Reading Reaction: Sept 22

In the reading, Democratizing democracy: Strong democracy, US political campaigns and the Internet, the author, Stromer-Galley, evaluates a concept of a direct democracy brought to light by Benjamin Barber. According to Stromer-Galley, Barber believes that a direct democracy is a strong democracy and “is politics in a participatory mode.” With the creation of the Internet, it allows the general masses to finally participate with those running for office in Washington, to connect the politician to the voter.

One reason that the Internet is seen as a direct type of communication for democracy is that most Americans are not able to see the entire picture due to big media acting as gate keepers to information, as Stromer-Galley puts it, “through the lens of the camera or through the pen of the journalist.”

We are given six characteristics of the Internet, cost, volume, directionality, speed targeting, and convergence, which are explained in depth how they are used to democratize. Cost simply allowing the small candidate to square off again the big, rich candidate, since cost for a website and upkeep are quite small. Yet, I would state is the most important in this date in age, considering that younger ages are getting their information from the web rather than traditional news sources.

But Stromer-Galley also brought up the point of volume, where storing information is quite cheap. Yet, due to privacy laws in the United States being relaxed it brings up concerns. Also there is a breach of trust concern by receiving emails from politicians that attempt to target certain demographics without the voters permission.

The biggest point I want to sound off on is when Stromer-Galley says, the Internet gives “more opportunities to speak directly with the citizen, the less likely candidates can hide,” which is true. With this current election we are seeing countless information telling the truth on the candidates being found on the Internet, some information that main news outlets will not even pick up. So it might be safe to say that lens is finally coming off and that direct democracy is finally coming to light.

Reading:
Stromer-Galley, Jennifer. (2000). Democratizing democracy: Strong democracy, US political campaigns and the Internet. In Peter Ferdianand (ed.), The Internet, democracy and democratization (pp. 36-58). Portland, OR: Frank Cass Publishers.