Transcript
CyberpoliticsWeek 4: Democracy and public sphere
Democracy - of the people, by the people, for the people
Robert Dahl (1998) On democracy:
1. Effective participation and ability for citizens to make their views known;2. Equal opportunities to participate in voting;3. a reasonable amount of time to learn about alternative policies and their implications;4. ability to control the agenda;5. the inclusion of all adults.
Three approaches to democracy:
Liberal individualism Communitarianism Deliberative democracy
Liberal individualism
Internet as information pool and voting tool
Communitarianism
Internet as a virtual community and networks
Deliberative democracy
Internet as e-agora
Jugen Habermas
Public sphere and agora
Public sphere: e.g Cafe, early newspapers
Private sphere
State power
Mark Poster: Internet as public sphere?
Class discussion:
1.do you think the Internet can enhance deliberative democracy and Habermas’ idea of new public sphere?
2. And / or do you think that Habermas’ idea of public sphere has been transformed by the internet? If so how?
3. How do such changes contribute to the development of democracy? Can you give an example for elaborating your points?
MarkerStage 1500-420 BCE
Stage 21700-2000 CE
Stage 3 2000 - ? CE
Scale
Economy
Technical mediation
Citizen consciousness
Political form
City-state (250,000)Nation-state (300M)Global Union (6B)
Market Capitalism Global capitalism
Face to face speech, Hand written
Mass broadcastDigitalized
and interactive
Dialogic, rhetoric,External gods
Rationality,Religion
Postmodern ethics
Direct RepresentativeModern, global
direct democracy
Evolutionary Clusters for Democracy
Douglas C. Walton (2007) Is modern information technology enabling the evolution of a more direct democracy? in World Futures, 63: 365-385, 2007, Routledge, p.371.
Next Class: Quiz and class reading