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E-democracy - Internet as political medium

E-democracy - Internet as political medium: Encyclopedia II - E-democracy - Internet as political medium

The Internet is viewed as a platform and delivery medium for tools that help to eliminate some of the distance constraints in direct democracy; its use is discussed in the context of Internet democracy. Technical media for e-democracy can be expected to extend to mobile technologies such as phones. There are important differences between previous communication media and the Internet that are relevant to the Internet as a political medium. Most importantly the Internet is a many-to-many communication medium where radio/televisio ...

E-democracy: Encyclopedia II - E-democracy - Internet as political medium

E-democracy - Internet as political medium

There are important differences between previous communication media and the Internet that are relevant to the Internet as a political medium.

Most importantly the Internet is a many-to-many communication medium where radio/television (few-to-many) and telephones (few-to-few) are not. Also, the Internet has a much greater computational capacity allowing strong encryption and databasing (important in community information access/sharing, deliberative democracy and electoral fraud prevention). Further, people use the Internet to collaborate or meet in an asynchronous manner—that is, they don't have to be physically gathered at the same moment to get things accomplished. Due to all these factors, the Internet has the potential to take over certain traditional media of political communication such as the telephone, the TV, newspapers and the radio.

Other related archives

1992, 1994, 1996, British national identity card, Cyberactivism, Democracy (varieties), Direct Access Democracy, Electronic advocacy, Electronic civil disobedience, Emergent democracy, Hacktivism, Internet, Internet activism, Internet democracy, Internet forums, List of politics-related topics, Media democracy, Minnesota, Online consultation, Online deliberation, Open source governance, Open source government, Participatory democracy, Presidential, Ross Perot, Second Superpower, Smart mob, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, accessible, bellwethers, blogs, citizen, collaborative software, communication media, communications, constituent, contraction, cryptographic, databasing, decision-making, deliberative democracy, demagoguery, democracy, digital divide, direct democracy, e-voting, eGovernment, electoral fraud, electronic, electronic mailing lists, electronic voting, governance, identity theft, information overload, neologism, opportunity cost, participation, peer-to-peer, phones, populism, processes, public policy, quorum, radio, representative democracy, republic, strong encryption, technologies, telephone, television, theoretical, town halls, vandalism, wikis

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Internet as political medium", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki

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