Defining Democracy In A Digital Age

The internet has created a new social base where governments are ever more critically examined and measuring public sentiment expressed on social media is crucial to gauging ongoing support for democracy. This book illustrates a methodology for doing so, and considers the impact of this new public sphere on the future of democracy.

Online technologies excite the public imagination with narratives of democratization. The Internet is a political medium, borne of democracy, but is it democratizing? Late modern democracies are characterized by civic apathy, public skepticism, disillusionment with politics, and general disinterest in conventional political process. And yet, public interest in blogging, online news, net-based activism, collaborative news filtering, and online networking reveal an electorate that is not disinterested, but rather, fatigued with political conventions of the mainstream. This book examines how online digital media shape and are shaped by contemporary democracies, by addressing the following issues: How do online technologies remake how we function as citizens in contemporary democracies? What happens to our understanding of public and private as digitalized democracies converge technologies, spaces and practices? How do citizens of today understand and practice their civic responsibilities, and how do they compare to citizens of the past? How do discourses of globalization, commercialization and convergence inform audience/producer, citizen/consumer, personal/political, public/private roles individuals must take on? Are resulting political behaviors atomized or collective? Is there a public sphere anymore, and if not, what model of civic engagement expresses current tendencies and tensions best? Students and scholars of media studies, political science, and critical theory will find this to be a fresh engagement with some of the most important questions facing democracies today.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Technologie und Innovation im Allgemeinen, insbesondere IT, sind heute in jeder Hinsicht wesentliche Bestandteile unserer Welt und haben Einfluss auf alle Bereiche der Gesellschaft – wirtschaftlich, rechtlich, politisch, soziologisch und auch kulturell. Diese neue Cyberwelt hat unser Leben in vielerlei Hinsicht verändert, nicht nur wenn es um demokratische Beteiligung geht. Die Digitalisierung aller Bereiche unseres Lebens revolutioniert unsere Gesellschaft: in Bezug auf unsere Freiheit wird dies nicht ohne Angst oder sogar Untergangsstimmung gesehen. PCs, Tablets und Smartphones sind wesentliche Bestandteile unseres Lebens; wir kaufen online und nehmen über elektronische Netzwerke an Debatten und Veranstaltungen teil. Wir sind so abhängig von der Nutzung elektronischer Geräte, dass man sich fragen könnte, ob wir auf dem Weg zum Cybermenschen sind. Wir haben die technischen Mittel, um in unserem Körper alle Informationen zur digitalen Identifizierung zu tragen, beispielsweise Mikrochips unter der Haut, injizierte Kennungen und verschluckte Passwörter: dies ist nicht Science-Fiction sondern Realität, wenn auch noch nicht Praxis. Der entscheidende Punkt ist die kulturelle Akzeptanz dieses neuen Lebensstils, der sich möglicherweise durchsetzen wird. Zukunftsforschung oder nicht, Tatsache ist, dass das Internet bereits einen wesentlichen Teil unseres Lebens ausmacht, sodass das deutsche Bundesverfassungsgericht mit Weitblick und Mut bereits im Januar 2013 Internetzugang als "Grundrecht" definierte: eine Aussage, die ein neues Konzept zur genaueren Definition dieses Mediums einführt. Dieses Buch soll verdeutlichen, dass sehr schnelle technologische Entwicklungen einen direkten und starken Einfluss auf das demokratische System haben. Politik, Gesetzgeber und Gesetzgebung müssen sich täglich mit dieser Thematik auseinandersetzen und neue und unbekannte Wege gehen. Technologische Innovation verändert und veränderte die Beziehung zwischen Volksvertretern und denjenigen, die sie vertreten, zwischen Politikern und ihren Wählern. Mittlerweile verändert sie auch das Parteiensystem. Betrachtet man ihren Einfluss auf Politik, Recht, Kultur und Wirtschaft, so sieht man, dass die technologische Innovation eine bedeutende Quelle der Macht in der heutigen Welt darstellt.

This book comprehensively describes the impact of modern technologies on political leadership by providing a new paradigm of the phenomenon of neo-leadership, that is political leadership oriented on creating both the image and political influence on the Internet. It examines its functioning in the new media environment and identifies the most important transforming trends, taking into account their impact on political and social relations in an era of dynamic technological development. Systematically exploring various dimensions of leadership, it presents new notions relevant in a networked world where leaders are created and conduct themselves against the backdrop of a technological revolution, including the development of AI, automation, algorithms and ultrafast networks, all of which strengthen or disrupt their impact and create a new set of virtual authorities exerting an increasing impact on society, ethical considerations and political life and requiring new methods for study. This book will be of key interest to scholars, students and practitioners of leadership and elite studies, media and communication studies, political marketing, political science, international relations; public policy, and sociology.

The challenges to humanity posed by the digital future, the first detailed examination of the unprecedented form of power called "surveillance capitalism," and the quest by powerful corporations to predict and control our behavior. In this masterwork of original thinking and research, Shoshana Zuboff provides startling insights into the phenomenon that she has named surveillance capitalism. The stakes could not be higher: a global architecture of behavior modification threatens human nature in the twenty-first century just as industrial capitalism disfigured the natural world in the twentieth. Zuboff vividly brings to life the consequences as surveillance capitalism advances from Silicon Valley into every economic sector. Vast wealth and power are accumulated in ominous new "behavioral futures markets," where predictions about our behavior are bought and sold, and the production of goods and services is subordinated to a new "means of behavioral modification." The threat has shifted from a totalitarian Big Brother state to a ubiquitous digital architecture: a "Big Other" operating in the interests of surveillance capital. Here is the crucible of an unprecedented form of power marked by extreme concentrations of knowledge and free from democratic oversight. Zuboff's comprehensive and moving analysis lays bare the threats to twenty-first century society: a controlled "hive" of total connection that seduces with promises of total certainty for maximum profit -- at the expense of democracy, freedom, and our human future. With little resistance from law or society, surveillance capitalism is on the verge of dominating the social order and shaping the digital future -- if we let it.

In light of the increased utilization of information technologies, such as social media and the ‘Internet of Things,’ this book investigates how this digital transformation process creates new challenges and opportunities for political participation, political election campaigns and political regulation of the Internet. Within the context of Western democracies and China, the contributors analyze these challenges and opportunities from three perspectives: the regulatory state, the political use of social media, and through the lens of the public sphere. The first part of the book discusses key challenges for Internet regulation, such as data protection and censorship, while the second addresses the use of social media in political communication and political elections. In turn, the third and last part highlights various opportunities offered by digital media for online civic engagement and protest in the public sphere. Drawing on different academic fields, including political science, communication science, and journalism studies, the contributors raise a number of innovative research questions and provide fascinating theoretical and empirical insights into the topic of digital transformation.

Theoretically grounded and using quantitative data spanning more than 50 years together with qualitative research, this book examines investigative journalism’s role in liberal democracies in the past and in the digital age. In its ideal form, investigative reporting provides a check on power in society and therefore can strengthen democratic accountability. The capacity is important to address now because the political and economic environment for journalism has changed substantially in recent decades. In particular, the commercialization of the Internet has disrupted the business model of traditional media outlets and the ways news content is gathered and disseminated. Despite these disruptions, this book’s central aim is to demonstrate using empirical research that investigative journalism is not in fact in decline in developed economies, as is often feared.