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