Political Participation
Bibliography and Resource
Guide
Kim Gregson
1996, 1997
Political
Participation
Menu
Return to Annotated Bibliography
- Benton Foundation
- URL:
http://www.benton.org
The foundation has several interests.
Communications
Practices and Policies, is most relevant to this resource
guide. The
foundation has issued working papers and briefs on various
issues in
telecommunications and the National Information
Infrastructure.
- California Voter
Foundation
- URL: http://www.webcom.com/cvf/
This non-partisan foundation works
to create a more educated
electorate in California by distributing
various voters' guides and issu e
papers. This site is a good example of
on-line civic education.
- Center
for Civic Networking
HomePage
- URL:
http://civic.net/ccn.html
The center represents a non-profit,
non-partisan effort to serve
the
public good by, quoting from their home page, "putting information
infrastructure to work within local communities to improve
delivery of
local government services, improve access to information that
people need
in order to function as informed ci tizens, broaden citizen
participation
in governance, and stimulate economic and community
development." They
sponsor the Public WebMarket which provides a market
for small businesses
from rural areas as a way to help sustain those
economies. They prov ide
technical assistance and speakers to local level
initiatives in using
telecommunications services. They help libraries and
local governments
develop web presences and offer internet access. They
also offer several
on-line papers on telecommunicatio ns access issues.
One of their projects
is the The
Center for Civic
Networking's Political Participation Projects.
- Citizen Advocacy Center
- URL:
http:/ /www.essential.org/cac/
This organization, founded in 1994,
wants to strengthen democracy in the
United States by increasing the
level of citizen political participation.
They sponsor a variety of
activities including a user's guide to community
ne tworks (see the
listing for this guide below).
Many activities
sponsored by the center are in Illinois.
- Civic Participation
Page
- URL: http://www.epn.org/idea/civic.html
This page was
created by the Electronic
Policy Network
at URL: http://www.epn.org. It is set up like a magazine
and past issues
are
archived. The page contains descriptions of articles published by
some
of the EPN's j ournals such as The American Propsect. They alo have
a
list of Civic Links,
with
links to online articles, related sites, and political information.
The
URL for Civic Links is http://www.epn.org/idea/
civlink.html
- Civic
Practices
Network
- URL: http://www.cpn.org/
This is a non-partisan
project designed to bring together
organizations working to
revitalize
democracy in the United States. They have a se arch engine on
the main
page to search the entire site. The topic list for the search
engine
includes new citizenship, family & children, health, community,
and
journalism. A search on the community topic revealed 140 items as of
7/25/96. The bulk of the information on the menus includes
pointers to
the affiliated organizations and articles from members of
those
organizations.
- Community
Technology Centers'
Network
- URL: http://www.ctcnet.org/
Th is
is a network joining more than 65 different technology centers that
all
support equitable access to computers. It was founded by the Playing to
Win organization in New York. These types of centers might
provide
technical support to new community net works.
- Deliverence
- URL:
http://www.seas.gwu.edu/seas/ictsp/deliverance/intro.html
This site,
provided by George Washington University's Institute for
Computer and Tel
ecommunications Policy, helps the user send e-mail to
politicians. The
user can choose to send to a specific group of
national politicians or to
all of them. The site seems to confound sending
e-mail with democracy,
instant communication with governanc e. However,
there is no education on
issues. It is truly instant communication -
suitable for angry uninformed
communication as well as reasoned
thoughtful communication. And since it
allows the user to send to all
politicians with e-mail, it cheapens
the message. Politicians are not
interested in the opinions of people
who aren't in their districts.
These messages will tend to be ignored and
the internet and
e-mail will become a nuisance, as mass mailings drive
out letters.
- E-Mail Democracy
Site
- URL:
http://syninfo.com/emaildem/emaildem.html
This is another site that
enables users send e-mail to selected national
elected officials. Its an
example of what a local community net work
could establish for local
officials. However, like the site listed above,
it needs to be combined
with issue education and tied to specific
elected officials from the
user's district so the message has the most
clout.
- Government by the
People
- URL: http://www.vote.org/v/index.html
This is a
nonprofit corporation formerly called The Voting by Phone
Foundation (see below). They want to create direct
democracy through
more frequent voting, voting by phone or over the Internet, and through
more active use of locally initated referenda. The site includes a list
of links to on-line articles about the foundation, back to an
article by
Buckminster Fuller from 1940.
- Morino Institute
- URL:
http://www.morino.org
To quote their homepage, the "institute helps
individuals and
institutions harness the power of information and the
potential of
interactive communications as t ools for overcoming the
challenges that
face them. The institute's biggest contribution is
the
Directory of Public Access Network. (see above)
They also have
several articles on community networks including
information about th e
1996 book by Doug Schuler (New Community
Networks: Wired for
Change).
- National Public Telecomputing Network
(NPTN)
- URL: http://nptn.org/
This site contains news about
new freenets, information a bout starting a
local freenet and information
on resources that can be purchased from the
NPTN. They have a
teledemocracy page with links to many types of
political information and
to the Jay Weston paper "Old Freedoms and New
Technologies: The Evolut
ion of Community Networking. (see
below)
- Political
Index
- URL: http://www.politicalindex.com/
This site comes very
close to being a one-stop shopping center for
political
information. They have information on political activists,
local
political organizations, state initiatives and referenda, and
political
news sources. A community network could link to them for one
type of
civic information.
- Teledemocracy Action News
Network
- URL:
http://www.duc.auburn.edu/~tann/
This is a project from Auburn
University's Political Science
Department. They are interested in using
all forms of new media to aid
citizens in
having a direct influence on the political process. At the
moment, the
most significant part of the site is their e-zine. The most
recent issue
(no publication information given) includes updates on an
assortment of
projects, book reviews, and two art icles.
- Voting by
Phone Foundation
- URL: http://www.sni.net/v/index.html
This organization supports
the idea of direct democracy - citizens being
more involved in political
decisi on making through referenda and
initiatives, as in Switzerland.
Voting on these new ballots would be
conducted over the phone to make
them more cost effective, more secure,
and easier on the environment than
everyone driving to the polls. The
site off ers a large collection of
articles on the issues of phone voting
and direct democracy. Some of the
articles are listed in
the guide.
- Votelink HomePage
- URL: http://www.v otelink.com/ns/index.htm
On-line voting is the
subject of this site.
Votelink has set up several questions and the
software to let people vote
on them. The questions change weekly. The
results are reported to the
media. They have also set up forums , however
the few I looked at are not
active. If the questions change frequently,
what good does it do to start
a discussion - it wouldn't have time to
develop. They do offer their
software for in-house voting
and suggest
that it could be used in comm unity building exercises.
Return to Table of Contents
- Alabama Constitution
Project
- URL: http://www.auburn.ed u/alacon.html
This project
is trying to build a sense of community among the people
of Alabama by
facilitating discussions and meetings about the proposed
constitutional
changes. They have had one mass "town" meeting which is
available on
video. Th ey have set up an e-mail discussion list for future
discussions.
- Community
Networks and
Electronic Democracy: A User's Guide
- URL:
http://www.essential.org/cac/commnet.htm l
The first 2 pages of this
article are the most useful. The guide
describes possible content that
could be provided by different agencies
in the community. For example,
libraries could set up a system to let
users order books from home, or
the pol ice could let users report
suspicious activity on-line. It also
gives a simple description of a
community network and types of services
usually included. The authors
point out that no two community networks
will be the same because they
reflect the co mmunity in which they are
developed.
- Democracy
and the
Internet Workgroup
- URL:
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/eumansky/net.dem.html
This is a project
located at, but not sponsored by,
the University of
Pennsylvania. The most interesting part of this site
is their ideas on
how to use the internet to enable political
activism.
- E-Democracy
- URL:
http://freenet.msp.mn.u s/govt/e-democracy/
This site is on the
TwinCities (Minnesota) Free-net. It is designed
to increase citizen
participation in elections by providing forums for
discussion of issues
and by making available on-line collections of
political information
(candidate profiles, representatives' voting
records,etc.)
- Interactive Democracy - We've
Got
the Power: Skills for Democracy
- URL:
http://informns.k12.mn.us/id/
This site is a great example of how the
web can be used in civic
education in a community. This site is based on
a curriculum guide
developed by the Minnesota League of Women Voters for
high school
students. Two television broadcasts on the subject were also
available
during the sch ool year. The site also has pointers to internet
based
resources such as the Minnesota E-Democracy project and a variety
of
electronic surveys. There is an option for the students to participate
in
on-line forums and surveys. The curriculum guide cover s topics such
as
expressing values and beliefs, guaranteeing rights in the community,
and
how to make a difference in the community.
- List of
Non-Partisan Organizations
- URL :
http://refserver.lib.vt.edu/stemmer/lpssnonpart.html
This is a list of
non-partisan political organizations that a community
network might want
to
contact for materials or include links to their pages so users can see
their content. They are exam ples of civic educational
materials.
- Make
YOUR Mark
on the School Board
- URL:
http://www.charweb.org/welcome/edproj/edindex.html
This is a joint
project sponsored by Charlotte -Mecklenburg Education
Foundation, The
Charlotte Observer, and The Public Library of Charlotte and
Mecklenburg
County. It was set up to help citizens become more informed
about
upcoming changes in their local school board. The site provides
background
information such as an article on what makes a good school
board member,
a list of candidates, a list with details of important
issues in the
election.
- Political
Participation Project from MIT
- URL:
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/ppp/home.html
This project attempts to
understand how computer networks are
affecting political participation in
the United States,
both traditional (campaigning and voting) and
electronic
(e-mail let ters and online petitions)
- Rothman, David,
The
Electronic
Citizen: How to Speak Out and Organize on the Internet
- URL:
http://www.clark.net/pub/rothman/citizen.htm
This is an exam ple of
electronic activism. Many of the ideas in this book
could be used as
civic education projects or to help organize activist
groups on the
community network. The first 5 chapters of the book are
currently (as of
7/96) on-line.
- VoxPop
- URL: http://www.voxpop.org/
This
is another site containing information for political activists on
the
net. Its the kind of site a community network might want to study as
an
example of on-line voting and civic e ducation.
Return to Table of Contents
-
Campaigns
enter world of the Web
- URL:
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/mtech072.htm
From USA Today
on-line edition, 6/30/96. The author describes that
national level
political candidates believe that they must have a web
presence o r be
considered out of touch with technology. However, the
candidates and
their campaign staffs are not sure what they should be
getting from their
web pages. They are learning what content attracts
users and, more
importantly, what content will change
a viewer into a
voter for that candidate. These same problems may face
community networks
as they try to determine what combination of political
information and services increase political awareness and
participation.
- Danish, P aul,
Here's Why I am In Favor of
Voting
by Phone, 1993.
- URL:
http://www.sni.net/v/danish.htm
From
the Colorado Daily 10/29/93. The
article is made available by the Voting
by Phone Foundation. This
short editorial, written by a former Boulder
city councilman, presents
the author's reasons for supporting a proposal
to allow Boulder residents
to vote by telephone. His main reasons included
that he was certain phone
voting could be done without fraud and would be
private, that it would not
open voters up to any more coercion than voting
at polls does, and that
impulse voting could be controlled by either
limiting voting to a single
day or by allowing voters to change their
votes up to the time the pol ls
closed.
- Democracy
and Technology: E-lectioneering
- URL:
http://unpsun3.cc.unp.ac.za/UNPDepartments/politics/econom.htm
This is
an article from The Economist,
June 17th 1995, pp 21-23. The
author presents several ideas about how
electronic mail and on-line
participation in surveys could affect
political participation. He discusses
problems he foresees if surveys take
place with out discussion of
issues. The
new media makes it much easier for
lobbyists to do their job because
mobilizing voters to contact their
officials
is much easier and cheaper
to do electronically than the old fashioned
way. He then looks at a
project that he suggests might be a more
positive way to use electronic
communications media - the California
Voter project. (see above)
- Electronic
Democracy
- URL: http://www.well.net/mwec/political/288.
html
From The Millenium Whole Earth Catalog. (see
above) The
author stresses the
benefits of the many-to-many
political communication possible over the
internet. It creates a more
democratic political atmostphere by enabling
in dividual people to bring
an issue to the public's attention, by
enabling candidates and citizens
both to place issue content out for the
public.
- Few
Politicians
Know What to Do With the
Internet
- URL:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/tech/mtech070.htm
From USA Today on-line
edition, 4/15/96. This article predicts
positive and negative effects
that the Internet might have on campaigns
in the future. For example, a
candidate wil l be able to use the Internet
to reach a broad audience at a
much lower per voter cost than with
traditional means. They will also be
able to present materials targeted
to very specific groups, again at a
lower cost.
- Needham, Brian, A Better
Way to Vote: Why letting the
people themselves take the decisions is the
logical next step for the
West
- URL: http://www.sni.net/v/economis.htm
From The
Economist 9/11/93. This article, too, is made ava ilable by the
Voting by
Phone Foundation. This is a review of the ideas of
direct democracy. The
author reviews the Swiss system of referenda and
initiatives as an
example of successful direct democracy. The issues
covered by the ballot
issues are com plex and varied but the voters seem
able to handle
them.
- Political
Sites
Largely Unseen
- URL:
http://www.usatoday.com/money/tech/mtech073.htm
From USA Today on-line
edition, 4/ 15/96. Very brief article
indicating that the current crop of
political candidate web pages are not
effective. Few viewers have been
convinced to vote for the candidate by
the pages' content. Instead, they
find pages provided by a wide variety
of news
media to be more useful. This is an interesting finding for
community
networks that have civic education as a goal. They may want to
highlight
their links to political news sites. They may also want to
press
candidates to give more factual information
and less campaign hype.
- Reply to the
Economist - from the Direct Democracy Party
- URL:
http://www.bigmagic.com/pages/ddp/econ.htm
The Direct Democracy Party
describes several basic
errors in the article
in the Economist, annotated above. This article
says that the
Economist writer was too optimistic - the possibility of
the
government providing everyone with computer terminals for
electronic
voting is negligible because of the cost. And any direct
democracy that
disenfranchises people without computer
access is not democracy. The
party says that instead of focusing on
computers, direct democracy in the
United States can come about by
using television and radio, appliances f
ound in the vast majority
of homes. Everyone can hear the same debates
and issue information.
Voting could be done via publically accesible ATM
type voting
machines. The party estimates that approximately 260,000
would be
needed - and they could be pr ovided at a much lower cost than
providing computers for individual families.
- Schwartz, Evan,
Direct
Democracy: Are you Ready for the Democracy Channel?
-
URL:http://www.hotwired.com/wired/2.01/departments/electrosphere/e.dem.html
From
Wired 2.01, 1995. The author describes several electronic
town meetings.
Some of the experiments have involved issue deliberation
before voting.
Others, such as the me eting convened by Ross Perot show
how the
candidate can manipulate the debate by controlling the types of
questions
asked and their wording.
- Smith, Stephen, Communication
and
Technology: Th e Future of American Democracy,
1984.
- URL:http://cavern.uark.edu/comminfo/ss/1984.html
Speech
given at the Arkansas Union Symposium Lecture Series on 9/19/84.
The
author looks at some of the negative changes produced in national
politics b y the use of more advertising. He suggests that reform of the
political system might be necessary to overcome those changes. For
exmaple, he proposes a technological response to create a direct
democracy - give everyone
the computer hardware necessary
to become informed on issues and let the
people vote electronically.
- Warren, Jim and Howard Rheingold, Campaign
Tools - Computers and the FaxModem
- URL: http://www.well.ne
t/mwec/political/289.tools.html#fax
Short article from the on-line
version of the Millenium Whole Earth
Catalog. (see
above) The authors describe how local news
that needs to be
disseminated quickly
can be spread throughout a co mmunity with a network
of faxes and
low-cost copiers. This low-cost communication network can be
used to
alert people in the community to the need for quick political
action.
- Wright, Robert,
HyperDemocracy:
Washington isn't dangerously disconnected from the
people; the trouble may
be it's too plugged in, 1995.
- URL:
http://pathfinder.com/@@nbfq@gUAn@fh5FKv/time/magazine/domestic/1995
/950123/950123.cover.html
From the on-line version of Time Magazine,
1/23/95. In the
author's opinion, Congress is already too connected to
special interest
groups, and lobbyists. Any hint of a cut in a benefit to
a special
interest results in an o rchestrated outcry and a flood of mail
from
citizens contacted electronically - over television or talk radio,
fax
and phone trees and more lately, e-mail and web pages. All these
orchestrated communications with Congress are motivated by individual
i
nterests instead of concern for the nation as a whole.
Return to Table of Contents
- Aikens, Scott and E rna Koch, Building
Democracy On-line, 1996.
- URL:
http://www.december.com/cmc/mag/1996/apr/aikens.html
This article from
the April, 1996 issue of CMC Magazine points out that
mos t current
political discussion is not democratic - it is, instead,
controlled by
the existing political institutions. A change in those
institutions and
in the types of media available for political
conversations need to occur
before discussions can be
"democratic". The
authors propose that aspects of computer mediated
communications could
support democratic communication because it enables
many-to-many
discussions instead of one (the existing power structure)
broadcasting to
the masses. By way of example, they discuss the positive
possible effects
of the Minnesota E-Democracy project, effects that
include a leveling of
the playing field for all discussants and better
access to information
for issue-based discussions. They see some
disadvantages
to the project -
the audience is not universal at the moment and access
to this particular
project is not freely available.
- Bonchek,
Mark, Grassroots in
Cyberspace, 1995.
- U RL:
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/ppp/pubs/95-2-2.html
This paper was
presented by the director of the Political Participation
Project (a MIT
project) at the annual Midwest Political Science Association
conference
in April, 1995. Political partici pation is reduced by the
costs of
communication - travel time, access to necessary information,
coordination of many people's schedules, etc. Community networks can
reduce these costs and increase the amount of political participation in
a community b y making terminals available in public places.
-
Bonchek, Mark, From Broadcast
to Netcast: The Internet and the Flow of Political
Information
- URL: http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/
msb/thesis/frame.html
This is Mark's doctoral dissertation finished in
1996.
- Brantley, William, Information,
Coordination, and Persuasion: Using the Internet for Community
Activism
- URL:
http://www.pressroom.com/~wabranty/caim.htm
William Brantley is a
graduate student at George Washington University.
This is a manual he
wrote on how community organizations and activists
can make better use of
the Internet.
- Bonchek, Ma rk, Grassroots in
Cyberspace, 1995.
- URL:
http://www.ai.mit.edu/projects/ppp/pubs/95-2-2.html
This paper was
presented by the director of the Political Participation
Project (a M IT
project) at the annual Midwest Political Science Association
conference
in April, 1995. Political participation is reduced by the
costs of
communication - travel time, access to necessary information,
coordination of many people's schedules, etc. Co mmunity networks can
reduce these costs and increase the amount of political participation in
a community by making terminals available in public places.
-
Bonchek, Mark, From Broadcast
to Netcast: The Internet and the Flow of Political
Information
- URL:
http://www.ai.mit.edu/people/msb/thesis/frame.html
This is Mark's
doctoral dissertation finished in 1996.
- Brantley, William, Information,
Coordination, and Persuasion: Using the Internet for Community
Activism
- URL:
http://www.pressroom.com/~wabranty/caim.htm
William Brantley is a
graduate student at George Washington University.
This is a manual he
wrote on how community organizations and activists
can make better use of
the Internet.
- Computer-Mediated
Communications
Magazine, Specia l
issue
on Government and Democracy On-line, vol. 3 #4, April,
1996.
- Fisher, Bonnie, Michael Margolis and David Resnick, A New
Way of Talking Politics: Democracy on the In ternet, 1994.
- URL:
http://www.eff.org/pub/Activism/E-voting/net_civics.survey
This paper
was presented at the American Political Science Association
annual
meeting on September 1-4, 1994. The authors review many of the
advantages
of using c ommunity networks to facilitate political
participation.
Groups with common interests within the greater community
can more easily
communicate with each other. Ideas can be discussed
asynchronously,
giving participants time to think about others' comme nts
before making
their own. They then review some of the impediments to
using these
community networks, such as lack of economic resources to
purchase the
necessary computer hardware and the lack of technical
skills. They define
5 types of "civic lif e" - mutuality, democratic
bargaining, like-minded
exchanges, technological and
manipulation/domination. These 5 types form
the basis of their survey of
usenet newsgroup and listserv users.
They
discuss some of the problems they faced in conducting an
on-line
survey - this is an important part of the paper for others who
are
considering conducting such research.
- Grossman, Lawrence,
The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in the Information
Age, New York: Penguin Books, 1995.
- Lake, Adam, Direct
Democracy: Is the United States Ready?, 1995.
- URL:
http://info.acm.org/crossroads/xrds1-4/democracy.html
From Crossroads
of the ACM, 5/95. Access to gover nment information can
create part of
the conditions necessary for more direct democracy in the
United States.
New communications methods, such as e-mail and informative
web pages, are
also necessary. The author supports building a high
capacity reliab le
national information infrastructure. He also believes
that education will
decrease the disparity between the technologically
literate and
illiterate. However, he does not say why he believes that
schools in
underdeveloped economic areas, where many of the
technologically
illiterate live, will be able to provide access to
hardware and software.
He does not say why he believes that schools,
institutions created to
support the industrial revolution, will be able
to educate citizens of
information s ocieties.
- Landay, Jerry, The
Electronic
Democracy, 1995
- URL:
http://www.jc.edu/~stevenso/republic.html
This brief article by a
journalism professor emeritus at the University
of Illin ois, emphasizes
that it is not a foregone conclusion that the
internet and computer
networks will create a stronger democracy. There is
the possibility that
the information will be controlled by companies that
own the means of
transmission. This is why
it is necessary for people to
demand that the NII not become profit
driven, so that a wide variety of
opinions and issues can reach a broad
audience.
- London, Scott, Teledemocracy vs.
Deliber ative Democracy: A Comparative Look at Two Models of Public Talk
, 1995.
- URL: http://www.pin.org/~pin/library/tele.html
From
the Journal of Interpersonal Computing and Technology,
Vol 3, No 2, April
1995, pp. 33-55.
A strong democracy requi res public discussion and
freedom to speak
on issues that interest the general public. A large
country,
geographically and in terms of population, such as the United
States,
may be too big to have true public
discussion on national issues.
Instead, the
country needs to make use of
new communications media to connect
citizens to each other and to their
elected officials, and to make
government accountable to citizens. The
author lists many benefits from
teledemocracy, including the ability to have
m ore plebiscites to
increase political participation and the capacity of
electronic media to
function as an instant opinion poll for politicians.
He also lists the
major criticisms of teledemocracy, which include the
fact that instant
opinion polls don' t allow for discussion and periods of
reflection.
In deliberative democracy, there are on-going discussions among
citizens
that help set the range of
issues with which the government
will deal. He lists both the main
features of and the basic
ob jections
to deliberative democracy. The features include the fact that
people will
often change their personal opinions after reasoned
thoughtful pubic
debate on an issue and it gives people an opportunity to
see that others
in the discussion are willi ng to trade individual
benefits for community
benefits before they themselves have to make such
commitments. Objections
include the lack of recognition for the role of
intuition in political
decision making and the fear of "group think"
influenced dec ision making
when people do not want to rock the boat or
contradict a perceived
expert.
- Ronfeldt, David, Cyberocracy,
1992.
- URL: gopher://gopher.well.sf.ca.us/00/whole
_systems/cyberocracy
This article was originally published in the
journal The Information
Society, vol. 8, no. 4, 1992, pp. 243-296. Notice
- this is a long document,
about 215K - 54 pages. This is what the author
calls a "think piece", not
a repor t of research. The author defines
cyberocracy as the rule by way of
information. Like any rule, it has the
possibility of being positive or
negative (or some combination).
Cyberocracy may differ from bureaucracy
in it emphasis on gaining
information fro m any source possible instead
of on controlling access to
information. New types of hardware and
software are necessary. People
need to be able to "see" their data -
graphs, charts, movies, 3-d
renderings. Digital libraries of historical
and current i nformation need
to be available to support issue discussions
and political decisions. The
optimism that technology can further
democratic developments in a country
come from 3 beliefs that the author
describes - the spread of
communications technology makes it more and
more difficult for any one
group to control discussion on political
issues, the increased
communication capacity makes it easier for marginal
groups in the society
to participate, open more democratic socieites are
more capable of us ing
these new technologies. He devotes a section of the
paper to the possible
negative effects of new communications technology -
increased
fragmentation of society into special interest groups that do
not
identify with society as a whole, greater stra tification of society
because of the introduction of technology, and decreased privacy with the
spread of private data being made public.
- Sclove, Richard, Review of and
excerpts from Democracy and Technology, 1995.
- URL:
http://www.amherst.edu/~loka/sclove/comment2.htm
This book was
published in 1995 and this site includes the table of contents
and
chapter 1, and a section on the limitations of virtual communit ies.
First, computer mediated communications are stripped of nuance and
emotion that in face to face conversations is conveyed with gestures and
tone of voice. Computer conversations are likely to be less engaging
than real life conversations. Compute r use promotes passivity and
withdrawal from the larger community. Another objection is that
people
can leave a virtual community instantly and without being noticed
leaving. This makes it hard to establish long term virtual relationships
or to build the trust necessary for rich conversations. Virtual
communities must not be an escape that makes it possible for a user to
avoid dealing with problems in the local community.
- Voorburg,
Rene, Debating
Democracy: on information and communication technology and
democracy
, 1995
- URL:
http://napa.diva.nl/~voorburg/democracy.html
This is a master's
thesis, written in May, 1995, by a student in the
Netherlands. I do not
see a school n ame mentioned. The topic was sparked
by a discussion in
the Netherlands of a bill proposed by the Dutch
Department of the
Interior. The research was conducted on The Digital
City (a virtual
community in the Netherlands) - discussions on the bill
and o n the
subject of democracy (direct vs. indirect, participative vs.
representational) were examined. He concluded that technology has a
definite impact on the development of democracy and so it should not be
developed and applied without consideration f rom many concerned
parties.
Return to Table of
Contents
- Davis, Marilyn,
Testimony before House Subcommittee on
Elections 9/21/94
- URL:
http://www.cyberstation.net/~meme/cman/z/evotespeech.html
The author
is lobbying for electronic voting, which she believes is
possible now
because of th e advances in encryption. She describes several
ways that
it might be done, including using local BBSs in a loosely
distributed
system. These local systems would rely on the local operator
to safeguard
the information but recounts would be easier to do
without
fear of tampering. The author is president of a company that
distributes
software called eVote. She describes the capabilities of this
software,
especially its Vote Clerk section to the members of the
committee. She
would like to see many vot es taken, many more than today,
to create a
more direct version of democracy.
- Gordon, Mildred,
Intentional
Communities as Laboratories for Learning about Direct
Democracy
- URL: http://www.well.com/user/cmty/fic/cdir/art/24gordon.html
The
author describes her
experiences in participatory democracy in an
intentional community
- an on-line community based in New York. She
details some of the group's
findings. For a d irect participatory
democracy to succeed it needs all
the people to be involved, to be as
fully informed as possible about all
the issues - not just on objective
facts but also the opinions of
different factions. The information
available to the member s of the
community needs to be accurate and up to
date. People need to be open to
new explanations - they should not see
discussions as meaningless time
wasters or as a competition. People have
to learn how to communicate
effectively and, just as impo rtant, how to
respond non-emotionally to
others' comments. She indicates that the
hardest thing for a community to
do is to maintain a high level of
willingness to participate.
- Lanphier, Robert, A
Model
for Direct Democracy
- URL:
http://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HyperNews/get/Free/26.html
This is one
man's personal ideas about direct democracy offered on a
public
discussion board. He proposes a mix of direct and representat ive
democracy. General elections would still be used to elect officials to
representative bodies. Public elections would give everyone a vote on
what he calls "mundane" things - holiday declarations, budgets and minor
bills; you could either vote your self in these new public elections or
nominate someone to represent your vote, as in a proxy that a shareholder
gives to the board of directors in a corporation.
- Mazmanian,
Daniel
Benton Foundation Working Paper #8: Issues in
Telecommunications and
Democracy
- URL:
http://www.benton.org/cgi-bin/lite/Catalog/Working8/working8.html
This
report contains a section entitled "The Implications of Electronic
Commun
ications for Democracy", which is most directly related to the
subject of
the guide. Computer networks can be used to support new
political
leaders from groups not currently represented in government.
These
networks can also support informed conversat ions on political
issues so
voters are better able to choose from among candidates. These
conversations can bring new agenda items to politicians. More importantly
these conversations can help a community develop a consciousness of being
a community. The paper is a positive assessment of the possibilities of
using technology to strenghten the American political system by
increasing participation in the governing process.
-
Project
Democracy Workbook
- URL:
http://www.transport.com/~pin/projdemo/workbook.html
This workbook was
designed by the Project Democracy to help communities,
interested groups
of citizens, students, etc., become "reconnected to the
political process
" by helping them think about existing political
institutions and how
they might be made stronger. The workbook is built
aroung three
strategies - challenging engagement, creating meaning, and
educating for
effective citizenship. Within each chapter th ere are
activities and
readings to help spur discussion and reflection on current
local
situations. This workbook might be a good tool for a community to
use as
they try to increase their sense of community. A community network
could
sponsor on-line d iscussions about the issues, provide resources for
further reading. Most importantly, community networks need to consider
these strategies in their own governing bodies so that they are run
democratically.
- Lanphier, Robert, A
Model for Direct
Democracy
- URL:
http://union.ncsa.uiuc.edu/HyperNews/get/Free/26.html
This is one
man's personal ideas about direct democracy offered on a
public
discussion board. He proposes a
mix of direct and representative
democracy. General elections would
still be used to elect officials to
representative bodies. Public
elections would give everyone a vote on
what he calls "mundane" things -
holiday declarations, budgets and minor
bil ls; you could either vote
yourself in these new public elections or
nominate someone to represent
your vote, as in a proxy that a shareholder
gives to the board of
directors in a corporation.
- Mazmanian, Daniel
Benton Foundation Working Paper
#8: Issues in Telecommunications and
Democracy
- URL:
http://www.benton.org/cgi-bin/lite/Catalog/Working8/working8.html
This
report contains a section entitled "The Impl ications of Electronic
Communications for Democracy", which is most directly related to the
subject of the guide. Computer networks can be used to support new
political leaders from groups not currently represented in government.
These networks can a lso support informed conversations on political
issues so voters are better able to choose from among candidates. These
conversations can bring new agenda items to politicians. More importantly
these conversations can help a community develop a conscio usness of
being
a community. The paper is a positive assessment of the
possibilities of
using technology to strenghten the American political
system by
increasing participation in the governing process.
-
Project
Democracy Workbook
- URL:
http://www.transport.com/~pin/projdemo/workbook.html
This workbook was
designed by the Project Democracy to help communities,
interested groups
of citizens, students, etc., become "reconne cted to the
political
process" by helping them think about existing political
institutions and
how they might be made stronger. The workbook is built
aroung three
strategies - challenging engagement, creating meaning, and
educating for
effective citiz enship. Within each chapter there are
activities and
readings to help spur discussion and reflection on current
local
situations. This workbook might be a good tool for a community to
use as
they try to increase their sense of community. A community ne twork
could
sponsor on-line discussions about the issues, provide resources for
further reading. Most importantly, community networks need to consider
these strategies in their own governing bodies so that they are run
democratically.
-
Telecommunications
and Democracy - Communications Policy Briefing #4
- URL:
http://www.cdinet.com/Benton/Catalog/Brief4/brief4.html
The author
describe some goals of ongoing electronic democracy
projects - informing
citizens so they can make better decisions,
making it possible for more
citizens to fit political deliberations into
their schedules, giving
voters enough information for them to hold
their elected officials
accountable for decisions, making it possible for
common citizens to be
advocates for an idea by bringing together
geographically dispersed
communities of interest and by helping them wage
campaigns. The author
then reviews some lessons that have been learned
fro m these on-going
projects. Community networks need to be developed by
and available to a
large number of people in the community with access
provided by terminals
in many kinds of public spaces. Some politicians
want to control the
conversation, often with a democratic veneer, but
with a very different
outcome. Networks need to be alert so that they do
not support that kind
of activity. Conversations can be modeled so that
people with weak public
skills can see how to carry on a productive
dialogue . This reduces the
amount of discord on the network and raises
the usefulness of
conversations for all involved. Partnerships need to
be fostered with
local business, with cable and phone companies, and with
local businesses
- to bring on new users and
to increase the
possibility of receiving a steady flow of funding. One
of the more
important lessons is that community networks need to spread
information
about what works so that other communities will be able to
benefit from
the experience when the y start their own networks. The
article ends with
an assessment of what types of action are needed now to
take advantage of
the interest in community networks.
Return to Table of Contents
- Bibliography of
Political Uses of the Internet
- URL:
http://www.ai.mit.edu:80/projects/ppp/bi blio.html
From the Political
Participation Project from MIT
- My
Bibliography of Print Resources used
in this project
- URL:
http://ezinfo.ucs.indiana.edu/~kgregson/teledem_biblio.html
I created
this bibli ography of print resources to make the guide as
complete as
possible. These works contain much of the background
reading that I did
as I began looking for the big questions in the field.
Most of the
entries have not yet been annotated. These will be ad ded in
the
future.
- Electronic
Democracy
- An Annotated Bibliograpphy
- URL:
http://www.west.net/~insight/london/bibl.htm
This report was created
3/94 as part of a background study f or the
Kettering Foundation by Scott
London on the democratic potential of new
technology.
It is broken down
into 6 categories: Politics and Technology,
Electronic Town Meetings,
Ross Perot and the `Electronic Town Hall',
Interactive Television, Comp
uter Networking, Technology, Polls, and
Public Opinion. It combines
books, journal articles, and items from the
popular press.
- Bibliography:
Democracy &
the Internet
- URL: http://www.alban y.net/~fioril/bib.html
This
bibliography is a mixed bag with some books on democractic theory,
others
just about the Internet. Only a few are specifically about
electronic
democracy.
Return to Table of
Contents