Profound Heterogeneity

0 It is perhaps easy to see how these institutions are being transformed by the change to a digital network. And while not everyone would agree with the supposition that this change will be a heterogenous one, at this point there is little legitimate doubt that some sort of transformation is taking place. However I think it is important to look beyond these knowledge institutions, to others which were equally, if not as obviously shaped by printing press culture and the librocentric values developed during the Gutenberg Parenthesis. In this regard I think one institution that has yet to be fully considered in this regard is democracy, or more precisely, our contemporary view of democracy. What does democracy multiplied by hyperconnectivity, multiplied by terabytes of data, multiplied by a hyperbolic rate of change look like?

0 It is perhaps difficult to see why I would argue that democracy ought to be considered in the same category as museums, libraries, and universities. Admittedly it seems rather peculiar to group these together. However, like these other institutions, democracy, in particular liberalism and representative democracy, developed as a cultural institution during the Gutenberg Parentheses, and many of the ways we frame and discuss democracy are inseparable from the institutions of print culture. Perhaps the most prominent connection, and indeed an important one, is by way of Habermas, who demonstrates how print culture was crucial to the rise of a public sphere, a fundamental development for liberal democracies and the rise of nation-states. But beyond a changing notion of the public sphere, the current transformation should also cause us to rethink other foundational principles of liberal representative democracy: political subjectivity, the sovereignty of the nation-state, communities established on consensus, etc. And, I think on the whole, once we understand that it is not just a matter of seeing the digital network as a tool which hinders or hurts democracy, but rather as something which by transforming the way that knowledge and information circulates, fundamentally alters the way we understand political interaction.

0 It has become a somewhat standard intro to writing on the internet and the future of governance to revisit the debates of the 1990s and mock, if only a little, both the cyberutopianism and distopianism that characterizes the discourse of that time. Contemporary critiques are quick to point out that many in the 1990s prophesied the end of history, or at least the beginning of the end of history, which increasingly broad access to the internet would bring about. Such utopic dreams, it is often pointed out, were based on the hope that the internet would foster a universal public, or perhaps more accurately a universal public sphere, whereby all citizens would have access not only to new levels of information but to new levels of participation, particularly participation in how the information would be used to govern. In the 1990s it was all too easy, for some, to believe that the mere existence of a networked information architecture would lead to a global government reformation, in which oppressive regimes would be replaced by democracies and existing democratic republics would be further strengthened as their citizens took to the World Wide Web. But, as the more contemporary literature is quick to point out, the rise of the digital network did not really live up to this hope: no universal egalitarian ideal democracy developed from the internet.

0 But again, as is often noted in contemporary debate, not all early writings on the digital network believed in such utopic dreams. Indeed, the utopic visions were often equally matched by some who prophesied the end of civilization, brought about by the network. For these critics the digital network did not represent a boon for democracy but rather served as a substantial impediment to the advancement of a humanist agenda. In these visions the network either replaced human to human interaction with machine based transactions, or worse the network turned into a nightmarish version of Big Brother enabling governments unprecedented control and ability to manipulate its citizens. And again, as with the utopian rhetoric, recent writing on this question is quick to point out that the internet has not led to the downfall of civilization or the end of democratic societies.

0 It has become standard fare to position oneself between these two positions, arguing that both the utopians and distopians had it wrong, that the rise of the digital networked culture has neither fulfilled the utopian vision nor led to our collective destruction. There is still a debate—is the digital network socially positive or socially destructive?—but this debate is no longer characterized by a clustering of critics at the poles of the issue; the discourse has become more of a spectrum. To characterize broadly, the debate is no longer about doom and gloom or sunshine and rainbows, but rather about particular causes, and particular effects of the digital network. It would be difficult to find someone who applies the label utopian or dystopian to him or herself. (To be sure, there are still some critics, such as Nicholas Carr, warning that the internet is destroying our humanity, or at least destroying our ability to perform deep reading and thus critically think about our humanity—Google Makes us “Stoopid”—but for the most part these types of voices are the exception rather than the rule, even if they receive a substantial amount of attention based on their hyperbolic claims, fun for the evening news.) It is fair to say that we have moved away from the 1990s discourse of internet as savior or harbinger of doom towards a more nuanced understanding of how the digital network will effect our culture and specifically how it affects our political culture. (It is instructive to note how quickly we have moved from a understandable, yet reactionary debate, to more carefully parsed responses, the speed being indicative of the medium being discussed.)

0 After the digital rhetoric of the 1990s it is a good idea to approach any propositions about the digital transformation with a high degree of skepticism. The promise of the internet to deliver democracy and free speech to the world, Robert Murdoch’s claim that the internet is “an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere,” clearly has yet to be realized. Indeed the once seemingly wide open and lawless space which John Perry Barlow described as “a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth . . . . a world where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity. . . .may it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before,” appears to be a hope of the past. The internet, as many have observed, is becoming increasingly dominated by corporate interests with the heaviest traffic belonging to corporate entities such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, and Microsoft. And even worse, the statistics on political involvement are disturbing—only 15% of adults have contributed to blogs or online political discussions—and become even worse when one looks into economic factors: 35% of American adults whose incomes are over $100,000 regularly use the internet for political activities, but only 8% of adults with incomes under $20,000 do (Pew). Increasingly, internet users respond that their primary activity online is social networking, gaming, and entertainment. What is more, governments (both authoritarian and democratic) having witnessed some early success stories of network communication enabling “dissidents” to become increasingly engaged via the internet have moved to regulate and control the digital network. In many respects governments have been successful in controlling citizen access to networked information, from regulating access to specific sites, to passing laws which require internet providers to regulate speech, and to growing legislation which limits the ability of anonymous access.

0 But just because the digital network has not brought about the realization of a democratic utopia it does not necessarily mean that it has failed to affect politics and even contribute to effecting democracy. It would only be possible to make such an argument by dismissing the effect of the digital network, especially as it transforms our social structure. It is possible to point to numerous examples whereby digital networked structures enabled and aided political action: in 2001 the use of SMS messaging to overthrow a government in the Philippines, the use of Ushahdi in Kenya, the rise of the political blogosphere in the United States. It is clear that the network has transformed the lines of political power. Of course, there are reasons to be cautious about this transformation: the events cited above could just as easily be countered by a list of negative political action, such as the use of social networks in Iran to organize attacks on women, or the fear-mongering web sites of White Supremacy groups within the United States. The digital network is an organization tool that can just as easily be used to organize for oppression as it can be to organize for justice. Tech plus mobs does not equal smart mobs; tech plus mobs equals really dangerous mobs.

0 Perhaps it is the optimist in me, or the side of me that wants to believe in the possibility of positive transformation, but I would characterize my position as guarded, cautious, restricted, optimism. That is, what seems clear to me now is that despite all of its possible negative or positive effects, what the network does create is a moment of transformation where traditional lines of political power are realigned.