World War – he does see the “new galaxy of communications media, symbolised by one of its core components, the Internet, as the principal driver” (96). It is these media which allow constant public scrutiny that “tend to enfranchise many more citizens’ voices” (83). He describes monitory democracy and computerized media networks as “conjoined twins” (96).

In both Fuchs et al’s eParticipation and Keane’s monitory democracy, we can see how language is being used to legitimate the claims. These writers are engaging in an act of rhetorical redescription, to persuade the audience to adopt their definition of participation, and therefore accept their solution. In the case of eParticipation, a very active form of participation is put forward, and the role of institutions representing the voice of the people is sidelined. We can see the redemptive face of democracy being used to establish legitimacy for this proposal with the current political system relegated to being elitist and uncontrollable. For Keane, representative institutions are inappropriate for an ICT-enabled world. However, the kind of participation he puts forward is actually a very passive one: that of monitoring those in power. It is reminiscent of Snider’s (1996) and Schachter’s (2009) ideas of potential accountability outlined in chapter 6, that the Internet provies so much information that representatives have to behave according to their electors’ will because the people can find out if it is otherwise.

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Moreover, there is a taken-for-granted quality to these proposals about participation, which puts it outside of its political context. Fuchs et al’s proposal is predicated on extensive participation from a high number of citizens, while Keane’s is based on constant scrutiny. The level of participation that would be required in both would place a great burden on citizens to take up the new technologies and use them for political activism, a pattern of behaviour that cannot cannot be taken for granted, even with Internet-enabled forms of participation. As outlined above, in the many studies looking for a link between the Internet and increased levels of participation, no such link has been observed.

Why do(n’t) People Participate?

If there is a sense of alienation from representative institutions, and the Internet is offering new ways to engage with the political process, then the obvious question to ask is, why isn’t this opportunity being taken up by citizens? It is interesting that so much research has been put into finding a link between the Internet and increased participation. But it is based on a simplistic view of participation; that citizens are not participating because they lack opportunities to do so. Given the opportunity to participation through the cheap, easily accessible Internet, and citizens will engage. But, this view decontextualises the Internet from the political system in which it is situated. The argument that the Internet will lead to a new re-engaged citizenry is built on the assumption that low levels of participation are due to lack of opportunities for involvement, rather than lack of interest on the part of citizens. But the new tools of Web 2.0 are not being widely taken up by huge numbers of otherwise disengaged citizens. This is because prior to seeking out these opportunities, a citizen first needs to be motivated to participate.

Political participation is less hindered by a lack of opportunities, and more by apathy and lack of interest. Generally speaking, the level of enthusiasm for politics is very low. Politics is simply not interesting enough to hold the attention of a vast majority of the population. As Sartori points out “the ordinary citizen has little interest in politics” and consequently

176 “citizen participation is minimal if not sub-minimal” (Sartori 1987, 103). Eric Louw agrees with this assessment, saying that the majority of citizens appear content to be passive outsiders, happy to limit their participation in the political process to voting occasionally for those candidates pre-packaged by political parties (2010, 13).

A 2009 Hansard Society political audit found that UK citizens are interested in politics and “want influence over outcomes”, but they do not want involvement in the process. Only a small minority are ever willing to become active (Davis 2010, 148). In Australia, analysis of results from the Australian Election Study 1987-2007 shows that interest in politics appears to be very high, at least during elections. In 2007, 76 per cent of people claimed to care a great deal about who won the election, and 40 per cent of people said they had a good deal of interest in the election (McAllister and Clark 2007, 4). However, this interest does not translate into active participation. In the 2007 election, only 5 per cent of people attended a meeting and only 3.6 per cent contributed money to a party or candidate (4). Figures are higher for more passive forms of participation, such as following election coverage in the media, which shows that one third of people followed the coverage through television. The results for the Internet are much lower, showing that only 5 per cent of people followed the election coverage on the Internet at the 2007 federal election (3). This is a very disappointing result for those expecting citizens to make use of the Internet for political purposes.

This lack of interest in politics beyond voting by the majority of citizens is, as noted above, a dilemma for democracy. The Internet, particularly Web 2.0, appears to offer new avenues of participation for citizens, but the opportunities for citizens in democracies to participate and make a difference in their political systems have always been present; they have just not been taken up by the majority of citizens. And this appears to be unchanged in the Web 2.0 world. Despite these tools being new, exciting, cheap, user-friendly and widely available, most citizens are not availing themselves of the opportunity to use them for politics. In Australia, the list of activities undertaken online seems to indicate that it almost doesn’t occur to people to use it for politics. The figures show people using the Internet as

177 a general utility, so that the most common activities are email, banking, paying bills, finding directions and using maps, and checking the weather forecast. Even a passive political activity like accessing news or reading newspapers is the lowest rated activity (ACMA Report 2009, 15).

The Oxford Internet Institute’s “Internet in Britain 2011” report found that the number of civic activities undertaken online was very low (Dutton and Blank 2011, 30). 14 per cent people signed an online petition, 8 per cent contacted a politician, and only 3 per cent donated money to a civic association. Signing a petition is the most popular activity, both online and offline, and has been for the last three reports (2011, 2009 and 2007). However, comparing the results for 2011 with 2007 highlights the reinforcement phenomenon found in the studies noted above. In 2007, 7 per cent of people signed a petition online, while 25 per cent of people signed one offline (Dutton and Helsper 2007, 72). In 2011, 14 per cent of people signed a petition online, while 18 per cent people signed one offline (Dutton and Blank 2011, 30). On the surface, the statistics for online petitions may seem to indicate that the number of people doing this is increasing, indeed it has doubled in four years. However, the total number of people who are signing petitions both online and offline is exactly the same, 32 per cent. These statistics suggest that the same number of people, roughly one- third of the respondents, are interested in signing petitions, but now more of them are doing it online. It indicates that the Internet does not increase levels of participation, but rather, provides new avenues for those already engaged.

Based on this it seems that the Internet is unlikely to bring about greater grassroots engagement and interest in politics, of the type imagined by Fuchs et al and Keane. More often than not, the Internet is used for pursuing personal concerns and sharing pop culture interests. Statistics show that recreational sites get far more hits than political ones. In their analysis of online discussions, Wojcieszak and Mutz found that the top 100 most frequently visited websites are e-commerce or entertainment sites (Wojcieszak and Mutz 2009, 41). Hitwise statistics of the behaviour of Australian Internet users show the most popular websites are a combination of the new Web 2.0 big players online – Google, Facebook,

178 Wikipedia, eBay – and websites of traditional media companies such as NineMSN (Experian 2013). Not surprisingly, the top search terms replicate these results – facebook, youtube, ebay, google, Hotmail, all feature in the top ten most popular search terms (Experian 2013).

A look at YouTube-trends, which tracks the most shared and most viewed videos and topics on Youtube, on any given day will generally show a motley collection of videos of amateur musicians, weird weather events, funny cats, people hurting themselves while doing stupid things, and of course, videos of whatever is the latest YouTube meme, for instance, planking or the Harlem shake (YouTube Trends 2013). Although surprisingly, Barack Obama’s YouTube channel has over 470,000 subscribers and CitizenTube, YouTube’s political video blog, has 137,000 subscribers, which make them remarkably popular for political channels. But these subscriber numbers pale into insignificance next to the subscribers for sites for pop stars such as Rihanna (7 million), OneDirection (5.2 million), and the website for “Gangnam Style” singer Psy (3.1 million) (vidstatsx 2013).

In addition, Barack Obama has a staggering 27 million subscribers to his Twitterfeed, making it one of the most popular Twitter accounts to follow (twitaholic 2013) 4. However, this appears to be an anomaly for a political Tweeter; no other politician comes anywhere near this number of subscribers. To put it into perspective, the Australian and British Prime Ministers have 202,000 and 250.000 followers respectively. And the President Obama’s followers still fall behind Justin Bieber’s 35 million, Lady Gaga’s 34 million and Katy Perry’s 32 million.

The situation is similar for blogging, with Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2011 finding more than half (60 per cent) of bloggers responding to the survey say they blog about their own personal musings. As a topic, politics is one of the top 30 topics including entertainment, travel, religion, parenting, music and others. The 2011 report doesn’t give statistics for these topics, but in 2009, one in three bloggers chose “Other” as their main

4 It should be noted, however, that President Obama makes clear on his Twitter page that most of the tweets are not actually written by him. On the top of his page it says that the account is run by the Organising for Action Staff, and only those that are signed “bo” are actually from the President.

179 topic (Sussman 2009). Creating political content is not the primary motivation for bloggers.

It appears, then, activity on the Internet shows little indication of enhanced civic engagement from a broad section of the citizenry. Any increase in online political activity supports the reinforcement notion. Web statistics show individuals pursuing their own interests and entertainment. Instead of providing new avenues for political involvement, the Internet may be giving increased consequence to pop culture matters, making them the focus of our engagement with others online and perhaps leaving less time for political concerns.

The rise of a citizenry that pursues privatised rather than civic activities, the idea that we are “bowling alone”, was a concern for Putnam more than a decade ago (Putnam 2000). And others have also seen the distraction of popular culture matters, at the expense of civic and political matters, as a concern for democracy. J Michael Sproule has pointed out that “Popular culture, as expressed in the rise of film, radio, and professional sports, offered non-civic vehicles of participation whereby people felt involved and connected without actually engaging their powers of citizenship.” (Sproule 2002, 302)

The rise of the Internet is not showing any reversal in this trend, as people get online to pursue non-political matters. While there are opportunities for political involvement online, their mere existence will not ensure increased participation. The Internet appears to be offering new opportunities to those who are already engaged, rather than engendering a new participatory democracy. This reinforces Bimber’s finding that even with the Internet, political participation tends to crystallise around thought leaders. While the Internet is a new technology, it exists within the current political culture. It is appealing to see the Internet as an answer to the alienation and disengagement of representative democracies, but political participation will still be largely undertaken by those with the skills and motivation to do so. Instead of a break with the past and the inevitable progress forward to a better democracy, the age of the Internet is still likely to see unequal participation remain “democracy’s unresolved dilemma”.

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Web 2.0 and “Viral Democracy”

The notion that the Internet will bring about a more active, engaged citizenry, however, is an idea that won’t go away, and with high profile instances of Web 2.0 being used for political purposes, it has become a more popular idea in the last few years.

The first high-profile uses of Web 2.0 for political purposes were in the mid-term elections in the United States in 2006. A Pew Internet & American Life Project report on this election describes the campaign as “an important breakthrough moment for online video and politics” (Rainie and Horrigan 2006, 16). The report cites three examples of citizen-created and disseminated video that had an impact on the campaigns of the candidates involved. The first is the “macaca” video of George Allen that notoriously went viral 5; the second is video of Montana Senator Burns sleeping during Senate business; and the third is of Representative Sue Kelly, who was captured fleeing reporters asking questions about the Mark Foley scandal. All three lost their races for re-election. It is commonly assumed, by the Pew report’s authors and others, that the dissemination of the footage through the Web, mostly via YouTube, was a significant factor to these three candidates’ losses, particularly in the George Allen case 6.

The popular press was highly enthusiastic of the Internet’s ability to increase participation. Raul Fernandez of The Washington Post said that the Internet will have as much effect on elections as the coming of TV had, but that it will “be better for the long-term health of our democracy” because “Internet-driven politics is about… empowerment and participation” (Fernandez 2006). He heralded a new political environment that allows citizens to create

5 Sometimes content will reach a level of enormous popularity via sharing through email or social media, and is said to go “viral”, a term that presumably arose from drawing an analogy to a virus’ ability to replicate or copy itself continually. 6 For commentary see eg: The Boston Globe, “On the Attack on YouTube”, 23 March 2007; “Whitehouse Candidates Exploit YouTube”, The St Petersburg Times, 2 March 2007. Heather Greenfield, “Unhappy Trails for Incumbents Felled by YouTube”, Technology Daily, 10 November 2006.

181 and publish their own political content and declared “welcome to viral democracy”. In reviewing the role of the Internet, particularly the tools of Web 2.0, in the 2006 mid-term elections in the United States, he claimed that it “has empowered ordinary citizens to become engaged, active and highly influential participants in democracy, instead of passive consumers of campaign rhetoric” (Fernandez 2006). In the same year, Scott Orr from The Star Ledger agreed that the Internet is “giving rise to a greater ability of the public to participate in the political discourse” (Orr 2006).

Web 2.0 tools were also highly visible during the media-saturated race for the Democratic presidential nomination and the subsequent presidential election in the US in 2008. Hillary Clinton even chose to use the Internet as the medium to announce her candidacy for presidency, and she held live online chats throughout the campaign. Google CEO, Eric Schmidt, not surprisingly, was quick to view the Internet as an integral part of the campaign, saying that the candidate that “takes advantage of [the Internet] most effectively” will “be the winners of the next election” (Google CEO, 2006). Google-owned YouTube created a new channel called YouTube You Choose 08, inviting the main candidates to post their own messages and videos. Yahoo! also set up a portal for campaign information called “ You Witness ”, for news, video, photos, and questions with the candidates.

When a video spoofing an old Apple ad portraying Hillary Clinton as Orwell’s Big Brother was posted to YouTube and went viral, being viewed more than 4 million times the resulting media frenzy brought amateur video to the fore in the campaign. This “Vote Different” ad was described as “perhaps the most groundbreaking attack ad in the young 21 st century” (Marinucci 2006a). It was created by Philip de Vellis on his home computer, who asserted that “The game has changed” (as quoted in Marinucci 2006a). Online commentators heralded a new age of participatory politics, one that would see the tools of Web 2.0, particularly YouTube , engender a more active, less passive form of political engagement.

Andrew Rasiej, founder of TechPresident.com and publisher of the Personal Democracy Forum gushed:

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“It definitely is pointing to a shift in the way in which voters are able to effect the discourse of a presidential campaign. ” And “This is a watershed moment in the history of politics, where the roles, the traditional roles of the passive voter have been shifted to more activist.” (as quoted in Landers 2007).

Simon Rosenberg, President of New Democrat Network said:

“It has dramatized a brave new world in which passionate activists outside the structure of traditional campaigns have the power to shape the message.” And that political activists, instead of being merely passive, are now “partners in the fight.” (Marinucci 2006a).

Peter Leydon, Director of the New Politics Institute said:

“What we’re going through now is a phase shift in politics – which is going from a top-down centralised hierarchical world to a much more democratised, bottom-up, participatory form.” (as quoted in Marinucci 2007b)

This early example of using Web 2.0 for political purposes gained a lot of attention both online and through mainstream media, and became symbolic of the changing nature of political campaigning in the age of Web 2.0. Those quoted above are characteristic of the type of language invoked around examples like this. Again we can see language that reveals a belief that the Internet has changed politics, that we have progressed to a new kind of democracy – “the game has changed”, a “new world”, “watershed moment” and “phase shift”. And yet, the example is one high-profile case of simply creating and uploading media content. It is interesting, too, that while there is clearly a belief that this sort of political activity changes politics, it seems to be valued mainly for its capacity to “effect the discourse” and “shape the message”, language that is reminiscent of a conventional stage- managed political campaign rather than grassroots political activism.

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Moreover, we can again see the pattern of aspects of the redemptive face of democracy being favoured in discussions around the Internet at the expense of the pragmatic, and of viewing active participation as the defining feature of democracy. The role of the “passive” voter is being changed so that citizens are no longer “outside the structure”. The institutions of representative democracy are seen as alienating, and need to be challenged by a grassroots, bottom-up movement. The language used by Peter Leydon is similar to that used by Fuchs et al to describe eParticipation. We can see current democratic institutions being de-legitimised through a process of rhetorical redescription. Our current representative institutions are barely allowed to be considered democratic, but instead are downgraded to being “top-down centralised hierarchical” systems. Through the Internet, though, we are moving towards a bottom-up participatory democracy, which Leydon describes as being “more democratised”. Here the rhetors are attempting to capture the legitimacy for their claims for the Internet by putting forward a persuasive argument for their own view of democracy, where traditional forms of participation, including voting, are considered “passive". These Internet advocates are forwarding a particularly activist and populist model of participation. They are claiming to be “of the people but not of the system” (Paul Taggart, as quoted in Canovan, 3), as Canovan describes the claims of many populist movements.

But there is a troubling aspect to the particularly active form of participation proposed by Internet advocates, which is highlighted by references to two of twentieth century literature’s most evocative dystopian visions: Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, and George Orwell’s Big Brother. Rosenberg refers to a “brave new world” of passionate activists working outside of traditional structures. However, this image is not reminiscent of the world described by Huxley. The title of the book was meant ironically, and Huxley’s vision of the future and of technology is a frightening one.

De Vellis’ portrayal of Hillary Clinton as Big Brother in his viral YouTube video was meant to reinforce Clinton’s image as the “establishment” candidate that only conformists would

184 follow, and highlight Obama as the candidate promising a new kind of politics, again drawing on the promise of renewal in the redemptive strain. He was leveraging the (negative) value of one of the most enduring images of political oppression to legitimate this claim. The use of this image highlights Web 2.0 users’ self-identification with a revolt against established power, and an anti-system mobilisation to take on the elites (Canovan 1999, 3). However, the message inherent in invoking Big Brother has become slightly blurred, since many Internet advocates are turning this image on its head. In a world of constant blogging, vlogging and file sharing, the ones who are always watching are Web 2.0 users, but their Big Brother-like role is reinterpreted as “transparency” and “accountability”. Julianne Schultz has said that “it is ironic that Big Brother’s watchful screen, which George Orwell imprinted in our collective imagination as a system of control, should now promise collaboration, transparency and participation” (Schultz 2009, 8). She also quotes Andrew Rasiej as saying something similar, “Yes, we have met Big Brother, the one who is always watching. And Big Brother is us” (as quoted in Schultz 2009, 10). Andrew Chadwick also sees the “surveillant gaze of citizen-reporters” as a phenomenon emerging from Web 2.0. He sees the “collective intelligence” of Web 2.0 creating a political environment in which it is impossible for political actors and media elites to escape what he calls “little brother” (Chadwick 2009, 21). This is not a new idea, nor is it unique to Web 2.0. Lawrence Grossman made this claim in 1995, saying that the Orwellian nightmare of a tyrannical government keeping citizens under surveillance would be inverted in the “Electronic Republic”, as ordinary citizens would use their personal telecommunications devices to keep Big Brother (presumably the government) under continuing surveillance (Grossman 1995, 12).

This is an interesting example of rhetorical redescription. The concept of Big Brother is part of our inherited normative vocabulary, but Big Brother is usually invoked to leverage its inherent value to powerfully condemn that which it is labelling. Here we can see rhetors engaged in persuading us to use the term in a different way, engendering change through giving us new perceptions of old phenomena (Finlayson & Martin 2004, 538). They want to leverage the value of a powerful political image, but to turn that image on its head, so that

185 it bestows positive not negative value. Here, Big Brother is redescribed to mean transparency and accountability, rather than surveillance and oppression. This highlights Skinner’s argument that there are no timeless concepts and that conceptual change is a constant part of political life.

John Keane also makes an Orwellian reference in his description of monitory democracy, saying it frees citizens from the “double speak” of political parties (Keane 2009, 83). However, the type of participation described by Keane also seems to put Internet users into a role that is uncomfortably close to that of Big Brother. “Every nook and cranny of power” in monitory democracy he says, “become[s] the potential target of publicity and public exposure” (97). While it is clear that Keane’s purpose is to increase the transparency of decision-making and accountability of representatives, the level of transparency he envisages in monitory democracy appears to be unlimited. “With the click of a camera, or the flick of a switch, and the tap of a keyboard, the world of the private can suddenly be made public. Everything from the bedroom to the boardroom, the bureaucracy and the battlefield, seems to be up for media grabs” (97). In monitory democracy, no topic is hidden from media coverage, nothing is sacrosanct, and he admits that “the more ‘private’ it is, the more ‘publicity’ it would get (97). The new monitoring mechanisms in monitory democracy, while able to shed light on the political motivations of the powerful, may also act to hinder their actions, as they face constant scrutiny of both public and private actions. This act of redescription turns on its head one of the most enduring images of political oppression.

The definition of participation that is put forward has a specific meaning and purpose. Representative institutions are portrayed as sources of established power that need to be challenged. These aspects are drawn from the anti-institutional and anti-elitist aspects of the redemptive face of democracy, a notion of participation that is a “populist reaction to the structure of power” (Canovan 1999, 4). These writers are putting forward a specific definition of participation to be adopted, which then furthers the argument for their solution.

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In these arguments, we can see the power of rhetorical redescription and fully understand Skinner’s contention that these disagreements are indeed arguments about our very social world and how we classify reality (2002, 163). Big Brother is rhetorically redescribed to mean transparency and collaboration, while representative democracy is redescribed as hierarchical and uncontrollable. We can see this battle for legitimacy as having real world consequences in how we conceptualise both our political systems and our place in them, as the legitimacy of our democratic institutions are questioned, and the role of the citizen is reduced to enacting Google CEO Schmidt’s idea of getting “right up to the creepy line [but] not cross[ing] it”. (Hearn 2010). This example demonstrates clearly why it is important to examine this language, and how it becomes a battle for the legitimacy of democracy itself.

It is clear for Keane, Fuchs et al, and the other writers cited here, that their ideal form of participation falls towards the activist end of the spectrum. But it disregards the concerns of those who see the potential for the stability of democracy to be undermined by an activist citizenry. As noted in the previous chapter, the Founding Fathers of the United States designed representative institutions to draw a distinction between the power of the people and the power of the state. An activist citizenry that obscures the distinction between the two, could prove to be, in the words of Sartori already noted above, “ruinous and self- destructive” to democracy (Sartori 1987, 158).

There are potential dangers in widespread popular participation in politics. There is some indication of this in the Pew findings of the 2008 US presidential election, which showed that people looking for political information online tended to look for information that matched their views. The research found that the more deeply involved they became in the process, either by searching for more news or becoming actively involved in the campaign, the more likely they were to seek explicitly partisan content (Smith 2009, 9). Birch points out that the more that people become involved in politics and take on opinions that they are willing to defend and stand up for, then the more the political system can become intensified and a kind of fanaticism can take hold. He points out that “extreme interest goes

187 with extreme partisanship” (Birch 2001, 107). Lucas also raises the concern of increased partisanship, pointing out that an otherwise impartial person may end up tenaciously holding to a position once they have exerted themselves to adopt it (as quoted in Maddox 1996, 103).

A further problem with advocating the activist form of political participation envisaged by Fuchs et al and Keane is that it is based on a causal link between the availability of increased information and communication tools on the Internet, and increased political participation. But this link has not been found in any studies. As mentioned above, research has been done over a series of years by Bimber (2001 & 2004), Stanley and Weare (2004), Best and Kruger (2005), Di Gennaro and Dutton (2006), and Pew (2007), and many others, into the effect the Internet is having on political participation. And despite changing the methodologies or reframing the questions, no link has been observed, or if any link has been found, it is “statistically difficult to work with” (Bimber 2004, 9).

The Internet, instead, appears to be offering new ways for the already political engaged to participate, rather than engendering the kind of grassroots, bottom-up participatory democracy envisaged by Internet advocates. Keane’s monitory democracy relies on people not just accessing the vast wealth of political information available on the Internet, but also acting on it; uploading and sharing content as a mechanism to scrutinise the government. But the research done by Bimber, cited above, has found no link between access to political information and increased political participation (Bimber 2001), and Pew’s research found that those who are accessing political information online are a cohort of highly engaged citizens, already active in civic life (Rainie and Horrigan 2007, 17).

Even the example that prompted the prediction of a “new world” and a “phase shift”, Philip de Vellis’ “Vote Different” video, demonstrates this. The creator of this video was unknown for several days, but it later became known who the author was, and that he had worked on the Obama campaign. So this was not an example of a passive citizen being induced into political participation for the first time because of access to the Internet. De Vellis was an

188 experienced political participant who understood how the system worked, and this helped to make this video go “viral”. His first act was to send the video through progressive listservs and chat rooms with which he was already acquainted (Coyle 2006), and it was this wide dissemination through political connections that resulted in the video going viral. Had he not already had contacts through which he could distribute the video, and simply posted it up to YouTube with millions of other videos, it might have gone unnoticed. Experience, knowledge and contacts remain important, and using Web 2.0 for political purposes is still the domain of “political junkies” (Martin 2006). Instead of encouraging widespread participation among citizens, Web 2.0 is providing new ways and new opportunities for already engaged people to do what they have always done.

Participation is based on many factors, only one of which is actual access to the political system. There are many factors influencing why people participate in the political system, and they are not easily overcome with the addition of new technology. The motivation to take up politics must also be there, and the initial motivation for political participation needs to spring from a source that is exogenous to the technology. A strong motivating factor for political participation is to redress a grievance or change a decision that has affected them adversely (Lucas 1976, 146).

“Citizens do, of course, sometimes participate extra-electorally in politics, but such engagement is often prompted by feelings of grievance against particular actions of government rather than by the recognition of ordinary civic duty” (Bishop, Kane and Patapan 2002, 65).

Once more, the “Vote Different” video bears out this argument, highlighting how a citizen will get involved because of something they dislike rather than to promote an issue they believe in. De Vellis did not make a video in support of his preferred candidate, but instead made a negative video of the opposing candidate. Active and positive political participation can be hard work, and it is much easier to use YouTube to condemn or satirise your opponent than support your candidate of choice. The arrival of Web 2.0 seems unlikely to

189 alter this underlying motivation for participation.

This kind of negative feeling may have been a motivating factor in an election that has come to be synonymous with the Internet’s ability to transform political participation: the Obama 08 campaign. At the close of the presidency of George W. Bush, the verdict on his administration was “overwhelmingly negative”, with only 11 per cent believing he will be remembered as an above average president (Bush and Public Opinion 2008). The very high levels of dissatisfaction with the previous administration, combined with the first African- American candidate for President, provided a higher than usual level of motivation to get involved in the political process. But did this translate into increased participation?

2008 Obama campaign: A Diminished View of Participation?

No exploration of online participation would be complete without looking at the first campaign to elect now President of the United States Barack Obama. From the beginning the Obama 08 campaign was identified with the Internet and was later seen as the quintessential example of using the Internet to create a grassroots campaign. It has been described as transformative of US politics (O’Reilly and Battelle 2009; Carpenter 2010). Cheris Carpenter has said it “successfully demonstrated that the Internet can enable Americans to have more creative involvement with the political process to the benefit of their overall political engagement” (Carpenter 2010, 224). Julianne Schultz admired Obama’s use of “social networking to raise more money, involve more people and create a more intimate sense of engagement” (Schultz 2009, 7). So strong was the sense that the campaign ignited greater participation that David Carr, in The New York Times , warned the Obama administration would need to be wary of “the self-publishing, self-organising democracy it helped create” (Carr 2008).

190 The campaign’s use of the Internet was viewed as a major contributing factor to the outcome of the election. According to Arianna Huffington, editor and founder of the popular and influential blog The Huffington Post : “Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee” (as quoted in Cain Miller 2008).

The Internet was integral to all facets of the campaign. Barack Obama even announced his candidacy for the Democratic Presidential Nomination in 2007 via a video posting on YouTube, an act Chadwick refers to as being “a symbolic moment” in the emergence of a campaigning model based on Web 2.0 (Chadwick 2009, 20). Over the campaign, more than 100,000 videos of Obama were uploaded to the Web by the campaign and by amateurs, and these were viewed 889 million times (Aun 2008). Much of the campaign was aimed at mobilising younger voters: “digital natives” who connected to the campaign through Web 2.0 applications such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter, and blogs.

The Internet did not always work in favour of the Obama campaign, and similar to the “macaca” example noted above, Obama had to deal with negative amateur video appearing on YouTube. In March 2008, video of Obama’s former preacher Jeremiah Wright saying “God damn America” appeared on ABC News. This was later posted to YouTube and went viral, being downloaded millions of times (Smith and Rainie 2008, 1). Obama also discovered early that words at a fundraiser can become part of the national discourse via a lone blogger. Obama’s description in April 2008 of small-town voters as being “bitter” over job losses and therefore they “cling to guns or religion” became part of the public discourse during the primaries. This was recorded as an MP3 and then published online by a blogger, Mayhill Fowler (Smith and Rainie 2008, 1) 7.

Overall, though, the Internet was effectively utilised by the Obama campaign. The strategy

7 It should be noted that Mayhill Fowler, like Philip de Vellis, was an experienced and well-connected political activist. Her blog was publicised by Huffington Post and gained widespread coverage via that site. As with the Philip de Vellis example, these were already engaged citizen, using skills and contacts they already had, which was crucial in their ability to utilise the Internet to great effect.

191 of the campaign to reach out to and mobilise the online community appears to have been vindicated, not only because their candidate won the election. Young people did support this campaign from the beginning. The Primaries saw a “surge” in voter turnout among young adults, increasing more than it did among any other age group. According to exit poll data, young people constituted 14 per cent of the Democratic primary voters, which was up from 9 per cent in 2004 (Skeeter 2008).

This pattern from the Primaries continued into the presidential election, with Obama winning twice as many voters under the age of 30 (66 per cent to 31 per cent) as his opponent (Kohut 2008). In addition, 28 per cent of young voters in “battleground states” attended a campaign event, which was far higher than for other age groups (Skeeter, Horowitz and Tyson 2008). It was to this group that Obama’s victory speech referred when he said they have “rejected the myth of their generation’s apathy” (Obama 2008).

The election of the first African-American president appears to be a primary motivating factor for many. For instance, in the Primary races, where youth voter turnout first showed an increase, Obama’s vote percentage among the young was highest in states with significant black populations (Skeeter 2008). Likewise in the presidential election. According to Pew research, among all racial, ethnic and gender groups, black women had the highest voter turnout rate; and among young people the voter turnout rate among young black eligible voters was higher than that of young eligible voters of any other racial and ethnic group. Both of these statistics were firsts in US electoral history (Lopez 2009).

However, these niche statistics need to be viewed in the context of overall voter statistics for the election. While the Obama campaign gained more votes from young people than their opponent, young voters in the end made up 18 per cent of the total voting public in the actual election, which is up only 1 per cent from 2004 (Skeeter, Horowitz and Tyson 2008). Furthermore, turnout among young voters was not disproportionately higher than in 2004 (Kohut 2008). In addition to the unexceptional voter statistics, the numbers of people actively participating online were quite small, according to Pew research on the

192 2008 election. While Smith and Raine, the report’s authors, are impressed with the extent to which people were “contributing to the political conversation”, the results actually show that the more involved a form of participation is, the less likely it is that people did it (Smith and Rainie 2008, 8). For example, forwarding someone else’s political comment or signing a petition were the most popular activities (10 and 11 per cent respectively). But the numbers of people who reported having done something requiring greater participation, such signing up to volunteer for activities related to the campaign or creating or posting their own political content, were very low (2 per cent and less than 1 per cent respectively).

Beyond these kinds of online political activities, people also used the Internet to search for political information during the campaign, with 29 per cent of people watching campaign commercials online, 26 per cent of people watching an online video interview with a candidate, and 22 per cent of people reading a candidate’s position paper. Smith and Rainie see this as a positive development, as they believe it shows people moving away from information sources that have been filtered by gatekeepers, such as the campaigns or the mainstream media (2008, 8). However, a lot of this content would be produced by the campaigns themselves. Moreover, consuming campaign material is a fairly passive form of participation and, except that it takes place online, is also quite conventional. There is a tendency to conflate access to information with increased participation. In 2008, the European Union undertook an evaluation of 216 eParticipation projects in Europe at local, national and EU level, and found most projects entailed only passive engagement with citizens, but labelled them all as forms of participation. The projects primarily concerned themselves with the provision of information. When citizen input was allowed, it was often only to comment on reports (Gronlund 2009, 12-13). None of the projects directly involved citizens in decision-making.

Given the Internet’s information rich environment, Internet advocates have assumed a strong connection between increased information and increased participation, as with the models of participatory democracy put forward by Fuchs et al and Keane. Dieter and Fuchs have also noted this connection, saying the idea of increasing participation by lowering

193 transaction costs has attracted considerable attention in the discussions around the Internet and participation, and that this assumed connection has shaped a range of proposals to use the Internet to increase opportunities for political participation (Dieter and Fuchs 2007, 22).

However, the connection between increased information and increased participation is problematic. Bimber has noted the prevalence of the assumed connection between access to information and increased participation in arguments for the Internet’s democratic potential, and points out that many Internet advocates see the cost and accessibility of information being related to a citizens’ level of engagement (Bimber 2001, 54). The lower the cost and the higher the accessibility of political information, the higher the level of citizen engagement. He sees this argument as being consistent with rational theories of behaviour, in which the cost of an activity is an important factor in shaping an actor’s political actions (Bimber 2001, 54). But Bimber’s study using National Election Survey results from 1996 and 1998 finds very little evidence to support a positive correlation between the two (Bimber 2001, 54). His findings suggest that political participation is not regulated by the cost or availability of political information (Bimber 2001, 64). Nor does he find any link between citizens’ search for political information and their engagement in the political system (Bimber 2001, 54). This was also shown in the Pew analysis of participation in the Obama 08 campaign: nearly one third of people accessed political content online, but only 2 per cent engaged in more active participation; one didn't lead to the other. This finding is problematic for Fuchs et al’s eParticipation proposal, which is reliant on using political information to empower people to become self-managed and self-organised. If the one doesn't lead to the other, then we are just left with a very passive form of participation, accessing political information.

A further example of online participation that Rainie and Smith highlight is the “notable increase” in the number of Internet users who donated money online, 8 per cent up from 3 per cent in 2006. They view the fact that more Obama supporters did this than McCain supporters as indicative of how Obama supporters “lead the field in their use of ‘Politics 2.0’

194 online tools” (Smith and Rainie 2008, 14). But this is also a diminished view of participation. It is not active engagement with the political system or with other citizens, nor does it involve decision-making. In 2004, Bruce Bimber found that donating money may be the one area where the Internet is enabling the otherwise disengaged to become involved (Bimber 2004), but he argues it’s not the best measure of political participation. “Sadly”, he says, this type of activity is the “ultimate political act in the United States (Bimber 2004, 10)

So it appears that the claim that a “self-publishing, self-organising democracy” emerged from the Obama 08 campaign cannot be justified. A closer look at the campaign shows that in many ways, it operated as a conventional campaign.

Eric Louw has studied the Obama campaign, and his findings, published in The Media and Political Process (2010), show a more conventional campaign organised by highly skilled professional political communicators, instead of a grassroots movement (Louw 2010, 101). The campaign, he says, was more concerned with centralised control of the message and mobilisation of voters in a candidate-centred Internet campaign than a grassroots political movement. In a trend that sees politics increasingly resemble a public relations campaign, Louw says the Obama 08 campaign treated the candidate like a brand to be sold as a product (105). He describes the campaign as a “hype machine” developed by a highly professional spin team (203). While he agrees that the campaign used the Internet very successfully, he argues that it was used to merely generate a “sense of participation and re- engagement in politics” (107). The user-generated content that was uploaded onto the Obama campaign site, so highly prized by Internet advocates as an example of the transformative nature of the Internet, was, claims Louw, carefully monitored and moderated by the campaign. They were so good at their job, he says, that “they were able to make themselves so opaque that the users thought they (rather than the Obama 08 moderators) were in control” (Louw 2010, 100).

The campaign’s desire to control “the message” was seen during the primaries, when the campaign fought an Internet user to gain control of the www.myspace.com/barackobama

195 site. This site had been set up in 2004 by Joe Anthony, an Obama supporter not connected with his official campaign. At first, the Obama campaign worked with Anthony on content for the site, but as it increased in popularity, (it gained up to 160,000 friends), the Obama team became concerned that an outsider had control of a means to disseminate their message. Anthony was reluctant to give up control of the site, and MySpace was asked to settle the dispute. The deal struck gave the Obama campaign control over the www.myspace.com/barackobama site, while Anthony had the right to take all the friends who signed up to the network while he was in control (Sifry 2007). This example shows Grossman’s vision of Web 2.0 as giving “power to the people” as a little exaggerated (Grossman 2006). The “free” Web based on user-generated content still has to exist within current political and corporate structures, and this supporter’s attempt to participate via Web 2.0 was restricted by a conventional political campaign. In addition, it shows that those in control of the Web 2.0 spaces will side with offline authority figures over their own users, highlighting the ultimately commercial nature of participatory spaces of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 is supposed to be about networks and information sharing, having an “architecture of participation”, but the Obama 08 campaign was a one-to-many campaign, not a many-to- many campaign. As noted above, less than 1 per cent of people created their own political content, whereas 29 per cent of people watched online campaign commercials. This is hardly indicative of the “more creative involvement with the political process” described by Carpenter. Rather than actually building a participatory model of online political campaigning, Louw believes they constructed a new populism that built only “a sense of ‘participation’” (Louw, 203). The following comment from Julianne Schultz, writing from the point of view of an Australian observer of the US presidential election, is indicative of this kind of diminished participation. She says:

“In the final weeks of the 2008 US election campaign the notion of the global village took on a new meaning. Not only were all eyes trained on the consensus-busting contest in the world’s increasingly troubled super-power, but countless millions who could not vote knew they had a stake in the

196 outcome and, remarkably, felt involved” (Schultz 2009, 7).

This is a strikingly thin vision of participation – countless millions having a stake in an outcome, but with no means of being actively involved in the process. Schultz goes on to talk of an email she received from Barack Obama a few days before the election, telling her, “It’s in your hands, Julianne” (Schultz 2009, 7). By creating a campaign where people “felt involved”, the Obama team used the Internet to great effect, but created only a “sense of participation”. This goes back to Sproule’s concern from 2002 that we have “vehicles of participation” that allow people to feel involved, but “without actually engaging their powers of citizenship” (2002, 302).

A tendency to view online participation in a passive way was also noted by Anderson and Medaglia in their study of Facebook use in Danish elections. They found that one-third of social network users did not use any of the digital tools to communicate with the politician they “friended” (2009, 108), but rather acted as a passive spectator. Such a relationship, they argue, is the “lowest level of eParticipation”, which they believe should involve citizens connecting with one another and with their elected representatives (2009, 102). Here we can see that the number of people subscribed to a politician’s Facebook page or Twitter account is perhaps not an indication of increased political engagement. It is important that the appearance of engagement doesn’t substitute for real participation in the political process. The Obama 08 campaign was effective at giving people a sense they were involved, and subscribers to Twitterfeeds and Facebook pages can gain a sense of engagement, but the receipt of information is a very passive form of political participation .

We can see the concept of participation being diminished both by the campaign telling people who are not involved at all that they are, indeed that they are crucial, and by the recipients of these messages, who “felt involved” even though they have no stake and no part to play other than as observers. This goes back to Lucas’s very diminished vision of participation when he says that "merely to know what decisions are being taken, and why, is to be in them” (Lucas, 1976, 136). But this is an extremely diluted form of political

197 participation.

The Obama 08 campaign is an example of claiming increased participation, but simplifying participation to do so. The campaign made an appeal to the redemptive face of democracy, portraying themselves as the anti-establishment campaign, but at the same time, running what was essentially a conventional campaign. The kind of participation seen in the Obama 08 campaign may give a sense that more people are engaging with the political process, but they don’t actually lead to involvement in decision-making procedures. James Panton is sceptical of a “new participatory paradigm” and is concerned that it is merely the appearance of participation (as quoted in Clements 2008, 15). In the words of Martyn Perks, ”Instead of a genuine sense of political engagement in the real world, we’ve decamped to chatter in the virtual world” (2008, 113). While Internet advocates speak of a phase shift that will lead to a more participatory democracy, it appears that for the majority of people, the Internet might be merely offering opportunities to feel involved. Answering the problem of a sense of disengagement with representative democracy by giving people a sense of involvement is a very minimalist solution. The idea of participation is being broadened from involvement in political decision-making to just signing up to campaigns and receiving email updates. It is a far cry from the promise of the Internet as a solution to citizen apathy and disengagement.

The election of Barack Obama to the presidency of the United States was extraordinary in many ways, and having the first African American candidate appears to have been a motivating factor for many. There is no doubt that the Internet played an enormous role in the campaign. Web 2.0 provided new avenues for participation, however, as the Pew results (Smith and Rainie 2008; Skeeter, Horowitz and Tyson 2008; Kohut 2008) show, these were taken up only by a small percentage of the population who were motivated to get involved.

Those claiming that the Obama 08 campaign increased participation and involved more people are doing so by using a specific set of criteria to define democracy. A very passive

198 and diminished vision of political participation is put forward, and then the argument is made that the Internet is allowing more people to be involved. Participation is reduced to reading campaign material (Rainie and Horrigan), or to having a sense that you are involved (Schultz). But even in the most high-profile, Internet-enabled election in a generation, there was no indication of the emergence of the “self-publishing, self-organising democracy” described by Carr, nor of the grassroots, bottom-up democracy envisaged by Fuchs et al. Overall, only a small percentage of the population participated in an active way – 2 per cent according to Pew – demonstrating that even with new opportunities for participation and a higher than usual level of motivation, only a tiny per cent of the citizenry are likely to take them up.

Conclusion

The sense of disengagement and cynicism with current political institutions makes the prospect of a Web 2.0-driven revitalised participatory democracy very appealing. But this chapter has shown that the arguments for increased participation are based on specific definitions of participation to the exclusion of others.Proposals put forward to use the Internet to increase political participation envisage citizens who are highly motivated to be very involved. But a case study analysis of the Obama 08 campaign shows that an argument for increase participation can only be made based on a very reduced and passive definition of democracy. Again, this is a case of rhetorical redescription, using a specific definition what is actually a very complex concept, to further an argument for the Internet’s democratic potential.

The democratic crisis and the sense of disengagement from representative institutions forms the background to this discussion, but if the solution is simply to give citizens a sense or feeling of engagement, it is a very minimal response to the “dilemma of democracy”. It is a far cry from the promise of Internet advocates of a “democratised, bottom-up,

199 participatory form” of government. The Internet does not supply a straightforward answer to increase participation in representative democracy. Instead, it adds complexity to the notion of democracy. The concept is stretched to include being on an email list for campaign material from a politician on the other side of the world.

The idea that the Internet represents a break with the past is very prevalent in this area. Scholars have been looking for a link between the Internet and increase political participation since the early 1990s, but it hasn’t emerged. The factors that encourage participation in the political process remain constant even in the age of the Internet. Participation rarely happens spontaneously, but is stimulated by factors specific to an individual’s experiences, motivations and capacities. Because of this, technological tools, regardless of their simplicity, cost and ubiquity, cannot increase participation in and of themselves because they do not alter the factors that motivate an individual to participate. Furthermore, the characteristics that are pertinent to predicting whether an individual will participate in politics appear to be similar for the Internet as for the real world, so that those who take up the opportunities presented by Web 2.0 are likely to be already engaged in the political process.

200 CHAPTER 8 - DELIBERATION AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE

In the previous chapter, I examined the claims for the Internet’s potential for increasing citizen participation in the political process, and demonstrated that instead of increasing participation in a meaningful sense, the concept of participation has been stretched to take in very passive and reduced forms of political participation. This chapter will continue with the theme of citizen engagement with the political process, but in this case look specifically at claims for the role the Internet can play in enhancing democratic engagement through deliberative processes and reviving the public sphere. The Internet’s potential in deliberative democracy has been a continually popular idea for several decades. An emphasis on deliberation has continued to be a prominent aspect of discussions on electronic democracy, says Lincoln Dahlberg (2001, 167), and Andrew Chadwick, more recently has said it is “probably the most influential concept in the scholarly writing on e- democracy” (Chadwick 2009, 14).

Once again, concern over alienation from democratic institutions forms the context for these arguments. In this area, it is specifically the lack of opportunities to deliberate that is seen as the problem, since “a conspicuous weakness in 20 th century representative democracies has been the absence of political deliberation” (Coleman and Blumler 2009, 6). In this case, democracy is framed in terms of deliberation, and modern democracy is portrayed as not being sufficiently deliberative, and therefore, not sufficiently democratic.

The solution, say those putting forward claims for the Internet, lies in making representative democracy more deliberative and reviving the public sphere through Internet-enabled deliberative processes. “There is scope for an electronic commons to become an integrated and accepted part of the representative process”, say Coleman and Blumler (2001, 2). Says John Maynor, “Through the horizontal and free communication of the blogosphere, the potential for valuable exercises in collaboration can be found within acts of deliberation and contestation (Maynor 2007, 19). And bloggers themselves are keen to view the Internet in this way, with blogger Slugger O’Toole declaring that the blogosphere

201 is “an embryonic ‘deliberative democracy’” (Slugger O’Toole 2007).

This chapter will look closely at claims for the Internet as a deliberative public sphere and I will demonstrate the arguments are based on a definition of democracy that highlights specific criteria at the expense of others. Furthermore, the enthusiastic claims by Internet advocates tend to overlook the problems inherent in creating a deliberative space that can engage the unengaged and add a diversity of voices to the representative process.

We can again see the usefulness of Canovan’s model of modern democracy as the tension between the redemptive and pragmatic faces. Hope for an online public sphere is driven by the aspirational drive of the redemptive face to bring the voice of the people into democracy. In the arguments for more deliberation, there is a strong anti-institutional bias against elites, again an appeal to the redemptive face.

Beginning with some background on deliberative democracy and the public sphere, I will outline how these two concepts have been invoked in reference to the Internet, and demonstrate how they have been put to rhetorical use.

The “Deliberative Turn” and the Public Sphere

In the final decade of the twentieth century, the theory of democracy took a strong “deliberative turn”. This saw democratic theory “recast” (Goodin 2008, 1) so that, instead of being primarily about elections, democratic legitimacy came to be seen in terms of providing opportunities for citizens to participate in effective deliberation (Dryzek 2002, 1). Indeed, Dryzek says deliberation is now taken to be the essence of democracy (2002, 1). He sees the deliberative turn as a renewed concern with the authenticity of democracy, a democracy where competent citizens engage in a manner that is substantive rather than symbolic.

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The deliberative democracy model now plays a central role in political theory. Simone Chambers, a decade ago, stated that “nearly everybody these days endorses deliberation in some form or another”, adding “it would be hard not to” (Chambers 2003, 308). According to her review of the literature at the time, the number of scholars and writers working with the deliberative model is “enormous” (Chambers 2003, 308). She also points out that the language and concepts of deliberative democratic theory have filtered into many discourses and debates (Chambers 2003, 308). Hindman also refers to a “torrent of scholarship” on deliberative democracy (Hindman 2009, 7).

Chambers describes deliberative democratic theory as a normative theory that suggests ways we can enhance democracy and criticise institutions that do not live up to the normative standard (Chambers 2003, 308). However, she makes clear that, while many theorists of deliberative democracy are critical of existing representative institutions, it is not usually regarded as an alternative to representative democracy, but rather as an expansion (Chambers 2003, 308). It is a model of democracy that sees democracy as more than just a process for bargaining and the aggregation of preferences (Hindman 2009, 7). It is a vision of democracy that is talk-centric instead of being voting-centric (Chambers 2003, 308). This is an important point to note about proposals put forward for enhancing deliberation via the Internet. They are not presented as an alternative to representative democracy. Unlike the Internet advocates in the early days of the Internet who advocated for more direct democracy, deliberative democrats see the Internet as enhancing representative democracy, not replacing it.

Just as democracy is a contested concept, deliberative democracy can mean different things and be interpreted in different ways by different theorists. Deliberative democracy can encompass a variety of theoretical approaches to democracy, but while they may emphasize different aspects of democracy – participatory or communitarian, for instance – they all highlight the role of open discussion, citizen participation and the existence of a public sphere (Gimmler 2001, 23).

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The public sphere is a complex and contested concept that has no fixed definition. It can refer to a particular space for the active involvement of citizens, and can also refer to an idea that involves social practices that are valuable (Gurcan 2006, 1). As an idea and a concept it has a long history, caught up in questions over the relationship between citizens, and between citizens and their representatives. (Gurcan 2006, 1).

While the idea of the public sphere and thinking about separation of public and private goes back as far as Aristotle, it is the work of Jurgen Habermas that has become very influential in how we conceptualise the public sphere. His book, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere , has become, in the words of McKee, a “sort of textbook” on the public sphere (2005, 13). It is now impossible to have any kind of discussion on the public sphere without reference to the work of Habermas. Indeed, his influence is so great that it bleeds into adjoining areas of scholarship, creating what has been called “the Habermas effect” (Condren 2009, 15).

Habermas describes the public sphere as the “domain of our social life in which such a thing as public opinion can be formed” (Habermas 1997, 105). The public sphere comes into existence when citizens communicate in order to express their opinions and subject them to rational discussion (Edgar 2005, 30). In a large society, this communication cannot take place face-to-face, so dissemination of ideas and discussion takes place through letters, journals, newspapers, television and any other mass media. According to Habermas, “A portion of the public sphere is constituted in every conversation in which private persons come together to form a public” (1997, 105).

Habermas’ conception of the public sphere also includes a list of criteria that defines his ideal. It must be accessible to all; within the sphere all are treated as equals and social status should play no role; all members must be able to assemble freely and express their opinions without coercion; no one with the competency to speak should be excluded (Chambers 1995, 238).

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The ideal public sphere also comes with guidelines about the kinds of speech that are acceptable. The discussions must involve matters of public interest and those matters must be discussed rationally; only the ‘force of the better argument” should have the power to sway participants – no other influences, such as threats or bribes, should be brought to bear on the discussion (Chambers 1995, 238); the discussion must also be unlimited in duration, so that every argument thought to be relevant could be given as extensive a hearing as any participant wanted (Fishkin 1991, 36). In Habermas’ model of the public sphere, people come together to deliberate, and rational consensus is the outcome of genuinely rational discourse.

Chambers points out that “not just any conversation is a discourse”. Conversations are only discursive if they approximate the ideal conditions of discourse (1995, 234). Deliberation involves free and open dialogue, with participants putting forward and challenging claims and arguments about common problems, pursuing the discussion until the best reasons have come to the fore (Dahlberg 2001, 167). Participants in a deliberative process attempt to understand the opinions of others and to reflect on their opinions and modify them in response to better arguments (Dahlberg 2001, 167). A participant must be able to put aside their own interests and preferences, be swayed by rational arguments, and modify opinions in response to better arguments. It is this aspect that distinguishes deliberation from other kinds of communication, because interlocutors are amenable to changing their judgments and views during the course of their interactions. The key to this is persuasion rather than coercion, manipulation or deception (Dryzek 2002, 1).

The ability for citizens to discuss public matters with each other is an essential ingredient for developing public opinion and fostering civic engagement. It is through true deliberation that the purpose of the public sphere becomes clear: it is through this process that an individual becomes a citizen (Gimmer 2001, 22). It is through “strong democratic talk” that private individuals are transformed into active citizens (Barber, as quoted in Dahlberg 2001, 167).

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These criteria are demanding, and are clearly put forward as an ideal. In fact, Habermas himself believes that the ideal public sphere was found in early eighteenth-century England, as that society transitioned from feudalism to capitalism (Condren 2009, 16). This public sphere was lost in the face of commercialism and the rise of the interventionist social welfare state (Edgar 2005, 30). This idea, that the Habermasian public sphere is in decline, has found its way into arguments about the Internet as its necessary saviour, as will be shown below.

Deliberative Democracy and The Internet

The deliberative turn has driven democratic theorists to consider ways of improving representative democracy by enhancing deliberative processes, and the concomitant rise to popularity of the Internet has lead theorists to turn to the Internet for ideas. The notion that the environment of the Internet will be conducive to deliberation has been a popular theme, as noted above, and proposals for using the technology to bring about a democratic revival have been put forward by some very distinguished political theorists.

Benjamin Barber describes himself as “an early advocate of exploiting the democratic potential of the new technologies” (Barber 1997, 208), and did so before the rise to prominence of the Internet. His Strong Democracy: Participatory Politics for a New Age (1984) was one of the earliest proposals to suggest using ICTs to make democracy “more democratic”. Barber saw the cynicism about, and alienation from, contemporary political systems as a consequence of the liberal part of liberal democracy becoming too strong, and argued that the answer was a participatory democracy that would involve strong democratic talk, strong democratic decision-making and strong democratic action, and these three aspects would be enacted through common deliberation, common decision, and common action (Barber 1984, 133). Strong democracy relies on “participation in an

206 evolving problem-solving community that creates public ends where there were none before” (Barber 1984 152). He sees electronic communications technologies as a way of dealing with the scale of communication that would be required in a mass political system where citizens participate in ongoing deliberative participation (Barber 1984, 170). Thus Barber sees the role of technology as overcoming the problem of the size of modern democratic polities.

As has been noted previously in this thesis, Barber’s enthusiasm was tempered by his concern that these new technologies could hinder deliberation, since their breakneck speed and instant accessibility is the opposite of the slow, careful compromise of democratic deliberation (Barber 1984, xv ). In 1997, after the rise of the Internet, he was more concerned that this now more popular technology could be a problem for democracy, that it would become an instrument for perpetual polling and so become a “dangerously facile instrument of … unchecked majoritarianism” (Barber 1997, 222).

Another noted democratic theorist who early saw the deliberative potential of telecommunications technology was Robert Dahl. In Democracy and Its Critics (1989), Dahl saw the main problem in current democracies as the citizens’ lack of information, which reduces their capacity to participate in the policy process and causes a gap between the policy elites and the demos (Dahl 1989 338).

In order to close this gap and to prevent the drift of democratic government towards government by “de facto quasi guardians”, Dahl put forward his vision for “Polyarchy III”, (Dahl 1989, 338). This system would be based on giving citizens access to information and opportunities to deliberate on issues, and this would be done through a “minipopulus”, a thousand randomly selected citizens who would deliberate, for perhaps a year, on a particular issue, then announce its findings. One minipopulus could set the agenda, then each further minipopulus could deliberate on a major issue. This system would be based on telecommunications technology. The members would not actually meet, but would connect up via telecommunications.

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“What makes these [opportunities for deliberation] technically possible is telecommunications. By means of telecommunications, virtually every citizen could have information about public issues almost immediately access in a form and at a level (from expert to novice, for example) appropriate to the particular citizen. Telecommunications can also provide every citizen with opportunities to place questions on this agenda of public issue information. Interactive systems of telecommunication make it possible for citizens to participate in discussions with experts, policymakers, and fellow citizens” (Dahl 1989, 339).

Dahl does not see this system replacing existing representative systems, but as a complement to them. It provides a way for citizens to participate in political discussion in a relevant way, and reduces the gap between the people and the policy elites.

In 1991, James Fishkin put forward the idea of using the Internet for “deliberative polling” as a way to “bring power to the people” in Democracy and Deliberation . Fishkin’s proposal is similar to Dahl’s, and he even sees it as answering Dahl’s call to put “true democratization” in place of “pseudo-democratization” (Fishkin 1991, 20). Like Barber, Fishkin was concerned that the new technology could be used to encourage ever more opinion polling, leading to a push-button majoritarianism. Such polls, said Fishkin, lack reflection, critical scrutiny and sufficient information, and represent a “too limited vision of democracy” (20). Instead of polling everyone for their opinions on an issue, Fishkin suggests using the technology to run a series of “deliberative polls” with representative samples of the entire nation. These people would be connected electronically on an ongoing basis to deliberate on an issue, but would otherwise continue on with their daily lives (Fishkin 1991, 97). This system would give citizens the opportunity for thoughtful interaction and reflection on issues, rather than just recording quick preferences on issues. Their results would give a model of what the electorate would think if they had all had the opportunity to be part of the deliberative process.

208 For Fishkin, deliberative polling is part of “a 2,500 year quest to better adapt the democratic idea, originally suited to populations of several thousand in a Greek city-state, to populations of many millions in a modern megastate” (1991, 1). It is a way to bring some of the favourable characteristics of small-group, face-to-face democracy to the large-scale nation-state. So similar to Barber, Fishkin sees the technology in terms of overcoming some of the practical problems of large modern democratic states.

These examples all date from the 1980s and 1990s, but they illustrate the longevity of the idea that ICTs could be effective enablers of deliberative processes. In addition, we can see that the potential for technology to play a role in deliberative democracy has caught the attention of very prominent democratic theorists. Moreover, while the proposals put forward by Barber, Dahl and Fishkin all have different ideas for how telecommunications technologies can be used, the themes across the three proposals are very similar, and these are themes we will see repeated by later proposals for Internet-facilitated deliberation.

A further and later example of using the Internet to enhance deliberation processes comes from Stephen Coleman, who has been thinking and writing about the deliberative potential of the Internet for over a decade. In 2001 Coleman co-authored a paper with John Gotze to put forward their vision for realising the deliberative democratic potential of the Internet. They called the paper “Bowling Together”, which they hope is a more positive vision for the future of civic engagement than Putnam’s Bowling Alone (Coleman and Gotze 2001). They see a growing recognition within existing democracies that new relationships between citizens and institutions must develop if a “crisis of democratic legitimacy and accountability is to be averted” (Coleman and Gotze 2001, 4). They argue that there is potential for what has become known as eDemocracy to develop in several directions, including towards direct or plebiscitary democracy, which the authors reject as an inappropriate option; their main concern is with online public engagement in policy deliberation. Processes of public engagement can be described as deliberative, they say, when they encourage citizens to scrutinise, discuss and weigh up competing values and policy options (Coleman and Gotze 2001, 5). They point out that this is difficult to generate and to sustain, and that it is less

209 reliant on new technology and more dependent on new ways of thinking about how to enrich the democratic process (Coleman and Gotze (2001, 4).

In arguing the case for a stronger voice for the people in public policy processes, they, surprisingly, turn to Edmund Burke, who, as we have seen in Chapter 6, is considered the archetypal advocate for the trustee view of representation. However, here Coleman and Gotze look further into his speech to the electors of Bristol in 1774 and point out that he didn’t just declare that a representative ought to use his own judgment, but also that “a representative ought always to rejoice to hear” the opinions of his constituents, and should also have a “most unreserved communication with constituents” (as quoted in Coleman and Gotze 2001, 9). It is here that Coleman and Gotze see the role for online engagement, not as a substitute for the elected representative, but a way of opening channels of communication for “the many voices [that] are not often heard in policy debates” (Coleman and Gotze 2001, 9).

For Coleman and Gotze, as well as Barber, Dahl and Fishkin, the answer to what ails democracy is greater deliberation, and the Internet (or in the earlier proposals, ICTs) is the way to facilitate it. For each of these theorists, modern democracies are diminished by having few avenues for meaningful participation. In all cases, the technology is put forward as a means of scaling democracy, of giving mass democracies some of the characteristics of small face-to-face democracies. We can see the appeal to the redemptive face of democracy, with its promise of democratic renewal and the prospect of bringing democracy back into the hands of ordinary people, and out of the hands of the privileged, highly educated, cosmopolitan elite (Canovan 1999, 5).

Barber wants to see the role of elites diminished. He describes people as living under “the spell of elite/mass politics” in the current political system (Barber 1984, 166). On the other hand, Strong Democracy would be “the politics of amateurs, where every man is compelled to encounter every other man without the intermediary of experts” (152). Here we can see Barber make an appeal for ordinary people to run a simpler democracy, mobilising the

210 people against the political and intellectual elites (Canovan 1999, 6). Dahl also sees a rivalry between “the elites” who are a “class” of their own that “are famous for the ease with which they advance their own narrow bureaucratic, institutional, organisational, or group interests in the name of the public good”, versus the demos, who are the anchor of democracy (Dahl 1989, 338). He sees Polyarchy III as a way to narrow the gap between these two groups. It is again a populist argument emphasizing popular distrust of bureaucrats and political elites, and emphasising aspects drawn from the redemptive face of democracy. For Coleman and Gotze, political elites set a narrow agenda in contemporary democracies, while the majority of people are “squeezed out of the national conversation about politics” (Coleman and Gotze 2001, 9). Online engagement is a way of opening up the political agenda and the policy process to ordinary people. These arguments are a new iteration of the concerns over the relationship between the people and the political class, concerns that have plagued democracy for centuries. For each of these writers, the Internet offers a new way of mitigating the conflict between these two groups. Canovan argues that the gap between the promise of the redemptive face of democracy and the “cold light of pragmatism” can lead to populism. This is a real concern for Coleman, who sees the development of a new relationship between the people and representative institutions as crucial to avert a crisis of legitimacy for representative democracy.

Furthermore, all writers frame their proposals as a way of taking back democracy to where it apparently was and ought to be. For Dahl, there has been a “drift” in modern democracy towards guardianship of elites, a drift that can be prevented by the technologically facilitated deliberations of the minipopulus. For Barber the liberalism of liberal democracy has caused an imbalance in modern democracy that needs to be righted by a “Strong Democracy” of citizen deliberation and action. For Fishkin, deliberative polling is a way of giving to modern democracy some of the characteristics of small group democracies, and he draws an unbroken line all the way back to Athens. He invokes the American Founders, in particular Madison, quoting Madison’s three requisite values for democracy – deliberation, non-tyranny and political equality (1991, 20), and outlines his proposal as a means of achieving these. Again, he draws a line directly from his “deliberative polling”

211 initiative to the Founding Fathers: “I am only proposing that we continue the spirit of innovation launched by the Founders” (1991, 20). Given that the Founders themselves rejected the Athenian model of democracy, it is interesting that he sees his deliberative polling proposal as both a continuation of “a 2,500-year quest to better adapt the democratic idea” and a continuation of the democratic model launched by the Founders.

With each of these writers, we can see what language is “doing” to further the argument. The authors are questioning existing political arrangements, with each putting forward their own reason for seeing democracy as drifting away from what it ought to be. They then put forward their own proposal, showing how their system is a truer incarnation of democracy, thus setting priorities for evaluative judgement. They frame their arguments in terms of bringing the voice of the people into democratic institutions and reducing the power of the elites. In the case of Fishkin, both Athens and the US Founding Fathers are invoked to bolster the claim. For Coleman and Blumler, the name and ideas of Edmund Burke are invoked to give the proposal legitimacy as the inheritor of the Burkean parliamentary tradition. Their proposals are framed as taking democracy back to where it ought to be. It is not a new kind of democracy, but a democratic renewal. For Coleman and Gotze, even the title of their paper is telling in this regard. Bowling Together is a specific response to Putnam’s concerns about declining civic life in America, and this paper offers the answer to those who do not want to be Bowling Alone . We can see these authors as rhetors calling upon the “shared stock of concepts” (Floyd 2011, 28) to make the argument appealing to a wide audience.

. Moreover, we can see how the gap between the promise of the redemptive face and the “cold light of pragmatism” can lead to populist ideas. This a concern of Coleman – that democracy will lose legitimacy because tis’ so alienating. Barber, Dahl and Fishkin’s proposals all date from the earlier phases of the Internet, the early exuberant part of its history; Coleman and Gotze’s work dates from a decade after Fishkin and seventeen years after Barber. These proposals show how little the arguments have evolved across nearly twenty years. As mentioned above, the emphasis on

212 deliberation has continued to be a focus for studies on the democratic potential of the Internet, and, as will be shown below, this focus continues.

The Internet and the Public Sphere

One of the perennially popular arguments for the Internet is that, by facilitating processes for deliberation, it can revive the public sphere; get us “bowling together” again. Says Chadwick “the Internet emerges [in these arguments] as a communications medium uniquely suited to providing arenas for public debates that are relatively spontaneous, flexible, and self-governed (Chadwick 2009, 14). Here again, we can turn to work done by Coleman to get an idea of the kinds of proposals that have been put forward for the Internet. In 2001, Coleman and Blumler co-authored “Realising Democracy Online: A Civic Commons in Cyberspace”, outlining how the Internet can be used to enhance citizen engagement in the policy process. Again, the crisis of legitimacy and confidence in parliament is the context (Coleman and Blumler 2001, 19), and their proposal again focuses on the relationship between the rulers and the people. They argue that elites have tended to be sceptical about the public’s capacity to comprehend or engage with matters of public policy, which has lead to a representative democracy that is “ill-suited to active citizen participation” (Coleman and Blumler 2001, 6). Their response is to suggest the creation of a “civic commons in cyberspace”, to “connect the voice of the people more meaningfully to the daily activities of democratic institutions”. This would involve the establishment of a new publicly funded agency. This agency wouldn’t replace existing processes for consultation and deliberation that already exist, but would bring them all under one “electronic roof”. This agency would also provide expertise and resources for existing online deliberative initiatives, set out best practices for public deliberation, and would produce summaries of large-scale public conversations, so that politicians and officials could take on board people’s contributions to public policy. It is an institutionally backed extension of already existing online deliberative opportunities. Such a system is not an

213 alternative to or separate from current representative systems, but could become an integrated and accepted part of the representative system. It would encourage the idea that public contribution to the policy process is part of the “democratic furniture” (Coleman and Blumler 2001, 16).

Coleman and Blumler continued these themes nearly a decade later in The Internet and Democratic Citizenship (2009). Again, they argued that modern democracy is characterized by anxiety over a “crisis of disengagement”, that there is widespread public feeling that our democratic governments are “remote, insensitive and untouchable” (Coleman and Blumler 2009, 1), and see the answer as opening up representative government to a new respect for public discourse, reiterating their “manifesto” for the civic commons in cyberspace.

While this book is largely a continuation of this same proposal, it is a much longer and more detailed treatment of their ideas, and provides greater background to the authors’ views on current democratic structures. It is clear that, like other Internet advocates that have been highlighted in this thesis, they see modern democracy as having evolved from Athenian democracy, which they describe as the “archetypal democracy” (Coleman and Blumler 2009, 19), rather than necessarily as a separate democratic system with its own characteristics and advantages. They point out that representative institutions emerged in an age of great distances (20), and it is problems of distance, time, space and scale that they see as the great barriers to democratic deliberation (19). These barriers can now be overcome with telecommunications technologies. “By making it easier for citizens to connect with one another, and those who represent them, time and distance are diminished as obstacles to democratic communication” (Coleman and Blumler 2009, 28). A society that has “collapse[d] the traditional constraints of distance” is one of the characteristics of modernity. They draw a sharp distinction between the character of communication in pre- modern societies, where most communication was between people who knew one another, and the modern era, the age of the Internet, where communication is separated by time and space, and therefore far more complex (Coleman and Blumler 2009, 27, 168). In this regard, Coleman and Blumler’s ideas are very similar to other Internet advocates, in seeing

214 the Internet as a way of overcoming the practical problems of democracy. We can also see the recurring myth of the Internet as representing a break with the past.

Moreover, we can again see the influence of the redemptive face in these ideas. The institutions of representative democracy are seen as being in the hands of elites, who are sceptical about the role citizens should play in the policy process (Coleman and Blumler 2001, 6). The civic commons in cyberspace, conversely, is designed to bring “the voice of the people” into democratic institutions. The specific weakness they see in contemporary representative institutions is “the absence of robust public deliberation” (Coleman and Blumler 2001, 6), and their proposal is a specific answer to that problem. Their proposal to the use the Internet to create an online civic commons are part of ongoing attempts to improve democracy, to make real the promise of renewal inherent in the redemptive face of democracy.

However, as with the evaluative priorities set by Barber, Dahl and Fishkin, Coleman and Blumler do not frame their proposals in the language of renewal, but as taking democracy back to where they consider it ought to be. “What has gone wrong with democracy concerns its capacity to sustain mutually communicative and respecting relationships between governments and governed (Coleman and Blumler 2009, 166). Mainstream political communication in existing democracies is now “worse than even a minimally adequate democracy deserves” (Coleman and Blumler 2001, 5). The arguments here are another example of rhetorical redescription. A specific problem with representative democracy is put forward, in this case the lack of political communication, and a specific, Internet-facilitated solution is put forward as the answer. We can see how the strength of an argument can be boosted through persuasive use of definition. The civic commons in cyberspace is the solution to what has “gone wrong” with democracy because the problem is defined in terms of communication.

Coleman and Blumler are by no means the only Internet advocates to see the Internet’s potential as a public sphere. This was a very popular idea in the early enthusiastic period of

215 the Internet’s history, when it was seen as “an incarnation of the Habermasian public sphere based on rational discourse (Breindl 2010, 53). One of the most influential early popular commentators on social uses of the Internet was Howard Rheingold. In his 1993 book, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier , he quoted Habermas extensively, and drew parallels between Habermas’ conceptualisation of the public sphere and online communication, for instance in the following passage:

“There is an intimate connection between informal conversations, the kind that take place in communities and virtual communities, in the coffee shops and computer conferences, and the ability of large social groups to govern themselves without monarchs or dictators. This social-political connection shares a metaphor with the idea of cyberspace, for it takes place in a kind of virtual space that has come to be known by specialists as the public sphere” (Rheingold 1993, 281).

Rheingold’s book has been hugely influential, and his ideas for virtual community and the public sphere have been cited and re-used by Internet enthusiasts for years. Like others, Rheingold sees access to deliberative processes as the defining feature of democracy. “People can govern themselves only if they communicate widely, freely and in groups – publicly” (Rheingold 1993, 282). And like Habermas, he sees the public sphere as being in decline, threatened by a mass media that can manufacture public opinion, and the commodification of politics (283). However, it should be noted that he is restrained in his enthusiasm for the role the Internet itself could play in reviving the public sphere, arguing we need to be careful about becoming fascinated with the technology, an idea, he says, that is driven by the myth of technological progress (288). He does not attempt to put forward a techno-determinist view that the act of building a public sphere is out of the realm of human agency.

However, there are other Internet advocates who see the revival of the public sphere in terms of the technology. For example Zhou, Chan and Peng discuss the emergence of an incipient public sphere in China, and the role the Internet can play in its development:

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“With the development and penetration of the Internet, a network characterized by equality and openness, observers have seen new potential to revive the public sphere, for its ability to provide an interactive function to foster true dialogue and deliberation, which are the cornerstones of a well-functioning public sphere” (Zhou, Chan and Peng 2008, 761)

As with the other Internet advocates noted above, Zhou et al view citizen access to deliberative processes as the defining characteristic of democracy. “Most theorists and scholars share the fundamental notion that discussion among citizens is the foundation of sound public life” (Zhou, Chan and Peng 2008, 761). As with Coleman and Blumler, the concept of democracy is specifically defined in terms of deliberation in order to make the argument that, since the Internet enhances deliberation, by extension it also enhances democracy.

With the emergence of Web 2.0 and the ascendance of blogging, the parallels between the Internet and the public sphere are again being drawn. The term “blogosphere”, according to Rheingold (quoting Wikipedia), was invented as a joke in 1999 (Rheingold 2002, 103). But it is a term that has gained traction, and carries value by invoking the idea of the public sphere. In The Rise of the Blogosphere (2007) and Blogging America (2008), Aaron Barlow outlines Habermas’ conception of the public sphere and argues that we are “taking back the public sphere through the blogs”, which represents “a return to the type of debate and journalism practiced in the United States before the tremendous growth of the commercial news media starting in the 1840s” (Barlow 2008, 3). He sees blogs as being able to provide the solution to the very problem Habermas highlighted in the decline of the public sphere. “Habermas says all communication has been commodified”, he says, “but the blogs are breaking that down once more, from a mass commodity to an individual one” (Barlow 2008, 20). While he conceded that it was too early in the life of the blogosphere to assess its potential accurately, he argued that as a free, easily used and accessible venue for public discussion, the blogs can act as a buffer against the commercial forces working against the

217 public sphere (Barlow 2008, 3).

Zhou et al and Barlow, as well as Coleman and Blumler, see the Internet in terms of reviving the public sphere. They are indicative of the kind of hopeful arguments put forward for the Internet. Where citizens have previously retreated into private spaces as the historical public sphere collapsed, they are now once again emerging to revive the public sphere (Chadwick 2009, 14).

However, despite the prevalence of this argument, there are several problems inherent in the claim that the Internet can revive the public sphere or enhance democracy through deliberation. The remainder of this chapter will look closely at these problems and demonstrate how the complexities of democracy cannot easily be overcome with a technological tool.

Locating a Public Sphere Online

While Habermas’ name and conceptualisation of the public sphere are frequently invoked in reference to the Internet and its potential role in the public sphere, there several are problems with its use. Firstly, it is not clear that the kind of speech that takes place online would satisfy the criteria for a Habermasian public sphere. Habermas’ public sphere was a space for rational debate, and is defined through a set of criteria that involves speech acts that are highly demanding. As noted above, not just any conversation is a discourse. Rheingold, for instance, mentions “informal conversations”, but seems to be conflating mere conversation with deliberation. The two are not equivalent. Nor does Barlow’s vision of the blogosphere as a revived Habermasian public sphere fit the criteria. Habermas’ conception of the public sphere is situated between the private or familiar and public authority. It comes into existence when private people communicate about issues of public interest. This is where the blogosphere and the public sphere diverge dramatically. There are many blogs that cover issues of public interest, but the majority of blogs are personal,

218 trivial and far from engaging on public matters, in the sense employed by Habermas. In their analysis of online discourse, Wojcieszak and Mutz found that most Internet users do not access any public affairs information online but seek out sports, financial, and entertainment sites (Wojcieszak and Mutz 2009, 41). Gimmler says there are no public or private themes in the public sphere, but only actions which can have public consequences Gimmler 2001, 25). However, even drawing this distinction there are still problems, since it is hard to locate action that has public consequences on sports or pop culture blogs.

Jeremy Freese, in his analysis of blogs describes them as “a kind of intellectual confection” (Freese 2009, 47). Readership is highest during working hours, indicating that “blogs feed an enormous craving for distraction”, rather than providing high-minded intellectual debate (Freese 2009, 47). In the blogosphere, there is no dividing line between those issues that would rightly sit in Habermas’ public sphere, and those that are domestic, personal, and inconsequential, and would therefore not be considered appropriate. However, drawing this distinction, in itself, raises a further problem with trying to locate the Habermasian public sphere online.

While Internet advocates are keen to invoke Habermas, his vision of the public sphere has been widely critiqued. John Dryzek (2002), Iris Marion Young (2003) and Chantal Mouffe (2000), amongst others, find the outcome of genuinely rational discourse to be impossible, as well as intimidating to some less powerful groups. The kind of speech required in the Habermasian sphere rules out too much political discussion as illegitimate. It has been criticised for being divorced from reality, and having a structure that tends to exclude.

The public sphere has become a romanticised ideal, with Chadwick declaring that most scholars have “deserted” Habermas’ empirical claims and instead use the public sphere as an ideal to judge a society’s existing communication structures (Chadwick 2009, 13). Chadwick points out that there has been a tendency to use romanticised and highly demanding criteria to underpin the discussion of online deliberative spaces (Chadwick 2009, 15). Given this, it is unsurprising, he says, that eDemocracy has often failed to live up to

219 expectations. Moreover, he believes this has been damaging because it has shaped governments’ negative responses to eDemocracy (Chadwick 2009, 16).

Moreover, it should be noted that Habermas himself appears to be unenthusiastic about the deliberative potential of the Internet. In the notes of a paper presented to the International Communication Association in 2006 he stated that:

“The Internet has certainly reactivated the grassroots of an egalitarian public of writers and readers. However, computer-mediated communication in the web can claim unequivocal democratic merits only for a special context: It can undermine the censorship of authoritarian regimes that try to control and repress public opinion” (Habermas 2006, 423).

He goes on to describe the Internet as fragmented, and online communication, referring specifically to bloggers, as having a “parasitical role”. Habermas’ views on the blogosphere have been disappointing to many, in particular to Rheingold, who blogged about his experience of asking Habermas directly about the role the Internet may play in the future of the public sphere. Since Habermas didn’t answer the question (“he blew me off”, said Rheingold), he has now “invalidated himself” (Rheingold 2007). Rheingold said Habermas doesn’t understand the phenomenon he is critiquing and that perhaps he should leave to younger scholars the work in building contemporary theories on the foundations of his earlier work (Rheingold 2007).

This exchange highlights how a political dispute over language is actually a battle for legitimation. Rheingold is keen to defend the Internet’s potential to revive the public sphere, but not only that, he wants to be able to invoke Habermas’ name in reference to it. Value does not just attach to concepts but can also be held by individuals and paradigms. Habermas and his work are one such example. As we have already noted, his book on the public sphere has become a “sort of textbook” and his influence is so great that it has been called “the Habermas effect”. Rheingold wants to “capture” the legitimacy of that paradigm

220 for the virtual public sphere and, when this is questioned by Habermas himself, Rheingold’s response is to de-legitimate both Habermas and his conceptualisation of the public sphere. He attempts to de-legitimise Habermas himself by implying he is too old to understand the new technology, saying “he did his part in his day”, but should leave the work now to “younger scholars”. And attempts to de-legitimise the Habermasian public sphere by redescribing it as “a bourgeois public sphere dominated by broadcast media [that] should not be taken as the model for the formation of public opinion in 21st century democracies” (Rheingold 2007).

It is also noteworthy that Habermas, as noted in the quote above, sees the Internet’s democratic potential in terms of circumventing censorship, but, as has already been noted in Chapter 3, this is not necessarily the case. It is interesting that it was Rheingold who noted this as a myth in his 1993 book, even at a time when enthusiasm of the Internet was in the ascendant. He noted, “The idea that putting powerful computers in the hands of citizens will shield the citizenry against totalitarian authorities echoes similar, older beliefs about citizen-empowering technology” (Rheingold 1993, 288). In this case, it appears to be Habermas who is taken in by the myths of the Internet.

Whether Habermas understands the Internet or not, it remains problematic to try to fit online communication to the criteria set by Habermas for the public sphere on two counts. Firstly, it is unlikely to be realised, and secondly, it is questionable whether it is desirable or appropriate for it to be realised. These points are important because, as noted by Chadwick above, the failure to live up to these criteria can be used to de-legitimise online public forums as being unworthy examples of deliberation.

221 Locating Deliberation Online

In this section of the chapter, I will review some of the claims that the Internet can be a new deliberative medium. There is a tendency to have a taken-for-granted view of online deliberation, the “build it and they will come” view of participation already outlined in the previous chapter. This removes political engagement from active human agency instead placing the onus on the technology, and tends to assume that ideal conditions will be met, even when there is no reason to assume they will. There are two aspects of this discussion that suffer from these assumptions. One is that a diversity of views will emerge from an online public sphere, and the other is that currently unengaged citizens will get online to deliberate.

a) Diversity of Views

As part of the democratic conceptual constellation, deliberation is a contested concept. However, there are some criteria that are widely considered to be crucial for meaningful deliberation, and one of these is being exposed to differing perspectives. Deliberation “involves, recognising, incorporating, and rebutting the arguments of others (Zhou, Chan and Peng 2008, 761), and a deliberative democracy relies on a healthy ecosystem of competing ideas (Conover 2011, 89). In a deliberative process, it is desirable that discourse be among a heterogeneous group of people with diverging perspectives (Witschge 2004, 110). Price, Capella and Nir outline the importance of diversity, saying, “What makes opinion deliberative is not merely that it has been built upon careful contemplation, evidence, and supportive arguments, but also that it has grasped and taken into consideration the opposing views of others” (as quoted in Witschge 2004, 118). Exposure to disagreement is critical, as it forces people to consider and defend their views. Hence, “dialogue and difference are central to the deliberative model” (Dahlberg 2001, 160).

Unfortunately, there is very little evidence that accepting diverging views is a hallmark of

222 online discussion. Ferguson and Griffiths, in their analysis of political blogging in the United Kingdom in 2005, found that: “bloggers have congregated around entrenched and static views, rarely stepping into a deliberative environment where their views are exposed to experiences, ideas of information that differ from those they have generated themselves” (2006, 373).

Zhou, Chan and Peng found a similar pattern in their analysis of the Dayoo Forum on the Guangzhou Daily website from 2002 to 2006. While concluding that comments on the forum could be considered rational, as evidenced by the large percentage of posts that provided supportive arguments for their opinions, the exposure to disagreement in discussion was limited. A majority of posters did not directly respond to the viewpoints expressed by others, and where there were follow up posts, they tended to provide agreeing comment to a given entry (2008,764). In this sense, they conclude, the discussions in the Dayoo Forum “are not very deliberative” (2008, 767).

Many online forums are specifically designed to bring together like-minded individuals. Newsgroups, emailing lists, Facebook pages all have specific topics for discussion, and some forbid off-topic discussion. Most are based around a specific topic – Jane Austen novels, sumo wrestling, breastfeeding, Justin Bieber, medieval French literature, there’s no shortage of topics. This raises the concern that the Internet will drive people into small atomised camps. It is a phenomenon that has been labelled by Robert Putnam, among others, as “cyberbalkanization” (Putnam 2000). He points out that the Internet allows us to connect with others who share very specific interests – “not just other BMW owners, but owners of BMW 202s” (Putnam 2000, 313). This neologism – cyberbalkanization – is more than just a descriptive label. While “balkanisation” could simply mean division, it is generally connected in most people’s minds with fragmentation, disintegration, and the division of a whole into (usually) mutually hostile units. The force of those negative images is carried in the label, giving a frightening image of the Internet in the future as a series of antagonistic enclaves. This is a contrary picture of the ideal deliberative public sphere.

223 In 1995, Nicholas Negroponte famously envisaged the “Daily Me”, a digital newspaper that would be personalised to only include information of interest to each individual, “instead of reading what other people think is news” (Negroponte 1995, 153). Cass Sunstein has written extensively on the problems of this for over a decade. Unanticipated encounters, involving topics and points of view that people have not sought out and perhaps find irritating are central to democracy (Sunstein 2011, 389). He is concerned that the increasingly sophisticated filtering capabilities online will result in a system where individuals can restrict themselves to opinions and topics of their own choosing, “mainly listening to louder echoes of their own voices” (Sunstein 2001, 16). He points out the evils of narrowcasting, arguing that at least in “real life”, people are forced to hear things they may not like, and, a little tongue in cheek, calls for a “Daily We” (Sunstein 2011).

On the Internet, because it is not a broadcast medium like television or radio, an individual looking for information or interactivity online is able to steer themselves in the direction they want without necessarily encountering any information that contradicts their own view. You can seek out those who are like yourself and ignore everyone else. According to Bimber, this is exactly what people are doing online. They go online not to search for alternative viewpoints, but to find information that reinforces their own. He points out that this is consistent with behaviour shown by other media; that people want to reinforce their own views and filter out anything that is contrary to them (Bimber 2004).

More recent research has showed this trend continues online. Wojcieszak and Mutz found evidence of the reinforcement of like-minded political perspectives online. People in online communities and chatrooms tend to interact with people who agree with them rather than disagree (Wojcieszak and Mutz 2009, 50). In their analysis of politically-themed tweets in the lead up to the 2010 US Congressional mid-term elections, Conover et al found that people retweet other users with whom they agree politically (Conover et al 2011, 93). However, they found that the user-to-user mention network, where users address a specific user directly through the public feed, had ideologically-opposed users interact at a higher rate, but the network is much smaller (Conover et al 2011, 89).

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Freese also found in his analysis of blogging that consumers of online commentary appear to seek out blogs that “gives voice to their preconceptions”. Many blogs facilitate the search for “comfortable commentary”, and blogs typically bring together authors with very similar political orientations (2009, 47). He points out that, contrary to other forms of mass media, a person may spend every waking hour reading blogs online and never have come across an opposing view. “Blogging helps forge communities around ideological homogeneity”, he says (2009, 47). He also points out that blogs with provocative arguments gain more hits, thus encouraging a blogger to express a more extreme version of their opinion. He thinks it’s possible that the only thing we may gain by the greatly expanded amount of commentary available is that people may never much change their mind, except perhaps to a more extreme view.

It interesting that in the research by Wojcieszak and Mutz mentioned above, they found that political chat rooms and message boards had little cross-cutting discourse, but they did find that those who were not engaged in politics online, and participated in discussions on hobby or leisure activities, which is the overwhelming majority of users, had political discussions that frequently involved participants who disagreed with each other (Wojcieszak and Mutz 2009, 50). This seems to indicate that it is the politically active who are less interested in hearing differing views from their own, that is, they are less interested in actual deliberation.

What is perhaps most interesting about this phenomenon is that it is by no means new, nor is it unique to online forums. In fact, in this respect, the behaviour noted online is similar to that of many other discussion groups. In his investigation of deliberation in Infotopia: How many minds produce knowledge (2006), Sunstein describes it as “full of pitfalls, and lists four “big problems” of deliberating groups: they amplify the errors of their members; they do not elicit information that their members have; they are subject to cascade effects; they show a tendency to group polarization, by which groups go to extremes (75). Sunstein has found that members of a deliberating group typically end up in a more extreme position

225 than they have before deliberation began (2006, 92). Elster also noticed this pattern, and asks if people are made more, not less, selfish and irrational by interacting politically. He says that the rationality of beliefs may be positively as well as negatively affected by interaction, through “group-think”, mutually reinforcing bias (Elster 1997, 15). This calls to mind the potential dangers of an activist citizenry, outlined in the previous chapter and summarised in Birch’s comment that “extreme interest goes with extreme partisanship” (Birch 2001, 107). Sunstein raises the prospect of individuals’ views becoming so narrow, and their engagement with society so limited that it could become a major political problem (Sunstein 2006). In this regard, it looks as though Habermas does indeed understand the Internet, when he describes it as “fragmented”.

It is important to heed Chadwick’s caution not to invoke a romanticised and idealised vision of the public sphere against which to evaluate online communication. Nevertheless, we also need to be careful not diminish the meaning of value-laden political concepts. As noted above, not just any conversation is deliberative (Chambers 1995, 234). Deliberation is intended as a process for citizens to attempt to understand the opinions of others and to reflect on their own opinions and modify them in response to better arguments (Dahlberg 2001, 167). Through this process, it is intended, that good ideas come to the fore.

b) Engaging the Unengaged

The argument that online deliberative processes would allow currently marginalised voices to be heard is put forward as a strong argument in favour of making these processes part of the “democratic furniture”. Coleman and Blumler argue that the civic commons in cyberspace can include “for the first time in public debate, groups that have been marginalised for reasons of lifestyle, economic circumstance, language or disability” (Coleman and Blumler 2009, 171). Sunstein sees this is one of the “remarkable virtues” of online deliberation, saying that they are “fresh ways to obtain access to the information

226 held by many minds” (Sunstein, 2006, viii ).

The Internet is put forward as being able to uniquely facilitate this through ease of access to online deliberative processes. Being online allows people to leave their bodies behind, and so leave behind their gender, ethnicity, or disability, thus being able to come into the process as an equal. Equality among participants was a condition for Habermas’ public sphere. All participants must be equal, social status should be disregarded, so that only the validity of an argument could sway the discourse (McKeon, 2004, 275).

It is true that for bloggers, your offline status carries you a very short distance online. As Barlow points out, reputation in the blogosphere is important, but it doesn’t ensue from any offline expertise or status. A blogger will be judged according to their words. Cass Sunstein, author of Republic.com (2001) and Infotopia (2006), gives a good example of this. When Slashdot had a discussion of Republic.com , he wrote a non-anonymous comment, which was ranked “0” by the Slashdot community. His status as the author of the book under discussion did not give him any precedence in the blogging community. His comments were only taken at face value, and apparently well graded, given that he says he deserved the low ranking (Sunstein 2006, 171).

This lack of corporeal status has been cited as one of the reasons that discussion in the blogosphere flows so freely. A blogger cited by Barlow argues that the lack of gender, history or identity encourages sharper more tightly reasoned arguments, without resorting to personal anecdotes or appeals to authority (Barlow 2008, 81). Kurland and Egan have also argued the Internet is “blind to gender, race, socioeconomic status and other demographic characteristics, and therefore all persons have equal standing on the Net” (Kurland and Egan 1996, 390). We can see the influence of the idea of progress in these arguments, that the Internet has facilitated progression to a new way, and better, for humans to interact. For Coleman and Blumler, there is a complete break with the past, now that, “for the first time in history”, heretofore marginalised citizens can get involved. These arguments are reminiscent of Negroponte’s vision of “Being Digital” as allowing us to be

227 different people (Negroponte 1995). However, it is unclear that otherwise marginalised voices are going online to become part of the online public sphere; it appears that the blogging community is remarkably lacking in diversity, and moreover, has similar characteristics to those already engaged in the political process. There are several reasons for this.

Blogging is a dynamic activity and requires ongoing Internet access. In reality, only those with a constant and high-quality connection and the time to constantly maintain a blog can really partake in the blogosphere. The truth of this is reflected in the statistics. Internet use and access have always been strongly related to socio-economic status. Even now, Internet users are more likely to be male, younger, more highly educated and from a higher income bracket. The situation for the blogosphere is even more extreme. In his survey of the top ten US bloggers in his 2009 book, Myth of Digital Democracy , Hindman found that all but one were white and only one was a woman. He also found that the top ten blogsites are run by people who have attended an elite education institution, seven have a PhD and three are the children of academics (Hindman 2009, 117). For those who argue that the blogosphere is giving the previously unheard a voice, these statistics are concerning. Unfortunately, while the technology is new, the game of politics remains the same. As Elster points out: “The people who survive a high threshold for participation are disproportionately found in a privileged part of the population” (Elster 1997, 14). The Internet doesn’t change this reality.

A study by Hallvard Moe into Twitter use in Norway has found the same result. Describing Twitter as “the successor of blogs as a democratizing online tool” he finds that only a tiny core of users use Twitter for public expression (Moe 2012, 1222), and these users share characteristics with offline elites, including high education and knowledge of ICTS (Moe 2012, 1236). As outlined in the previous chapter, those who participate in politics online are likely to be those who are already engaged offline.

Even Coleman and Blumler admit that free time is not equally distributed. They point out

228 that the politically committed, those already engaged with the system, make sacrifices in other areas to be involved. In other cases, those who have time to discuss politics are “the affluent, better educated or retired”. The system is less accessible for the poor, those less able to make sense of the debate, or those working hard to make ends meet (Coleman and Blumler 2009, 23). Dahl’s minipopulus allows for “perhaps a year” for deliberation on a particular issue, and Fishkin’s deliberative poll would be given as much time as needed for deliberation on an ongoing basis, but adds, thankfully, that people would otherwise continue with their lives. These systems are very demanding of people’s time and many would not be interested in this kind of commitment or be able to spare the time to do it meaningfully.

Instead of opening up democracy to a greater variety of voices, the civic commons in cyberspace or the online public sphere could be an invitation for the policy elites that so trouble deliberative democrats to consolidate their position as shapers of the public discourse. Instead of overcoming the gap between the policy elites and the demos, online deliberative procedures could reinforce existing power structures in democracy. Even in the age of the Internet, concerns over the complex relationship between the political class and the people will continue to arise. As noted in the previous chapter, political participation and engagement still exists within the current political culture. The claim that online deliberative processes will give voice to those currently marginalised is a view of political participation that is removed from its political context. Again, the redemptive face of democracy, with its promise of bringing the people into democracy, is the driver behind this idea. However, reducing democracy to characteristics drawn from the redemptive face does not reduce the complexity of the concept itself. The pragmatic face continues to remind us that democracy is also a system of institutions and procedures, and that only a certain number of people will ever be interested in learning the skills to navigate through this system and meaningfully engage with it.

Chadwick attempts to get around this problem by arguing that the models for online deliberation that are put forward are too demanding and based on idealised versions of

229 deliberation and the public sphere (Chadwick 2009, 33). The advantage of Web 2.0, he says, is that it “enshrine[s] participation by thousands in scalable ways (Chadwick 2009, 33). For example he gives the example of the US Mid-Term elections in 2004 where he says people were very willing to add simple one-line comments to blog posts (33). He sees the future of online deliberative participation as encouraging lower threshold levels of participation. He thinks it’s highly possible that many citizens would easily upload an informal, conversational video, but would be less confident if asked to formally deliberate (Chadwick 2009, 32). We should not get stuck, he says, in a “one-size-fits-all mentality of deliberative forums” (Chadwick 2009, 40). This is an important point, and goes back to the problems of invoking Habermas and his ideal speech acts in reference to online discourse. However, on the other hand, it is very similar to what was seen in the last chapter; stretching a political concept like participation to take in very passive online versions. As noted above, Dryzek sees deliberative democracy as having a concern with engaging citizens in a manner that is substantive rather than symbolic. This cannot be realised by simplifying the concept of deliberation, just so that we can more easily make the argument that the Internet is a deliberative space.

Moreover, it’s not clear that even lowering the threshold is a way to solve this problem. The Moe study on Twitter use cited above points out even when the threshold for taking the role as a public speaker is low, writing 140 characters, it is still taken up mainly by those already engaged (Moe 2013, 1237). And Fishkin puts forward the idea of a Deliberation Day (Fishkin and Ackerman 2005), where citizens would be subsidised to take time of work to think about politics. But even Coleman and Blumler argue that there are “few grounds for optimism about the likelihood of this working”, given that millions of people don’t even bother to vote every few years, let alone participate in a full day of politics (Coleman and Blumler 2009, 21).

As shown in the previous chapter, motivation and civic skills are needed to become involved in the political process. Arguing that simply providing new avenues to engage will solve the perceived problem of alienation and disengagement is removing political participation from

230 human agency. The appeal of the redemptive face and its promise of democratic renewal drives us to see participation as a systemic problem with current political institutions rather than as the “unresolved dilemma” of democracy. As noted in the last chapter, proposals for engaging citizens in the political process via the Internet tend to follow the “build it and they will come” idea. Coleman and Blumler outline in great detail the benefits of deliberation for democracy, and how the Internet can be used to make these opportunities more accessible. However, it is not clear how their main objective – to increase public engagement in the policy process – can necessarily be achieved through the civic commons in cyberspace.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that some “real life” examples of deliberative networks have shown the capacity to bring in otherwise marginalised voices. For example, the Santa Monica Public Electronic Network (PEN) in the US has shown it is possible to design a network that can achieve this goal. Established in 1989, it was the first interactive public network started and funded by a government agency and was designed to facilitate access to public information and to create a public discussion forum, and the city provided free access to all Santa Monica residents. Public terminals were installed in libraries, community centres, and other public buildings, and the city offered free training (Docter & Dutton 1998, 128).

Five years after its launch, Rogers, Collins-Jarvis and Schmitz did a study to investigate the socioeconomic and gender equality aspects of the public’s use of PEN. They compared those who registered for PEN and the general population of Santa Monica, and found that registrants were predominantly male, highly educated, showed higher levels of interest in local politics, and higher levels of involvement in local political activities than the general population (Rogers et al 1994, 403). However, in a speech to the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in 1991, Kevin McKeown, a Santa Monica Councilmember, claimed that twenty to twenty-five per cent of PEN usage came from the public terminals (McKeown 1991, 10). This is interesting because it appears that this factor facilitated otherwise unengaged citizens to get involved. A plan called SHWASHLOCK

231 (showers, washers and lockers) was developed on PEN after the lack of these facilities was raised by homeless people on the forum, and this was implemented by the city in 1993. While the majority of the participants on this forum had characteristics similar to those already engaged with the system, access to public terminals allowed those whose voices are usually marginalised to have a say in a public policy.

A final point to raise regarding the quest to engage the unengaged, deliberative democracy, as noted with regards to direct and representative democracy, also has limited system capacity. Goodin raises this issue and points out that it is a “strangely under-explored issue” within democratic theory (Goodin 2008, 3). He then goes on, as Dahl has done, to highlight the point by calculating the time involved in allowing everyone to speak. “If everyone in the world has to listen to everyone else for even a nanosecond before making a collective decision, each decision would take longer than a normal human lifespan” (Goodin 2008, 3).

The Legitimacy of Deliberative Democracy

Building upon these last two sections, the final point I would like to raise in this chapter is to highlight how democracy itself is a crucial part of legitimating these arguments. In the claims put forward for the Internet as a deliberative space, democracy is framed in terms of deliberation to bolster the claim for the Internet. All the Internet advocates noted here are using deliberative democracy as the foundation for their arguments. For all these writers, the defining feature of democracy is citizen access to deliberative processes and the existence of a public sphere in which to do it. In each case, the lack of deliberative opportunities is cited as the major problem with existing democracies; the argument is then made for how the Internet can fix this. If the Internet can enhance deliberation, then by extension, it can enhance democracy. We can see how democracy is being defined in terms of specific criteria at the expense of others for rhetorical purposes.

232 Furthermore, it is a process of legitimation. For example, Dahlberg has said, “For deliberative democracies, a democratic model is legitimated by its facilitation of rational discourse in the public sphere”. In reference to the Internet, the legitimacy of current representative institutions is questioned as being not sufficiently deliberative, and therefore not sufficiently democratic. This opens the way for Internet-enabled deliberative processes to be put forward as the new legitimacy.

Gimmler sees Habermas’ version of deliberative democracy as having the advantage of legitimation (Gimmler 2001, 24). This is because, he says, the version has both the institutionalised procedures of parliamentary decision-making, and the public sphere and civil society. The legitimacy therefore relies on a “two-track” model of democracy. Both are required to maintain a legitimate democratic society (Gimmler 2001, 24). Rheingold sees the role of deliberation in representative democracy in the same way. He says that although elections are the most fundamental characteristic of democratic societies, it is “discussions among citizens at all levels of society about issues of importance to the nation” that supports this system (Rheingold 1993 13). It is the deliberative aspect that makes democracy legitimately democratic.

However, putting deliberation by the citizens at the centre of democracy is again an example of defining something using a specific set of criteria in order to make an argument. In this case, deliberation is viewed as the crucial aspect of democracy; this then sets up the argument for the Internet as a tool for improving democracy, as it is can be a tool for enhancing deliberation. Others however, have questioned the role of citizen deliberation as being a fundamental ingredient in representative democracy. For example, Kevin Mattson points out that there is little indication in the founding documents of the United States that the people would be expected to deliberate. Many of the Founders talk about the role of representatives deliberating in the Congress, so that public views can be refined and enlarged “by passing through a chosen body of citizens, whose wisdom may best discern the true interest of their country” (Mattson 2002, 328). Politicians, says Mattson, are supposed to deliberate because citizens are not expected to (Mattson 2002, 328). In this

233 vision of democracy, deliberation by the citizens is no longer the crucial element: deliberation involves the parliament, not the citizens. This is an interesting counter argument to those who put forward Internet-facilitated deliberative processes as a way of taking democracy back to where it is supposed to be.

Moreover, those putting forward the proposals for Internet-enabled deliberative processes are clear that these are enhancements to representative democracy, not an alternative to it. However, the adoption of such practices could make representative democracy even more complex. Says Gimmler, “With the Internet… now citizens can participate directly in the process of decision-making and have a direct influence upon it” (Gimmler 2001, 32). But it’s not clear that this would be the case. Most of the deliberative processes put forward are for the expression of public opinion. There is no opportunity in the minipopulus, deliberative polling or the Civic Commons in Cyberspace to be involved in actual decision- making. There is capacity for citizens to have an increased influence upon it, since their views will be expressed through the deliberative process, but unless other changes are made, it is not incumbent upon the representative to follow this view. Again, we come back to the complexities of representation, as highlighted in Chapter 6. The deliberative processes are intended to give a more accurate view of public opinion, but if such a system does become part of the “democratic furniture”, it’s hard to imagine that it won’t affect the role of the representative. Once a group of citizens has deliberated on a particular topic, there would be a great expectation that the representative would follow the “rational consensus” that would be the outcome of such a process. If not, citizens could be left feeling that there is no point to the process, reinforcing the view that democratic institutions are alienated and removed from them. This further complicates the relationship between the people and the political class in representative democracy.

Mattson sees these problems and says the answer is more deliberative democracy, but that perhaps we should think of it as an end in itself, as something citizens should cherish for its own sake (Mattson 2002, 329). Mill considered deliberation as a good in its own right, as having educative effects. As noted above, many have argued that it is through deliberation

234 that individuals become citizens. That is, they are not citizens to begin with, but become so through the process. So the process itself is valuable for its civic and educative nature. But this view is also problematic, since a process that exists only for its own sake is unlikely to attract a broad number of participants. As has already been noted, those with the time to participate are usually the affluent or retired, while those working hard to make ends meet would be unlikely to become involved in a process for its own sake. So it’s possible that we would be left with a process that has similar characteristics to our current system, and unlikely to attract the voices of those currently disengaged from the process.

Conclusion

Given the sense of alienation and disengagement felt towards representative institutions, coupled with the “deliberative turn” in democratic theory, it is unsurprising that the Internet’s potential as a space for citizen deliberation continues to be a popular idea. The proposals are intended to close the gap between the people and the institutions, to put the voice of the people at the heart of representative institutions. It is part of ongoing attempts to improve democracy, to make real the promise of renewal inherent in the redemptive face of democracy. Indeed, for Coleman there is a very real benefit for representative democracy, as he sees it as a way to avert a crisis of democratic legitimacy, to encourage people to bowl together , rather than turn away from representative institutions entirely. Deliberative democrats, says Goodin “have been far more assiduous in joining up their theory with practice than most” (Goodin 2008, 3). It is in the very nature of deliberative democracy to think about ways to connect up citizens with each other and with their representatives, and the Internet seems an obvious tool for facilitating this.

Ultimately, these proposals highlight ongoing concerns about the relationship between the people and the political class. In a democratic system that requires the people to elect representatives to govern on their behalf, the relationship between these two groups is highly complicated. The tension between the two groups doesn’t go away, and in the case

235 of the Internet, it has the capacity to complicate it further.

This chapter has found, similar to the findings in the last chapter, that the enthusiasm needs to be tempered with the realities of political life. We cannot consider proposals for the use of the Internet in democracy outside of their political context. There remains considerable evidence to show that those who will participate in deliberative processes are those who are already politically engaged. Moreover, the motivations for becoming engaged in the policy process remain the same even in the age of the Internet. Political engagement involves commitment, and those who have the time to become involved in deliberative processes are likely to be drawn from the same groups who are currently already engaged: the affluent, better educated or retired. Despite the enthusiasm of Internet advocates, this reality undermines the capacity for the Internet to bring into the political process voices who are current not heard.

Research in this area, however is showing some evidence that, properly designed, an online deliberative network could perhaps achieve the goal so desired by deliberative democrats: to bring new voices into the deliberative process. The Santa Monica PEN appears to have been able to attract previously unengaged citizens into a deliberative forum, and what’s more, these people were able to use that forum to have their needs translated into a public works initiative. This gives hope that future proposals such as these could achieve similar results. But as always, we need to ensure that our expectations are realistic, and that we have a full understanding of the complexities inherent in democracy.

236 CHAPTER 9 - CONCLUSION

The concurrent rise of two phenomena in the last decades of the twentieth century – a perceived crisis of disengagement in Western democracies, and the rise of a technology that offers heretofore unseen capabilities for communication and information sharing – has given rise to expectations that the latter will be the solution to the former.

Proposals for bringing about change in democratic life through the Internet are framed as a response to the democratic crisis, with the Internet portrayed as offering the solution to this political problem. For Internet enthusiasts, declining participation can be solved by providing new opportunities to upload content and download information; increasing alienation from democratic institutions can be fixed through greater communication with elected representatives, and for our sense that we are “bowling alone”, we can now be bowling together via an online public sphere.

These claims for the Internet use some of the most complex and value-laden political language to further arguments for using the Internet in democracy. But, as has been shown throughout this thesis, the language has been invoked using specific definitions, in a political act called rhetorical redescription to bolster the claims for the Internet.

Representative democracy is a complex creature that is itself internally contradictory. It consists of two faces that are in constant tension with one another. The pragmatic face of institutions and procedures that were purposely designed to limit and control power, and the redemptive face, that promises power to the people. Given the perceived disengagement of citizens from democratic institutions, and the sense that they have been captured by elites, it is unsurprising that proposals for using the Internet in democracy draw their legitimacy from aspects of this face of democracy. As demonstrated in this research, many of the proposals put forward have as their aim to close the gap between the “elites” who are set to run the institutions, and the people, whose voices are seen as being sidelined from the democratic decision-making process. However, the problems that

237 eDemocracy advocates are trying to fix are perennial problems of democracy. There is an historic conflict between the people and the political class in democracy. The tension between the two cannot be removed, as both are required for the effective functioning of a democracy. The arguments around the Internet are part of this older and longer discussion, on how to improve democracy. The Internet does not remove this tension, and in some cases, as has been shown in this research, it adds complexity to representative democracy. The problems inherent in creating a democratic polity in a large modern state have largely remained the same since the rise of representative democracy more than two centuries ago. In our enthusiasm to “fix” democracy, we can lose sight of what we have learned about our democratic systems in their long history. Indeed, as we have seen, the discussions around the Internet have a tendency to ignore the history of our democracies altogether, drawing inspiration from Athens and seeing representative institutions as a necessary evil rather than as a system with its own merits, ideals and advantages. It is important that we understand this history, or in our zeal to attempt to “fix” representative democracy, we run the risk of undermining what is valuable in it.

In any evaluation of proposals to bring about change to our democratic processes, it is important that we are as thorough as possible in evaluation, and ensure we learn from the wide body of democratic theory, if they are to be implemented. A deep theoretical analysis is important so that we not only ensure that lessons we have already learned about democracy do not have to be re-learned, and also so that our evaluative standards are appropriate and not in fact too high, as suggested by Chadwick with deliberation. As I have argued, language can be used for more than simply labelling an activity; it can also be used to channel thought and bestow value. Moreover, through a process of rhetorical redescription, concepts can be employed in persuasive arguments to legitimate a claim. In this regard, concepts can be “engines of social change”.

We saw examples of this in Chapter 5, when a polling project, eDemocracy in Werriwa, was put forward as an example of giving people direct democracy. We saw in Chapter 8 in arguments that blogosphere is a revived Habermasian public sphere. And we saw

238 throughout the discussions that democratically elected representatives are redescribed as elites, disengaged from the people. In each of these cases, a specific set of criteria is put forward at the exclusions of others, to forward a claim for the Internet. Moreover, it is an attempt to leverage the value in these concepts, as “direct democracy initiative” is more appealing than polling project.

This is still a relatively young area of research, but while the Internet is new, democracy is not. We have a large and comprehensive theoretical literature from which we can draw, and it is important that we apply what we already know. Technology does not exist outside of its political context, nor can political concepts be removed from their political context by a technological tool. The perennial problems of democracy are likely to remain the same, even in the age of the Internet, and it is important that we do not remove our analysis of the role the Internet may play in democracy out of this context.

The scope of this research has been to examine the how concepts have been used to further arguments for eDemocracy. Within the proposals examined, we have seen that assumptions and simplifications have surrounded these proposals. We need to make those assumptions explicit if we are to move these proposals from theory into the field. It is important that we are conscious of the existing body of knowledge, and do not treat online proposals for democracy as if they are something entirely new. With the Internet, our perceptions have been shaped by our underlying belief in progress, and the promise of renewal inherent in democracy itself. This has lead to highly enthusiastic hopes for the Internet’s potential to revive and improve democracy. But after twenty years these hopes have not been realised. This research has been an explanation of why this has happened.

All of this comes back to an understandable desire to improve modernity, to improve the relationship between the governors and the governed, an ongoing problem for democracy throughout the centuries, and one that cannot be solved with technology. As this research has shown, the Internet merely adds to the complexity of political concepts, rather than simplifies it.

239 Given the sense of alienation from representative institutions that has become a hallmark of Western political systems, it is unsurprising that the Internet has been put forward as a solution. But instead of the Internet being an entirely new phenomenon, it is yet another incarnation of ongoing attempts to improve democracy, and to deal with concerns about the relationship between the people and the political class. However, the results from the Santa Monica PEN give us reason to be excited about the possibilities for increased citizen engagement through the Internet. This initiative demonstrates that a well-executed program can be successful in engaging otherwise disengaged citizens and marginalised groups. We cannot deny the appeal of the promise of making democracy better, but it is important that in putting forward initiatives for reform, we put them within the context of democracy’s history and complexities, and be aware of the assumptions we have around both democracy and the Internet.

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