Digital technology is changing our politics. The World Wide Web is already a powerfulinfluence on the public's access to government documents, the tactics and content of politicalcampaigns, the behavior of voters, the efforts of activists to circulate their messages, and theways in which topics enter the public discourse. The essays collected here capture the richness ofcurrent discourse about democracy and cyberspace. Some contributors offer front-line perspectives onthe impact of emerging technologies on politics, journalism, and civic experience. What happens, forexample, when we increase access to information or expand the arena of free speech? Othercontributors place our shifting understanding of citizenship in historical context, suggesting thatnotions of cyber-democracy and online community must grow out of older models of civic life. Stillothers consider the global flow of information and test our American conceptions of cyber-democracyagainst developments in other parts of the world. How, for example, do new media operate in Castro'sCuba, in post-apartheid South Africa, and in the context of multicultural debates on the PacificRim? For some contributors, the new technologies endanger our political culture; for others, theypromise civic renewal.
Essays on the promise and dangers of the Internet for democracy.
