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Why the Internet is bad for democracy

Published: 01 October 2005 Publication History

Abstract

The Internet is not simply a set of interconnected links and protocols---it is also a construct of the imagination, an inkblot test into which everyone projects their desires, fears, and fantasies. Some see enlightenment and education. Others see pornography and gambling. Some see sharing and collaboration. Others see spam and viruses. Yet when it comes to the impact on the democratic process, the answer seems unanimous. The Internet is good for democracy. It creates digital citizens active in the teledemocracy [1] of the Electronic Republic [2] in the e-nation [3]. But this bubble, too, needs to be pricked.

References

[1]
Etzioni, A. Communities: Virtual vs. real. Science 277 (July 18, 1997).
[2]
Grossman, K.L. The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in the Information Age. Viking, NY, 1995.
[3]
Katz, J. The digital citizen. Wired (Dec. 1997).

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cover image Communications of the ACM
Communications of the ACM  Volume 48, Issue 10
The digital society
October 2005
100 pages
ISSN:0001-0782
EISSN:1557-7317
DOI:10.1145/1089107
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 October 2005
Published in CACM Volume 48, Issue 10

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