But I am sure that the internet can help rebuild democracy.
Look at what it did for Howard Dean over here. (Did I read something a while back about Tony Blair calling him up to ask for help after the Dems took back Congress. I can just imagine that conversation. "You see, all you have to do is blame the folks in power who got things all mucked up in Iraq. Oh... That was you guys? Heh, sorry, buddy.")
I think the internet is a very useful tool. At the very least, it's getting people to talk about politics more openly and in a different way. On the other hand, the people who seek out political blogs are more likely to be interested in politics in the first place. They also tend to be more leftist, upper-middle class, and educated. In short, the bloggers are the people who would be voting or otherwise the most politically active anyway. Or else it's replacing television and radio news sources with electronic ones. The internet has gotten more youth engaged than before, but the results are not exactly stunning. People are talking, but they're not actually doing anything. Turnout for the primaries in the States last time around was abysmally low despite increased political discussion (although there are admittedly other things that contributed to that, like the nomination being all but decided before Super Tuesday rolled around).
There's a really interesting panel study of Meetup participants (http://www.meetupsurvey.com/Study/) from the last US Presidential election that was conducted by a handful of people at Bentley College. (I used it for a paper I wrote last semester.) And the Pew Internet and American Life Project (http://www.pewinternet.org/) has put out a bunch of studies on the subject as well.
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2007-Feb-15, Thursday 08:45 (UTC)Look at what it did for Howard Dean over here. (Did I read something a while back about Tony Blair calling him up to ask for help after the Dems took back Congress. I can just imagine that conversation. "You see, all you have to do is blame the folks in power who got things all mucked up in Iraq. Oh... That was you guys? Heh, sorry, buddy.")
I think the internet is a very useful tool. At the very least, it's getting people to talk about politics more openly and in a different way. On the other hand, the people who seek out political blogs are more likely to be interested in politics in the first place. They also tend to be more leftist, upper-middle class, and educated. In short, the bloggers are the people who would be voting or otherwise the most politically active anyway. Or else it's replacing television and radio news sources with electronic ones. The internet has gotten more youth engaged than before, but the results are not exactly stunning. People are talking, but they're not actually doing anything. Turnout for the primaries in the States last time around was abysmally low despite increased political discussion (although there are admittedly other things that contributed to that, like the nomination being all but decided before Super Tuesday rolled around).
There's a really interesting panel study of Meetup participants (http://www.meetupsurvey.com/Study/) from the last US Presidential election that was conducted by a handful of people at Bentley College. (I used it for a paper I wrote last semester.) And the Pew Internet and American Life Project (http://www.pewinternet.org/) has put out a bunch of studies on the subject as well.