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It is here where the Internet most obviously makes a contribution to the public sphere. There are literally thousands of Web sites having to do with the political realm at the local, national, and global levels; some are partisan, most are not. We can find discussion groups, chat rooms, alternative journalism, civic organizations, NGOs, grass roots issue–advocacy sites (cf. Berman & Mulligan, 2003; Bennett, 2003b), and voter education sites (see Levine, 2003). One can see an expansion in terms of available communicative spaces for politics, as well as ideological breadth, compared to the mass media. Structurally, this pluralization not only extends but also disperses the relatively clustered public sphere of the mass media.
If the Internet facilitates an impressive communicative heterogeneity, the negative side of this development is of course fragmentation, with public spheres veering toward disparate islands of political communication, as Galston (2003) had argued. Here opens up yet another important research theme, one that must encompass an overarching systemic perspective. That various groups may feel they must first coalesce internally before they venture out into the larger public sphere is understandable; however, cyber ghettos threaten to undercut a shared public culture and the integrative societal function of the public sphere, and they may well even help foster intolerance where such communities have little contact with—or understanding of—one another. Fragmentation also derives simply from the mushrooming of advocacy groups and the array of issues available. While traditional online party politics and forms of e–government may serve as centripetal forces to such fragmentation, the trend is clearly in the direction of increasing dispersion. (…)
Two contending perspectives are emerging in regard to the role of the Internet in the public sphere. One view posits that while there have been some interesting changes in the way democracy works, on the whole, the import of the Internet is modest; the Net is not deemed yet to be a factor of transformation. Margolis and Resnick (2000, p. 14) concluded that “there is an extensive political life on the Net, but it is mostly an extension of political life off the Net.” So while the major political actors may engage in online campaigning, lobbying, policy advocacy, organizing, and so forth, this perspective underscores that there does not seem to be any major political change in sight. The argument is that the Internet has not made much of a difference in the ideological political landscape, it has not helped mobilize more citizens to participate, nor has it altered the ways that politics gets done. Even the consequences of modest experiments to formally incorporate the Internet into the political system with “e–democracy” have not been overwhelming (cf. Clift, 2003). E–government efforts to incorporate citizens into discussions and policy formulations usually have a decisive top–down character (see Malina, 2003, for a discussion of the UK circumstances), with discursive constraints deriving from the elite control of the contexts.
This evidence cannot be lightly dismissed, but what should be emphasized is that this perspective is anchored in sets of assumptions that largely do not see beyond the formal political system and the traditional role of the media in that system. Indeed, much of the evidence is based on electoral politics in the U.S. (cf. the collections by Jenkins & Thornburn, 2003, and Anderson & Cornfield, 2003). While the problems of democracy are acknowledged, the view is that the solutions lie in revitalizing the traditional models of political participation and patterns of political communication.
If the Internet facilitates an impressive communicative heterogeneity, the negative side of this development is of course fragmentation, with public spheres veering toward disparate islands of political communication, as Galston (2003) had argued. Here opens up yet another important research theme, one that must encompass an overarching systemic perspective. That various groups may feel they must first coalesce internally before they venture out into the larger public sphere is understandable; however, cyber ghettos threaten to undercut a shared public culture and the integrative societal function of the public sphere, and they may well even help foster intolerance where such communities have little contact with—or understanding of—one another. Fragmentation also derives simply from the mushrooming of advocacy groups and the array of issues available. While traditional online party politics and forms of e–government may serve as centripetal forces to such fragmentation, the trend is clearly in the direction of increasing dispersion. (…)
Two contending perspectives are emerging in regard to the role of the Internet in the public sphere. One view posits that while there have been some interesting changes in the way democracy works, on the whole, the import of the Internet is modest; the Net is not deemed yet to be a factor of transformation. Margolis and Resnick (2000, p. 14) concluded that “there is an extensive political life on the Net, but it is mostly an extension of political life off the Net.” So while the major political actors may engage in online campaigning, lobbying, policy advocacy, organizing, and so forth, this perspective underscores that there does not seem to be any major political change in sight. The argument is that the Internet has not made much of a difference in the ideological political landscape, it has not helped mobilize more citizens to participate, nor has it altered the ways that politics gets done. Even the consequences of modest experiments to formally incorporate the Internet into the political system with “e–democracy” have not been overwhelming (cf. Clift, 2003). E–government efforts to incorporate citizens into discussions and policy formulations usually have a decisive top–down character (see Malina, 2003, for a discussion of the UK circumstances), with discursive constraints deriving from the elite control of the contexts.
This evidence cannot be lightly dismissed, but what should be emphasized is that this perspective is anchored in sets of assumptions that largely do not see beyond the formal political system and the traditional role of the media in that system. Indeed, much of the evidence is based on electoral politics in the U.S. (cf. the collections by Jenkins & Thornburn, 2003, and Anderson & Cornfield, 2003). While the problems of democracy are acknowledged, the view is that the solutions lie in revitalizing the traditional models of political participation and patterns of political communication.
