Internet, Law & Politics 2007 - User contributions [en]

The Affirmative Argument

2007-05-06T22:26:43Z

Amornchai: /* Transparency and Accountability */

==The Question==

'''"Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world."'''

Quick Link to [[The Negative Argument]]

==The Argument in Favor of the Resolution:==

===Introduction===
Experience has shown that in order for participatory democracy to thrive, there are a number of necessary ingredients that a society must exhibit. Among these are a strong, unbiased, truthful media, fair and balanced elections, a politically engaged citizenry, a citizenry educated on political matters, transparency and accountability, and economic democracy.

It is our contention here that the internet has the capacity to, and in certain circumstances already has, improved the health of participatory democracies along each of these metrics. In other words, as compared to a world without the internet, the world with an internet is more conducive to participatory democracy.

However for the purposes of our argument as presented here the focus will be predominantly on societies that already have some level of participatory democracy. In states where there is in effect no channel for civic participation then it is additionally likely that access to the internet is also likely to be stringently prescribed as for example in the DPRK

Although there are a number of arguments that the internet enhances democracy in a more general sense, our focus here is on the effect the internet has on the power of ''individual citizens'' to influence the political process in a way that, depending on the baseline, either enhances existing democracies or helps bring about new democracies.

===A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media===

Democracy cannot work without abundant, readily available information. (See [[Note 1]]) If leaders, elected or not, are to be held accountable to the wishes of the people, the people must know what the leaders are doing. The privately owned media (defined here very generally as widely available information sources not controlled by the government) has long served as a watchdog of the government, and as the most important supplier of political information to citizens. The internet enhances the power of individual citizens to leverage the reach of traditional media outlets, and also to serve in the watchdog and information spreading roles themselves:
*By aggregating potentially inflammatory or interesting stories, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] raises the likelihood that one of those stories will become viral on the internet, or be noticed by the mainstream media. Therefore, Global Voices gives a lone, otherwise insignificant blogger/activist/witness the power to tell other citizens about an issue in a way that she could not have done before the advent of the internet.
**Assuming leaders know but do not care about the problem (or are causing it themselves) the faster a story becomes salient to a significant portion of the public, the sooner a 'tipping point' will be reached when people demand change in a voice loud enough that leaders must listen. This effect is particularly important in places where democracy does not yet exist. In other words, the ability of individuals to spread subversive news makes democratic revolution more likely, insofar as widespread knowledge of injustice motivates citizens to act.
**Assuming leaders would care about the problem but are unaware, this new ability of individual citizens to put out an alert will result in faster action. It's easier to fix problems while they're still small.
**In countries with a biased media, or a media that is controlled by a corrupt government that limits the freedom of media to tell citizens things the government does not want them to know, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/07/government-minister-suing-bahraini-blogger/ bloggers can fill the gap] in terms of the watchdog and information-spreading functions.
**In places where the media is not biased or controlled, but is ineffective at serving as a watchdog or spreading information because of a lack of resources or poor physical communication channels, the internet allows those media outlets (or individual bloggers) to move information quickly and efficiently to those citizens who have internet access. This effect will be present even in minimally wired countries. As long as there is one wired person in an area, the internet can get the information there despite weather, treacherous topography, war etc, and word of mouth will do the rest. The internet can get information to places that newspapers, mail and even TV cannot. This is of course assuming a basic âinternet infrastructureâ already exists.
*While [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html Shirky's curve] does point out that there are still a few dominant players in the information market in the blogging world, many of these players are individuals. One popular blogger can reach more people than a billion dollar newspaper empire. That's a lot of power for an individual. And it is possible that in a place with corrupt media, the lone blogger will be the ''only'' voice of truth that people can trust, and he'll have enormous power over the political process.
*Even in places with "good" media, the internet still enhances participatory democracy in various ways. For example, bloggers can add nuance to the "sound bite culture" of mainstream media. People who are interested in a story they see on TV can go online to learn more, and bloggers will be there to provide that information. Bloggers can provide detail and analysis that traditional media outlets might not find it profitable to provide. Bloggers can also act as an extension of the editorial pages, including serving as "letters to the editor" that don't get published. If the mainstream media is only providing the facts, the bloggers can provide direction for citizens on how to interpret those facts. For example, bloggers can speculate behind the facts to the possible motivations of the leaders, a topic in which citizens might be greatly interested but don't often get because traditional reporters don't often speculate. (There is a lot of potential for problems and abuse here, as we mentioned in [[Note 1]], but the fact remains that these extra functions online do have the capacity to enhance participatory democracy by enhancing the traditional media functions of supplying information and serving as a watchdog.)
*Blogs may also have potential as a new situs for investigative journalism. Where a "story" is not an existing object to be found but rather the constructed product of large time and energy investments, the internet opens the door for that effort to be distributed across the citizenry. By analogy, see [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ SETI@home].
**The website Talking Points Memo has been following the firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys since well before it hit the front pages. A handful of full-time investigative journalists at "TPM Muckraker" leveraged the time and energy of the blog's readership to go in-depth into the story. The 8 firings were covered in local newspapers and aggregated by readers who reported the stories to the site; readers later sifted through Justice Department documents and reported their findings to TPM. We return to the image of bloggers-in-pajamas, but this time they are cast as a disaggregated, 24-hour news bureau. "Assignment Zero" at Wired Magazine also seeks to leverage this citizen-powered journalism. NPR: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9083501 Talking Points Site Kept Attorneys Story Alive]

===Fair and Balanced Elections===
As a definitional rather than an aspirational matter, true democracy entails elections that are actually decided by the voters, in which the best-suited candidate can rise to the top and be elected.
*The internet makes it possible for an outsider or a fringe-party candidate to spread his message, even if he starts at a severe handicap because he is not supported by an established political machine or wealthy donors that favor tried-and-true incumbents. Websites and email are basically free, which means that any candidate can spread his message if it's one that people are willing to read.
**For example, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is running for office, and trying to use the internet to harness the grass roots. [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/12/bangladesh-can-the-power-of-one-save-the-nation/ Click here for more]. [http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/12/d7021201085.htm See his open letter here].
*As for the fairness of elections, see the Transparency and Accountability section below.

===Engaged Citizenry===
In a system that is ostensibly run by the people, more engagement by citizens is better. (See [[Note 2]]) The internet can be used to encourage individuals to become more active, and enables those who are active to be more effective.
*Citizens become engaged when they come to believe there is a serious problem that needs addressing. Seeing is believing. The internet enables single witnesses to 'show' everybody else the truth using firsthand accounts via [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/caught-on-camera-human-rights-video-on-gv/ YouTube videos]. Liars, criminals, bullies and tyrants lose plausible deniability when everybody ''sees'' them committing their crimes. The citizenry then mobilizes against what they now believe is a violation of rights. That was not as easy before the internet. But even then it was extremely powerful (e.g. Rodney King [http://www.multishow.com.ar/rodneyking/ video] and the incredible public reaction to a perceived injustice in the form of the Los Angeles riots). That effect is magnified with the internet.
*The internet enables individual activists to become super-activists. (see Palfrey's "classical and jazz" argument, that the internet enables people to do better what they were otherwise doing.) Those who were already engaged are able to reach more people and spread their message more effectively using blogs, email lists etc. What could have only been done by a huge organization can now be done by one highly motivated individual.
*The internet enables far-flung individuals to combine on big projects (for example, [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Seti@home]) which, because so many people have a vested interest in them, become accurate and popular. As Wikipedia has done for the world of encyclopedias, so a political communal project could become a 'public forum' on the internet where everybody can participate in the political debate. Even non-elite citizens can participate in this kind of forum, taking the power and focus away from the few talking heads that have heretofore dominated political discourse.
**The content of blogs and the links they provide tend to take one side of a particular issue. Any given blog has a tendency to reinforce the preconceived notions of its regular readers. But a centralized wiki is a place where all sides of an issue could focus and make sure that all nuances of every issue are presented truthfully and completely. It could be a great resource for others to become educated on the issues.
**A wiki would also provide a forum for people who want to be engaged on a small scale; one might not have enough to say to warrant a blog, but has one small argument or a few facts that could be added to a wiki.
*The blogosphere as a whole (as opposed to individual blogs) already acts as a 'public forum' on the internet for some issues and in some places. There are communities of bloggers that discuss particular issues in conversation with each other, in a way that millions of people can read and comment. So, those who are engaged enough to say something to the public have a place to do so.
**However, 'blogosphere as public forum' is less effective than it could be because bloggers tend not to present the opinions of their opponents or link to opposing arguments. So the conversations tend to be one-sided. Whereas the editorial pages of newspapers or radio call-in programs or physical public fora like public parks enabled both sides of an issue to be heard, the blogosphere doesn't always operate like that.
*The internet greases the wheels of political activity by otherwise un-engaged citizens. For example, there might be voters who are unwilling to walk door to door to campaign, but are happy to send emails to their friends. Or they might be unwilling to go to the effort to stamp an envelope to send a donation, but will click on PayPal. Citizens who have a 'day job' no longer have to sacrifice those other activities, because political involvement is so easy and efficient on the internet. Of course the increase in the quantity of political activity does not in and of itself assure an improvement in the quality of that engagement. Traditional political involvement involved real costs to those engaged not merely financial but just as critically their time. In a sense therefore those involved presumably were willing to âpayâ such a price as the issue was worth at least that much to them (cost/benefit analysis). Where the actual cost of engagement is extremely low, that is negligible, as is the case with the internet then there is a risk that some of the engagement may be the result of short term concerns and which are responded to in a greater than proportionate manner simply due to the ease to air oneâs views. However this is a normative issue and it is impractical (if not downright dangerous) for an external party to make interpersonal comparisons of the degrees of concern that different individuals might hold on a particular subject.
**Such low levels of involvement may not seem like much, but when aggregated across (potentially) hundreds of millions of people, it adds up.
**Once such people have been brought into political involvement, they may develop a taste for it, and become more active. They will at least be more motivated to vote, bringing up voter participation numbers.
**Even people at a low level of political engagement may find themselves on email lists (such as the annoyingly active one run by [http://www.moveon.org/ Moveon.org]). While an individual may have initially become involved because of one small issue, they may be exposed to other interesting issues in these emails, and might become further involved. (see [http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.html Sunstein's argument] about the need for a common space where people will be exposed to new ideas. Email lists can serve this function).
*The very structure of the internet means that it's unlikely there will ever be any sort of centralized control structure. Instead, individual members of the community that might have ''wanted'' to be involved before, but were afraid, are now emboldened to generate input more openly. They may feel more comfortable to expose their political ideas on the internet â especially if their ideas contradict policies/rules of their current government. Government censorship and surveillance are certainly problematic, but a determined activist can make her thoughts known online with some degree of anonymity in ways that were not possible before the internet.
**It is the tech firms (usually American) that enable government censorship and surveillance online. While there are other ways to unclog the channels of information in repressive regimes such as [http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-4780 GOFA] and the Voluntary Principles (no link provided due to confidentiality), the most interesting thing about the internet is that because of its structure, this type of government or corporate intervention is helpful but not necessary. Whereas there is not much an individual could do about government censorship of a TV station or newspaper, the internet enables "user-innovators" like MIT's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Richard Stallman] to develop and disseminate software that prevents/thwarts government attempts to control political thought online. (See Eric von Hippel's book [http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm "Democratizing Innovation"] for more on the phenomenon of user-innovation.) Without the internet, anti-establishment individuals would not have as much power to unclog the channels of political discussion. Interestingly, China has adopted the GNU Linux operating system, leaving their filtering and surveillance vulnerable to individual subversive action. The recent censoring of certain websites in Thailand was achieved through the main gateway into Thailand which is CAT (Communications Authority of Thailand). Although initially both CAT and the Ministry for Information and communications technology (a government ministry) initially denied that censorship was taking place blaming each other for the âdifficultyâ to gain access to You Tube, amongst others, it quickly became apparent that they were acting collaboratively.
*While it is hard to break into the club of top bloggers [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html described by Shirky], people do. There is a much more active revolving door in the blogging world than in traditional media. All the individuals in the long tail of Shirky's curve have an incentive to educate themselves on political matters and get involved, in hopes that they'll be the one to have the power of the big bloggers. In the physical world, there is a slim chance that any given person will end up owning a media empire. But online, anybody could become the next Andrew Sullivan or Wonkette or Daily Kos. So, the internet provides a space where the dream of hitting the big time is realistic. And even those that don't make it will be more engaged in the political process in hopes of hitting it big. On balance, it's better to have more people paying attention to politics and honing their argumentation skills.
*If voting can be done through the internet, the number of voters will increase greatly since people tend not to go to cast their vote at the designated poll if it inconveniences them to travel there. But if people can log on and vote from their office, they are far more likely to do so. This does also however go to the matter of frequency of voting. If an entire electorate has easy access to be online should therefore critical issues be placed before them for their on a regular basis for voting on? thereby reducing the legislative bodyâs position as being a representative institution that is empowered to enact legislation on behalf of the population as a whole. The risk is that whilst elected officials will presumably have access to all relevant information and be able to make a decision based on long term matters, individuals who are not privy to such intelligence and who might be more myopic and self serving may in fact reach non optimal decisions.

===Educated Citizenry===
In a system where citizens are running the country, its important that they know what they're talking about. The most obvious advantage of the internet is its ability to quickly and cheaply educate citizens about political matters.
*Even in countries where the government tries to restrict the educational function of the internet through censorship and filtering, individuals can [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/access-flickr-iran/ circumvent those controls], enabling other citizens to be educated about things the incumbent government doesn't want them to know. The cycle of government repression and citizen circumvention is a tit-for-tat that would have never been possible before the internet. Before, the secret police had only to destroy the printing press, and that put a stop to the production of subversive educational materials in that place. The ability of individual hackers to disable government censorship is an enormous power that individuals did not have before the advent of the internet.
*Even as China and other countries try to "let in the light while keeping out the flies", a few flies are getting in. It only takes a little bit of information in the hands of the right people to get other people talking, breed discontent, and cause change. A little education goes a long way. The [http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/rebel.html photo] of the unknown rebel in Tienanmen Square is an example of a small bit of information that could have a profound effect on a political regime if it were widely seen and its significance discussed.
*As we discussed in class on February 13, perhaps the most effective way to campaign for a cause is by word of mouth. Individuals with Live Journals are able to "speak to" and perhaps educate friends and family all the way across the country, or around the world. That kind of discourse is important for a democracy. We may never know whether or how it changes votes, but it's good that people are discussing political issues. Again, a little bit of education is better than none, and can have a profound effect in the hands of the right people.
**Even if votes aren't changed in the short term, the development of this inter-personal discourse online helps lay a foundation for a time when it may matter more. For example, if a big event happens, there will already be a network of inter-connected bloggers and their readers in place to get the "real" story out, mouth to mouth, in a way that people trust. And it will be a tool for mobilizing people to demand change.
*The country/world is a lot smaller than it was before the internet. Before the internet, one might have theoretically cared that control of the government came down to one close senate race in Virginia, but one might not have ''known'' about it. And even if one knew, there was not much you could do about it on the afternoon of November 7 if one was in Oregon. But now, people can educate a huge amount of interested people very quickly. And in turn, those people can become involved by sending money, VOIPing people in that area encouraging them to vote etc. The internet allows the whole country to participate in what used to be purely 'local' elections by educating people that those elections are important.
*The internet makes it easy to find information online. From the Pew survey, it seems that people are relying more on the internet as their source of political information [http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Politics_2006.pdf]

===Transparency and Accountability===
*Any individual who happens to know the truth can break the story. The major networks can no longer act as bottlenecks to stop important stories from getting out there (if the networks are in bed with the interested parties). For example, Senator Allen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7gq7GQ71c macaca comment] is said to have derailed his campaign because the internet enabled it to be seen by so many people who were outraged by it. There is no evidence to support this, but it is possible that a network might overlook something like that in hopes of garnering favor with a candidate, but could be pressured into making it a big deal by the tidal wave of interest online.
*The internet enables extensive and fast fact checking. A person at a town hall with a candidate could have her laptop open and check voting records as the candidate answered a question, and expose the lie right away. Even if this doesn't happen often, candidates will know it ''can'', and will be scared into being more honest and transparent.
*Flip-flopping will be exposed. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI Romney] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI McCain] can't get away with their recent flip-flopping because we have video footage of them holding opposite positions. The internet makes it extremely easy for individuals to expose the lies to others. A potentially valid criticism is that this will further encourage bland uncontroversial opinions only to be expressed in public and that therefore paradoxically the effect may be to reduce the electoratesâ ability to accurately gauge what are in fact the truly held views of candidates and officials.
*Politicians respond to polls. The internet enables much faster and more widespread polling. Individuals can (when aggregated in a poll) have a more efficient way to respond to the decisions of leaders and direct policy.

===Economic Democracy===
*The internet provides jobs (e.g. tech-service in India), access to markets, and an ability to acquire and use capital that leads to the emergence of a stronger middle class. People who are not living hand-to-mouth have more leisure to educate themselves, engage in politics, and pressure governments to act in their interests.
*Further the internet reduces the ability of some local suppliers to maintain monopoly power in the market as access to the web allows for the world to become the local market place and enhances consumer sovereignty in the process.

===Examples to Discuss===
The following are some examples from various countries concerning the question of how the internet can enhance citizens participation in politics. Some thoughts for possible arguments are also included.

*'''ePetitions''': [http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open?sort=signers/ In England], British citizens can petition the Prime Minister directly online. This system allows millions of British people to say what they want directly to the government. Today, there are more than 1.5 million signatures only for the "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" petition. (For more examples of countries adopting e-petition, see [http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/ Scotland] and [http://www.zebralog.de/en/000195.html Germany])
*'''eVoting''': Some countries have an election system that allows voters to transmit their ballots over the internet.(See, for example, [http://www.geneve.ch/evoting/english/welcome.asp Geneva eVoting Project])
**Possible Arguments: How can we ensure that the system will support the principle of âone man, one voteâ? Will there be a vote robbery problem (voters might cast their ballot on counterfeit voting sites)? What about the voters' privacy; will their information be revealed?
*'''eRulemaking Initiative'''[http://www.epa.gov/oei/proceedings/2005/pdfs/morales.pdf]: This is an attempt to increase citizen participation and understanding in the rulemaking process by making the process easily accessible via the internet. Citizens have an opportunity to become educated about the current rules and policies and have the ability to participate in the rulemaking process by submitting comments which will improve the quality of the leaders' decision-making processes.
**In the US, there is an eRulemaking Initiative which was launched in January 2003 by the Bush Administration. They established the eRulemaking website - regulations.gov â which allows anyone to read and comment on proposed federal regulations. In fall 2005, the newer version of this site was released by incorporating the ongoing development of the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) which provides the public and agencies access to the entire regulatory docket, including rules, supporting documents, and public comments. (see [http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main/ regulation.gov] and [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-3-1-er.html whitehouse.gov])
*'''Online Dialogues''': The internet makes it possible to have online interactive regulatory dialogues among large number of people, allowing them to discuss any social or political issues with each other as well as with government officials. For example, in 2001, the EPA established an online dialogue project (which won an E-Gov 2002 Explorer Award) on its new draft Public Involvement Policy so that the public could participate and help the officers to determine what kind of revisions to make to the policies. (For more examples of public online dialogues, go to [http://www.info-ren.org/what/dialogues_projects.shtml info-ren.org]
*'''Thailand's political change in 2006''': The internet is an alternative source of information when the government controls and restricts the freedom of the mainstream media (TV, newspaper, radio etc.) to shut the eyes and ears of the people. (see [http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/24/news/thai.php iht.com] and [http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,98445,00.html asiaweek.com]) . For example, it is fair to say that strong criticism of the policies and actions of the former Thai government through various mechanisms online (blog, email, IM, video/audio sharing websites etc.) was one of the main factors that led to the significant [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2n703TFOYM political movements] and changes in Thailand last year. Various facts and criticisms that could not be found anywhere through the mainstream media are often available online [http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=&mode=related&v=_yRtLEc5YAE Tak Bai] and [http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/18/thaila12251.htm hrw.org] for examples).
*'''Campaign websites''': Perhaps the reason that the campaign websites of [http://www.americansformitt.com/ Romney], [http://www.barackobama.com/ Obama], [http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ Clinton], [http://johnedwards.com/splash/ Edwards] are so tame and fail to really make use of the interactive power of the internet is that they fear the power it gives to individuals. They realize that the internet has the power to take politics off the pedestal and make it rough, dirty, personal and democratic, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman Truman]'s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan_Railcar Whistlestop] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_1948 Campaign of 1948]. They don't actually want to interact with the people. They want scripted sound-bites and tame debates. They feel it's easier to get elected and rule when citizens are not individually empowered to interact with their leaders, because then the leaders would actually be accountable to the people. Since the internet has the capacity to enable a more personal, democratic style of campaigning and governing, they fear the internet. That explains why they fail to make full use of the internet to provide a truly interactive experience for voters.
*'''Semiotic Democracy''': Was the Obama [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo advertisement] criticizing Hillary Clinton, modeled after the 1984 Apple advertisement, an example of a new trend in politics, wherein individuals are creating content and meaning without the authorization of the candidates they intend to support? Or was it just a fluke? If this is a new trend, how will it shape politics in the future? Is this something we should encourage or discourage?

==Class Discussion Questions==
*The study of the effect of the internet on democracy is very new. One of the most significant question is to ask what a democracy needs to thrive, and ask whether that thing is being enhanced compared to a world without the internet.
*In what new ways could individuals harness the internet to increase their power in participatory democracy?
*Is the effect of the internet on participatory democracy going to increase in the future, or have we reached its zenith?
*Will the internet have more of an effect on improving democracy in countries that currently don't have democracies, or that have new democracies, than it will in countries with established democracies?
*Many of these claims are subject to the retort "Yeah, in theory that's good, but it doesn't happen." Well, only time will tell. There seem to be plenty of stories from [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] about these things happening abroad. Perhaps the internet is a more important tool for developing (or future) democracies, rather than the already-settled democracies of the West.
*Rather than ask whether the internet ''is'' a force for democracy, the more fruitful line of inquiry would be to explore how we can ''make'' the internet a ''stronger'' force for democracy.
**We know individuals are empowered in a lot of ways by the internet, especially [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE Web 2.0]. Now we need to find a way to use that to empower them in the political sphere.

The Affirmative Argument

2007-05-06T22:23:47Z

Amornchai: /* Engaged Citizenry */

==The Question==

'''"Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world."'''

Quick Link to [[The Negative Argument]]

==The Argument in Favor of the Resolution:==

===Introduction===
Experience has shown that in order for participatory democracy to thrive, there are a number of necessary ingredients that a society must exhibit. Among these are a strong, unbiased, truthful media, fair and balanced elections, a politically engaged citizenry, a citizenry educated on political matters, transparency and accountability, and economic democracy.

It is our contention here that the internet has the capacity to, and in certain circumstances already has, improved the health of participatory democracies along each of these metrics. In other words, as compared to a world without the internet, the world with an internet is more conducive to participatory democracy.

However for the purposes of our argument as presented here the focus will be predominantly on societies that already have some level of participatory democracy. In states where there is in effect no channel for civic participation then it is additionally likely that access to the internet is also likely to be stringently prescribed as for example in the DPRK

Although there are a number of arguments that the internet enhances democracy in a more general sense, our focus here is on the effect the internet has on the power of ''individual citizens'' to influence the political process in a way that, depending on the baseline, either enhances existing democracies or helps bring about new democracies.

===A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media===

Democracy cannot work without abundant, readily available information. (See [[Note 1]]) If leaders, elected or not, are to be held accountable to the wishes of the people, the people must know what the leaders are doing. The privately owned media (defined here very generally as widely available information sources not controlled by the government) has long served as a watchdog of the government, and as the most important supplier of political information to citizens. The internet enhances the power of individual citizens to leverage the reach of traditional media outlets, and also to serve in the watchdog and information spreading roles themselves:
*By aggregating potentially inflammatory or interesting stories, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] raises the likelihood that one of those stories will become viral on the internet, or be noticed by the mainstream media. Therefore, Global Voices gives a lone, otherwise insignificant blogger/activist/witness the power to tell other citizens about an issue in a way that she could not have done before the advent of the internet.
**Assuming leaders know but do not care about the problem (or are causing it themselves) the faster a story becomes salient to a significant portion of the public, the sooner a 'tipping point' will be reached when people demand change in a voice loud enough that leaders must listen. This effect is particularly important in places where democracy does not yet exist. In other words, the ability of individuals to spread subversive news makes democratic revolution more likely, insofar as widespread knowledge of injustice motivates citizens to act.
**Assuming leaders would care about the problem but are unaware, this new ability of individual citizens to put out an alert will result in faster action. It's easier to fix problems while they're still small.
**In countries with a biased media, or a media that is controlled by a corrupt government that limits the freedom of media to tell citizens things the government does not want them to know, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/07/government-minister-suing-bahraini-blogger/ bloggers can fill the gap] in terms of the watchdog and information-spreading functions.
**In places where the media is not biased or controlled, but is ineffective at serving as a watchdog or spreading information because of a lack of resources or poor physical communication channels, the internet allows those media outlets (or individual bloggers) to move information quickly and efficiently to those citizens who have internet access. This effect will be present even in minimally wired countries. As long as there is one wired person in an area, the internet can get the information there despite weather, treacherous topography, war etc, and word of mouth will do the rest. The internet can get information to places that newspapers, mail and even TV cannot. This is of course assuming a basic âinternet infrastructureâ already exists.
*While [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html Shirky's curve] does point out that there are still a few dominant players in the information market in the blogging world, many of these players are individuals. One popular blogger can reach more people than a billion dollar newspaper empire. That's a lot of power for an individual. And it is possible that in a place with corrupt media, the lone blogger will be the ''only'' voice of truth that people can trust, and he'll have enormous power over the political process.
*Even in places with "good" media, the internet still enhances participatory democracy in various ways. For example, bloggers can add nuance to the "sound bite culture" of mainstream media. People who are interested in a story they see on TV can go online to learn more, and bloggers will be there to provide that information. Bloggers can provide detail and analysis that traditional media outlets might not find it profitable to provide. Bloggers can also act as an extension of the editorial pages, including serving as "letters to the editor" that don't get published. If the mainstream media is only providing the facts, the bloggers can provide direction for citizens on how to interpret those facts. For example, bloggers can speculate behind the facts to the possible motivations of the leaders, a topic in which citizens might be greatly interested but don't often get because traditional reporters don't often speculate. (There is a lot of potential for problems and abuse here, as we mentioned in [[Note 1]], but the fact remains that these extra functions online do have the capacity to enhance participatory democracy by enhancing the traditional media functions of supplying information and serving as a watchdog.)
*Blogs may also have potential as a new situs for investigative journalism. Where a "story" is not an existing object to be found but rather the constructed product of large time and energy investments, the internet opens the door for that effort to be distributed across the citizenry. By analogy, see [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ SETI@home].
**The website Talking Points Memo has been following the firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys since well before it hit the front pages. A handful of full-time investigative journalists at "TPM Muckraker" leveraged the time and energy of the blog's readership to go in-depth into the story. The 8 firings were covered in local newspapers and aggregated by readers who reported the stories to the site; readers later sifted through Justice Department documents and reported their findings to TPM. We return to the image of bloggers-in-pajamas, but this time they are cast as a disaggregated, 24-hour news bureau. "Assignment Zero" at Wired Magazine also seeks to leverage this citizen-powered journalism. NPR: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9083501 Talking Points Site Kept Attorneys Story Alive]

===Fair and Balanced Elections===
As a definitional rather than an aspirational matter, true democracy entails elections that are actually decided by the voters, in which the best-suited candidate can rise to the top and be elected.
*The internet makes it possible for an outsider or a fringe-party candidate to spread his message, even if he starts at a severe handicap because he is not supported by an established political machine or wealthy donors that favor tried-and-true incumbents. Websites and email are basically free, which means that any candidate can spread his message if it's one that people are willing to read.
**For example, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is running for office, and trying to use the internet to harness the grass roots. [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/12/bangladesh-can-the-power-of-one-save-the-nation/ Click here for more]. [http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/12/d7021201085.htm See his open letter here].
*As for the fairness of elections, see the Transparency and Accountability section below.

===Engaged Citizenry===
In a system that is ostensibly run by the people, more engagement by citizens is better. (See [[Note 2]]) The internet can be used to encourage individuals to become more active, and enables those who are active to be more effective.
*Citizens become engaged when they come to believe there is a serious problem that needs addressing. Seeing is believing. The internet enables single witnesses to 'show' everybody else the truth using firsthand accounts via [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/caught-on-camera-human-rights-video-on-gv/ YouTube videos]. Liars, criminals, bullies and tyrants lose plausible deniability when everybody ''sees'' them committing their crimes. The citizenry then mobilizes against what they now believe is a violation of rights. That was not as easy before the internet. But even then it was extremely powerful (e.g. Rodney King [http://www.multishow.com.ar/rodneyking/ video] and the incredible public reaction to a perceived injustice in the form of the Los Angeles riots). That effect is magnified with the internet.
*The internet enables individual activists to become super-activists. (see Palfrey's "classical and jazz" argument, that the internet enables people to do better what they were otherwise doing.) Those who were already engaged are able to reach more people and spread their message more effectively using blogs, email lists etc. What could have only been done by a huge organization can now be done by one highly motivated individual.
*The internet enables far-flung individuals to combine on big projects (for example, [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Seti@home]) which, because so many people have a vested interest in them, become accurate and popular. As Wikipedia has done for the world of encyclopedias, so a political communal project could become a 'public forum' on the internet where everybody can participate in the political debate. Even non-elite citizens can participate in this kind of forum, taking the power and focus away from the few talking heads that have heretofore dominated political discourse.
**The content of blogs and the links they provide tend to take one side of a particular issue. Any given blog has a tendency to reinforce the preconceived notions of its regular readers. But a centralized wiki is a place where all sides of an issue could focus and make sure that all nuances of every issue are presented truthfully and completely. It could be a great resource for others to become educated on the issues.
**A wiki would also provide a forum for people who want to be engaged on a small scale; one might not have enough to say to warrant a blog, but has one small argument or a few facts that could be added to a wiki.
*The blogosphere as a whole (as opposed to individual blogs) already acts as a 'public forum' on the internet for some issues and in some places. There are communities of bloggers that discuss particular issues in conversation with each other, in a way that millions of people can read and comment. So, those who are engaged enough to say something to the public have a place to do so.
**However, 'blogosphere as public forum' is less effective than it could be because bloggers tend not to present the opinions of their opponents or link to opposing arguments. So the conversations tend to be one-sided. Whereas the editorial pages of newspapers or radio call-in programs or physical public fora like public parks enabled both sides of an issue to be heard, the blogosphere doesn't always operate like that.
*The internet greases the wheels of political activity by otherwise un-engaged citizens. For example, there might be voters who are unwilling to walk door to door to campaign, but are happy to send emails to their friends. Or they might be unwilling to go to the effort to stamp an envelope to send a donation, but will click on PayPal. Citizens who have a 'day job' no longer have to sacrifice those other activities, because political involvement is so easy and efficient on the internet. Of course the increase in the quantity of political activity does not in and of itself assure an improvement in the quality of that engagement. Traditional political involvement involved real costs to those engaged not merely financial but just as critically their time. In a sense therefore those involved presumably were willing to âpayâ such a price as the issue was worth at least that much to them (cost/benefit analysis). Where the actual cost of engagement is extremely low, that is negligible, as is the case with the internet then there is a risk that some of the engagement may be the result of short term concerns and which are responded to in a greater than proportionate manner simply due to the ease to air oneâs views. However this is a normative issue and it is impractical (if not downright dangerous) for an external party to make interpersonal comparisons of the degrees of concern that different individuals might hold on a particular subject.
**Such low levels of involvement may not seem like much, but when aggregated across (potentially) hundreds of millions of people, it adds up.
**Once such people have been brought into political involvement, they may develop a taste for it, and become more active. They will at least be more motivated to vote, bringing up voter participation numbers.
**Even people at a low level of political engagement may find themselves on email lists (such as the annoyingly active one run by [http://www.moveon.org/ Moveon.org]). While an individual may have initially become involved because of one small issue, they may be exposed to other interesting issues in these emails, and might become further involved. (see [http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.html Sunstein's argument] about the need for a common space where people will be exposed to new ideas. Email lists can serve this function).
*The very structure of the internet means that it's unlikely there will ever be any sort of centralized control structure. Instead, individual members of the community that might have ''wanted'' to be involved before, but were afraid, are now emboldened to generate input more openly. They may feel more comfortable to expose their political ideas on the internet â especially if their ideas contradict policies/rules of their current government. Government censorship and surveillance are certainly problematic, but a determined activist can make her thoughts known online with some degree of anonymity in ways that were not possible before the internet.
**It is the tech firms (usually American) that enable government censorship and surveillance online. While there are other ways to unclog the channels of information in repressive regimes such as [http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-4780 GOFA] and the Voluntary Principles (no link provided due to confidentiality), the most interesting thing about the internet is that because of its structure, this type of government or corporate intervention is helpful but not necessary. Whereas there is not much an individual could do about government censorship of a TV station or newspaper, the internet enables "user-innovators" like MIT's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Richard Stallman] to develop and disseminate software that prevents/thwarts government attempts to control political thought online. (See Eric von Hippel's book [http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm "Democratizing Innovation"] for more on the phenomenon of user-innovation.) Without the internet, anti-establishment individuals would not have as much power to unclog the channels of political discussion. Interestingly, China has adopted the GNU Linux operating system, leaving their filtering and surveillance vulnerable to individual subversive action. The recent censoring of certain websites in Thailand was achieved through the main gateway into Thailand which is CAT (Communications Authority of Thailand). Although initially both CAT and the Ministry for Information and communications technology (a government ministry) initially denied that censorship was taking place blaming each other for the âdifficultyâ to gain access to You Tube, amongst others, it quickly became apparent that they were acting collaboratively.
*While it is hard to break into the club of top bloggers [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html described by Shirky], people do. There is a much more active revolving door in the blogging world than in traditional media. All the individuals in the long tail of Shirky's curve have an incentive to educate themselves on political matters and get involved, in hopes that they'll be the one to have the power of the big bloggers. In the physical world, there is a slim chance that any given person will end up owning a media empire. But online, anybody could become the next Andrew Sullivan or Wonkette or Daily Kos. So, the internet provides a space where the dream of hitting the big time is realistic. And even those that don't make it will be more engaged in the political process in hopes of hitting it big. On balance, it's better to have more people paying attention to politics and honing their argumentation skills.
*If voting can be done through the internet, the number of voters will increase greatly since people tend not to go to cast their vote at the designated poll if it inconveniences them to travel there. But if people can log on and vote from their office, they are far more likely to do so. This does also however go to the matter of frequency of voting. If an entire electorate has easy access to be online should therefore critical issues be placed before them for their on a regular basis for voting on? thereby reducing the legislative bodyâs position as being a representative institution that is empowered to enact legislation on behalf of the population as a whole. The risk is that whilst elected officials will presumably have access to all relevant information and be able to make a decision based on long term matters, individuals who are not privy to such intelligence and who might be more myopic and self serving may in fact reach non optimal decisions.

===Educated Citizenry===
In a system where citizens are running the country, its important that they know what they're talking about. The most obvious advantage of the internet is its ability to quickly and cheaply educate citizens about political matters.
*Even in countries where the government tries to restrict the educational function of the internet through censorship and filtering, individuals can [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/access-flickr-iran/ circumvent those controls], enabling other citizens to be educated about things the incumbent government doesn't want them to know. The cycle of government repression and citizen circumvention is a tit-for-tat that would have never been possible before the internet. Before, the secret police had only to destroy the printing press, and that put a stop to the production of subversive educational materials in that place. The ability of individual hackers to disable government censorship is an enormous power that individuals did not have before the advent of the internet.
*Even as China and other countries try to "let in the light while keeping out the flies", a few flies are getting in. It only takes a little bit of information in the hands of the right people to get other people talking, breed discontent, and cause change. A little education goes a long way. The [http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/rebel.html photo] of the unknown rebel in Tienanmen Square is an example of a small bit of information that could have a profound effect on a political regime if it were widely seen and its significance discussed.
*As we discussed in class on February 13, perhaps the most effective way to campaign for a cause is by word of mouth. Individuals with Live Journals are able to "speak to" and perhaps educate friends and family all the way across the country, or around the world. That kind of discourse is important for a democracy. We may never know whether or how it changes votes, but it's good that people are discussing political issues. Again, a little bit of education is better than none, and can have a profound effect in the hands of the right people.
**Even if votes aren't changed in the short term, the development of this inter-personal discourse online helps lay a foundation for a time when it may matter more. For example, if a big event happens, there will already be a network of inter-connected bloggers and their readers in place to get the "real" story out, mouth to mouth, in a way that people trust. And it will be a tool for mobilizing people to demand change.
*The country/world is a lot smaller than it was before the internet. Before the internet, one might have theoretically cared that control of the government came down to one close senate race in Virginia, but one might not have ''known'' about it. And even if one knew, there was not much you could do about it on the afternoon of November 7 if one was in Oregon. But now, people can educate a huge amount of interested people very quickly. And in turn, those people can become involved by sending money, VOIPing people in that area encouraging them to vote etc. The internet allows the whole country to participate in what used to be purely 'local' elections by educating people that those elections are important.
*The internet makes it easy to find information online. From the Pew survey, it seems that people are relying more on the internet as their source of political information [http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Politics_2006.pdf]

===Transparency and Accountability===
*Any individual who happens to know the truth can break the story. The major networks can no longer act as bottlenecks to stop important stories from getting out there (if the networks are in bed with the interested parties). For example, Senator Allen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7gq7GQ71c macaca comment] is said to have derailed his campaign because the internet enabled it to be seen by so many people who were outraged by it. There is no evidence to support this, but it is possible that a network might overlook something like that in hopes of garnering favor with a candidate, but could be pressured into making it a big deal by the tidal wave of interest online.
*The internet enables extensive and fast fact checking. A person at a town hall with a candidate could have her laptop open and check voting records as the candidate answered a question, and expose the lie right away. Even if this doesn't happen often, candidates will know it ''can'', and will be scared into being more honest and transparent.
*Flip-flopping will be exposed. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI Romney] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI McCain] can't get away with their recent flip-flopping because we have video footage of them holding opposite positions. The internet makes it extremely easy for individuals to expose the lies to others.
*Politicians respond to polls. The internet enables much faster and more widespread polling. Individuals can (when aggregated in a poll) have a more efficient way to respond to the decisions of leaders and direct policy.

===Economic Democracy===
*The internet provides jobs (e.g. tech-service in India), access to markets, and an ability to acquire and use capital that leads to the emergence of a stronger middle class. People who are not living hand-to-mouth have more leisure to educate themselves, engage in politics, and pressure governments to act in their interests.
*Further the internet reduces the ability of some local suppliers to maintain monopoly power in the market as access to the web allows for the world to become the local market place and enhances consumer sovereignty in the process.

===Examples to Discuss===
The following are some examples from various countries concerning the question of how the internet can enhance citizens participation in politics. Some thoughts for possible arguments are also included.

*'''ePetitions''': [http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open?sort=signers/ In England], British citizens can petition the Prime Minister directly online. This system allows millions of British people to say what they want directly to the government. Today, there are more than 1.5 million signatures only for the "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" petition. (For more examples of countries adopting e-petition, see [http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/ Scotland] and [http://www.zebralog.de/en/000195.html Germany])
*'''eVoting''': Some countries have an election system that allows voters to transmit their ballots over the internet.(See, for example, [http://www.geneve.ch/evoting/english/welcome.asp Geneva eVoting Project])
**Possible Arguments: How can we ensure that the system will support the principle of âone man, one voteâ? Will there be a vote robbery problem (voters might cast their ballot on counterfeit voting sites)? What about the voters' privacy; will their information be revealed?
*'''eRulemaking Initiative'''[http://www.epa.gov/oei/proceedings/2005/pdfs/morales.pdf]: This is an attempt to increase citizen participation and understanding in the rulemaking process by making the process easily accessible via the internet. Citizens have an opportunity to become educated about the current rules and policies and have the ability to participate in the rulemaking process by submitting comments which will improve the quality of the leaders' decision-making processes.
**In the US, there is an eRulemaking Initiative which was launched in January 2003 by the Bush Administration. They established the eRulemaking website - regulations.gov â which allows anyone to read and comment on proposed federal regulations. In fall 2005, the newer version of this site was released by incorporating the ongoing development of the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) which provides the public and agencies access to the entire regulatory docket, including rules, supporting documents, and public comments. (see [http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main/ regulation.gov] and [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-3-1-er.html whitehouse.gov])
*'''Online Dialogues''': The internet makes it possible to have online interactive regulatory dialogues among large number of people, allowing them to discuss any social or political issues with each other as well as with government officials. For example, in 2001, the EPA established an online dialogue project (which won an E-Gov 2002 Explorer Award) on its new draft Public Involvement Policy so that the public could participate and help the officers to determine what kind of revisions to make to the policies. (For more examples of public online dialogues, go to [http://www.info-ren.org/what/dialogues_projects.shtml info-ren.org]
*'''Thailand's political change in 2006''': The internet is an alternative source of information when the government controls and restricts the freedom of the mainstream media (TV, newspaper, radio etc.) to shut the eyes and ears of the people. (see [http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/24/news/thai.php iht.com] and [http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,98445,00.html asiaweek.com]) . For example, it is fair to say that strong criticism of the policies and actions of the former Thai government through various mechanisms online (blog, email, IM, video/audio sharing websites etc.) was one of the main factors that led to the significant [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2n703TFOYM political movements] and changes in Thailand last year. Various facts and criticisms that could not be found anywhere through the mainstream media are often available online [http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=&mode=related&v=_yRtLEc5YAE Tak Bai] and [http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/18/thaila12251.htm hrw.org] for examples).
*'''Campaign websites''': Perhaps the reason that the campaign websites of [http://www.americansformitt.com/ Romney], [http://www.barackobama.com/ Obama], [http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ Clinton], [http://johnedwards.com/splash/ Edwards] are so tame and fail to really make use of the interactive power of the internet is that they fear the power it gives to individuals. They realize that the internet has the power to take politics off the pedestal and make it rough, dirty, personal and democratic, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman Truman]'s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan_Railcar Whistlestop] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_1948 Campaign of 1948]. They don't actually want to interact with the people. They want scripted sound-bites and tame debates. They feel it's easier to get elected and rule when citizens are not individually empowered to interact with their leaders, because then the leaders would actually be accountable to the people. Since the internet has the capacity to enable a more personal, democratic style of campaigning and governing, they fear the internet. That explains why they fail to make full use of the internet to provide a truly interactive experience for voters.
*'''Semiotic Democracy''': Was the Obama [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo advertisement] criticizing Hillary Clinton, modeled after the 1984 Apple advertisement, an example of a new trend in politics, wherein individuals are creating content and meaning without the authorization of the candidates they intend to support? Or was it just a fluke? If this is a new trend, how will it shape politics in the future? Is this something we should encourage or discourage?

==Class Discussion Questions==
*The study of the effect of the internet on democracy is very new. One of the most significant question is to ask what a democracy needs to thrive, and ask whether that thing is being enhanced compared to a world without the internet.
*In what new ways could individuals harness the internet to increase their power in participatory democracy?
*Is the effect of the internet on participatory democracy going to increase in the future, or have we reached its zenith?
*Will the internet have more of an effect on improving democracy in countries that currently don't have democracies, or that have new democracies, than it will in countries with established democracies?
*Many of these claims are subject to the retort "Yeah, in theory that's good, but it doesn't happen." Well, only time will tell. There seem to be plenty of stories from [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] about these things happening abroad. Perhaps the internet is a more important tool for developing (or future) democracies, rather than the already-settled democracies of the West.
*Rather than ask whether the internet ''is'' a force for democracy, the more fruitful line of inquiry would be to explore how we can ''make'' the internet a ''stronger'' force for democracy.
**We know individuals are empowered in a lot of ways by the internet, especially [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE Web 2.0]. Now we need to find a way to use that to empower them in the political sphere.

The Affirmative Argument

2007-05-02T21:42:02Z

Amornchai: /* Economic Democracy */

==The Question==

'''"Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world."'''

Quick Link to [[The Negative Argument]]

==The Argument in Favor of the Resolution:==

===Introduction===
Experience has shown that in order for participatory democracy to thrive, there are a number of necessary ingredients that a society must exhibit. Among these are a strong, unbiased, truthful media, fair and balanced elections, a politically engaged citizenry, a citizenry educated on political matters, transparency and accountability, and economic democracy.

It is our contention here that the internet has the capacity to, and in certain circumstances already has, improved the health of participatory democracies along each of these metrics. In other words, as compared to a world without the internet, the world with an internet is more conducive to participatory democracy.

However for the purposes of our argument as presented here the focus will be predominantly on societies that already have some level of participatory democracy. In states where there is in effect no channel for civic participation then it is additionally likely that access to the internet is also likely to be stringently prescribed as for example in the DPRK

Although there are a number of arguments that the internet enhances democracy in a more general sense, our focus here is on the effect the internet has on the power of ''individual citizens'' to influence the political process in a way that, depending on the baseline, either enhances existing democracies or helps bring about new democracies.

===A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media===

Democracy cannot work without abundant, readily available information. (See [[Note 1]]) If leaders, elected or not, are to be held accountable to the wishes of the people, the people must know what the leaders are doing. The privately owned media (defined here very generally as widely available information sources not controlled by the government) has long served as a watchdog of the government, and as the most important supplier of political information to citizens. The internet enhances the power of individual citizens to leverage the reach of traditional media outlets, and also to serve in the watchdog and information spreading roles themselves:
*By aggregating potentially inflammatory or interesting stories, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] raises the likelihood that one of those stories will become viral on the internet, or be noticed by the mainstream media. Therefore, Global Voices gives a lone, otherwise insignificant blogger/activist/witness the power to tell other citizens about an issue in a way that she could not have done before the advent of the internet.
**Assuming leaders know but do not care about the problem (or are causing it themselves) the faster a story becomes salient to a significant portion of the public, the sooner a 'tipping point' will be reached when people demand change in a voice loud enough that leaders must listen. This effect is particularly important in places where democracy does not yet exist. In other words, the ability of individuals to spread subversive news makes democratic revolution more likely, insofar as widespread knowledge of injustice motivates citizens to act.
**Assuming leaders would care about the problem but are unaware, this new ability of individual citizens to put out an alert will result in faster action. It's easier to fix problems while they're still small.
**In countries with a biased media, or a media that is controlled by a corrupt government that limits the freedom of media to tell citizens things the government does not want them to know, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/07/government-minister-suing-bahraini-blogger/ bloggers can fill the gap] in terms of the watchdog and information-spreading functions.
**In places where the media is not biased or controlled, but is ineffective at serving as a watchdog or spreading information because of a lack of resources or poor physical communication channels, the internet allows those media outlets (or individual bloggers) to move information quickly and efficiently to those citizens who have internet access. This effect will be present even in minimally wired countries. As long as there is one wired person in an area, the internet can get the information there despite weather, treacherous topography, war etc, and word of mouth will do the rest. The internet can get information to places that newspapers, mail and even TV cannot. This is of course assuming a basic âinternet infrastructureâ already exists.
*While [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html Shirky's curve] does point out that there are still a few dominant players in the information market in the blogging world, many of these players are individuals. One popular blogger can reach more people than a billion dollar newspaper empire. That's a lot of power for an individual. And it is possible that in a place with corrupt media, the lone blogger will be the ''only'' voice of truth that people can trust, and he'll have enormous power over the political process.
*Even in places with "good" media, the internet still enhances participatory democracy in various ways. For example, bloggers can add nuance to the "sound bite culture" of mainstream media. People who are interested in a story they see on TV can go online to learn more, and bloggers will be there to provide that information. Bloggers can provide detail and analysis that traditional media outlets might not find it profitable to provide. Bloggers can also act as an extension of the editorial pages, including serving as "letters to the editor" that don't get published. If the mainstream media is only providing the facts, the bloggers can provide direction for citizens on how to interpret those facts. For example, bloggers can speculate behind the facts to the possible motivations of the leaders, a topic in which citizens might be greatly interested but don't often get because traditional reporters don't often speculate. (There is a lot of potential for problems and abuse here, as we mentioned in [[Note 1]], but the fact remains that these extra functions online do have the capacity to enhance participatory democracy by enhancing the traditional media functions of supplying information and serving as a watchdog.)
*Blogs may also have potential as a new situs for investigative journalism. Where a "story" is not an existing object to be found but rather the constructed product of large time and energy investments, the internet opens the door for that effort to be distributed across the citizenry. By analogy, see [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ SETI@home].
**The website Talking Points Memo has been following the firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys since well before it hit the front pages. A handful of full-time investigative journalists at "TPM Muckraker" leveraged the time and energy of the blog's readership to go in-depth into the story. The 8 firings were covered in local newspapers and aggregated by readers who reported the stories to the site; readers later sifted through Justice Department documents and reported their findings to TPM. We return to the image of bloggers-in-pajamas, but this time they are cast as a disaggregated, 24-hour news bureau. "Assignment Zero" at Wired Magazine also seeks to leverage this citizen-powered journalism. NPR: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9083501 Talking Points Site Kept Attorneys Story Alive]

===Fair and Balanced Elections===
As a definitional rather than an aspirational matter, true democracy entails elections that are actually decided by the voters, in which the best-suited candidate can rise to the top and be elected.
*The internet makes it possible for an outsider or a fringe-party candidate to spread his message, even if he starts at a severe handicap because he is not supported by an established political machine or wealthy donors that favor tried-and-true incumbents. Websites and email are basically free, which means that any candidate can spread his message if it's one that people are willing to read.
**For example, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is running for office, and trying to use the internet to harness the grass roots. [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/12/bangladesh-can-the-power-of-one-save-the-nation/ Click here for more]. [http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/12/d7021201085.htm See his open letter here].
*As for the fairness of elections, see the Transparency and Accountability section below.

===Engaged Citizenry===
In a system that is ostensibly run by the people, more engagement by citizens is better. (See [[Note 2]]) The internet can be used to encourage individuals to become more active, and enables those who are active to be more effective.
*Citizens become engaged when they come to believe there is a serious problem that needs addressing. Seeing is believing. The internet enables single witnesses to 'show' everybody else the truth using firsthand accounts via [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/caught-on-camera-human-rights-video-on-gv/ YouTube videos]. Liars, criminals, bullies and tyrants lose plausible deniability when everybody ''sees'' them committing their crimes. The citizenry then mobilizes against what they now believe is a violation of rights. That was not as easy before the internet. But even then it was extremely powerful (e.g. Rodney King [http://www.multishow.com.ar/rodneyking/ video] and the incredible public reaction to a perceived injustice in the form of the Los Angeles riots). That effect is magnified with the internet.
*The internet enables individual activists to become super-activists. (see Palfrey's "classical and jazz" argument, that the internet enables people to do better what they were otherwise doing.) Those who were already engaged are able to reach more people and spread their message more effectively using blogs, email lists etc. What could have only been done by a huge organization can now be done by one highly motivated individual.
*The internet enables far-flung individuals to combine on big projects (for example, [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Seti@home]) which, because so many people have a vested interest in them, become accurate and popular. As Wikipedia has done for the world of encyclopedias, so a political communal project could become a 'public forum' on the internet where everybody can participate in the political debate. Even non-elite citizens can participate in this kind of forum, taking the power and focus away from the few talking heads that have heretofore dominated political discourse.
**The content of blogs and the links they provide tend to take one side of a particular issue. Any given blog has a tendency to reinforce the preconceived notions of its regular readers. But a centralized wiki is a place where all sides of an issue could focus and make sure that all nuances of every issue are presented truthfully and completely. It could be a great resource for others to become educated on the issues.
**A wiki would also provide a forum for people who want to be engaged on a small scale; one might not have enough to say to warrant a blog, but has one small argument or a few facts that could be added to a wiki.
*The blogosphere as a whole (as opposed to individual blogs) already acts as a 'public forum' on the internet for some issues and in some places. There are communities of bloggers that discuss particular issues in conversation with each other, in a way that millions of people can read and comment. So, those who are engaged enough to say something to the public have a place to do so.
**However, 'blogosphere as public forum' is less effective than it could be because bloggers tend not to present the opinions of their opponents or link to opposing arguments. So the conversations tend to be one-sided. Whereas the editorial pages of newspapers or radio call-in programs or physical public fora like public parks enabled both sides of an issue to be heard, the blogosphere doesn't always operate like that.
*The internet greases the wheels of political activity by otherwise un-engaged citizens. For example, there might be voters who are unwilling to walk door to door to campaign, but are happy to send emails to their friends. Or they might be unwilling to go to the effort to stamp an envelope to send a donation, but will click on PayPal. Citizens who have a 'day job' no longer have to sacrifice those other activities, because political involvement is so easy and efficient on the internet. Of course the increase in the quantity of political activity does not in and of itself assure an improvement in the quality of that engagement. Traditional political involvement involved real costs to those engaged not merely financial but just as critically their time. In a sense therefore those involved presumably were willing to âpayâ such a price as the issue was worth at least that much to them (cost/benefit analysis). Where the actual cost of engagement is extremely low, that is negligible, as is the case with the internet then there is a risk that some of the engagement may be the result of short term concerns and which are responded to in a greater than proportionate manner simply due to the ease to air oneâs views. However this is a normative issue and it is impractical (if not downright dangerous) for an external party to make interpersonal comparisons of the degrees of concern that different individuals might hold on a particular subject.
**Such low levels of involvement may not seem like much, but when aggregated across (potentially) hundreds of millions of people, it adds up.
**Once such people have been brought into political involvement, they may develop a taste for it, and become more active. They will at least be more motivated to vote, bringing up voter participation numbers.
**Even people at a low level of political engagement may find themselves on email lists (such as the annoyingly active one run by [http://www.moveon.org/ Moveon.org]). While an individual may have initially become involved because of one small issue, they may be exposed to other interesting issues in these emails, and might become further involved. (see [http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.html Sunstein's argument] about the need for a common space where people will be exposed to new ideas. Email lists can serve this function).
*The very structure of the internet means that it's unlikely there will ever be any sort of centralized control structure. Instead, individual members of the community that might have ''wanted'' to be involved before, but were afraid, are now emboldened to generate input more openly. They may feel more comfortable to expose their political ideas on the internet â especially if their ideas contradict policies/rules of their current government. Government censorship and surveillance are certainly problematic, but a determined activist can make her thoughts known online with some degree of anonymity in ways that were not possible before the internet.
**It is the tech firms (usually American) that enable government censorship and surveillance online. While there are other ways to unclog the channels of information in repressive regimes such as [http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-4780 GOFA] and the Voluntary Principles (no link provided due to confidentiality), the most interesting thing about the internet is that because of its structure, this type of government or corporate intervention is helpful but not necessary. Whereas there is not much an individual could do about government censorship of a TV station or newspaper, the internet enables "user-innovators" like MIT's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Richard Stallman] to develop and disseminate software that prevents/thwarts government attempts to control political thought online. (See Eric von Hippel's book [http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm "Democratizing Innovation"] for more on the phenomenon of user-innovation.) Without the internet, anti-establishment individuals would not have as much power to unclog the channels of political discussion. Interestingly, China has adopted the GNU Linux operating system, leaving their filtering and surveillance vulnerable to individual subversive action. The recent censoring of certain websites in Thailand was achieved through the main gateway into Thailand which is CAT (Communications Authority of Thailand). Although initially both CAT and the Ministry for Information and communications technology (a government ministry) initially denied that censorship was taking place blaming each other for the âdifficultyâ to gain access to You Tube, amongst others, it quickly became apparent that they were acting collaboratively.
*While it is hard to break into the club of top bloggers [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html described by Shirky], people do. There is a much more active revolving door in the blogging world than in traditional media. All the individuals in the long tail of Shirky's curve have an incentive to educate themselves on political matters and get involved, in hopes that they'll be the one to have the power of the big bloggers. In the physical world, there is a slim chance that any given person will end up owning a media empire. But online, anybody could become the next Andrew Sullivan or Wonkette or Daily Kos. So, the internet provides a space where the dream of hitting the big time is realistic. And even those that don't make it will be more engaged in the political process in hopes of hitting it big. On balance, it's better to have more people paying attention to politics and honing their argumentation skills.
*If voting can be done through the internet, the number of voters will increase greatly since people tend not to go to cast their vote at the designated poll if it inconveniences them to travel there. But if people can log on and vote from their office, they are far more likely to do so.

===Educated Citizenry===
In a system where citizens are running the country, its important that they know what they're talking about. The most obvious advantage of the internet is its ability to quickly and cheaply educate citizens about political matters.
*Even in countries where the government tries to restrict the educational function of the internet through censorship and filtering, individuals can [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/access-flickr-iran/ circumvent those controls], enabling other citizens to be educated about things the incumbent government doesn't want them to know. The cycle of government repression and citizen circumvention is a tit-for-tat that would have never been possible before the internet. Before, the secret police had only to destroy the printing press, and that put a stop to the production of subversive educational materials in that place. The ability of individual hackers to disable government censorship is an enormous power that individuals did not have before the advent of the internet.
*Even as China and other countries try to "let in the light while keeping out the flies", a few flies are getting in. It only takes a little bit of information in the hands of the right people to get other people talking, breed discontent, and cause change. A little education goes a long way. The [http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/rebel.html photo] of the unknown rebel in Tienanmen Square is an example of a small bit of information that could have a profound effect on a political regime if it were widely seen and its significance discussed.
*As we discussed in class on February 13, perhaps the most effective way to campaign for a cause is by word of mouth. Individuals with Live Journals are able to "speak to" and perhaps educate friends and family all the way across the country, or around the world. That kind of discourse is important for a democracy. We may never know whether or how it changes votes, but it's good that people are discussing political issues. Again, a little bit of education is better than none, and can have a profound effect in the hands of the right people.
**Even if votes aren't changed in the short term, the development of this inter-personal discourse online helps lay a foundation for a time when it may matter more. For example, if a big event happens, there will already be a network of inter-connected bloggers and their readers in place to get the "real" story out, mouth to mouth, in a way that people trust. And it will be a tool for mobilizing people to demand change.
*The country/world is a lot smaller than it was before the internet. Before the internet, one might have theoretically cared that control of the government came down to one close senate race in Virginia, but one might not have ''known'' about it. And even if one knew, there was not much you could do about it on the afternoon of November 7 if one was in Oregon. But now, people can educate a huge amount of interested people very quickly. And in turn, those people can become involved by sending money, VOIPing people in that area encouraging them to vote etc. The internet allows the whole country to participate in what used to be purely 'local' elections by educating people that those elections are important.
*The internet makes it easy to find information online. From the Pew survey, it seems that people are relying more on the internet as their source of political information [http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Politics_2006.pdf]

===Transparency and Accountability===
*Any individual who happens to know the truth can break the story. The major networks can no longer act as bottlenecks to stop important stories from getting out there (if the networks are in bed with the interested parties). For example, Senator Allen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7gq7GQ71c macaca comment] is said to have derailed his campaign because the internet enabled it to be seen by so many people who were outraged by it. There is no evidence to support this, but it is possible that a network might overlook something like that in hopes of garnering favor with a candidate, but could be pressured into making it a big deal by the tidal wave of interest online.
*The internet enables extensive and fast fact checking. A person at a town hall with a candidate could have her laptop open and check voting records as the candidate answered a question, and expose the lie right away. Even if this doesn't happen often, candidates will know it ''can'', and will be scared into being more honest and transparent.
*Flip-flopping will be exposed. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI Romney] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI McCain] can't get away with their recent flip-flopping because we have video footage of them holding opposite positions. The internet makes it extremely easy for individuals to expose the lies to others.
*Politicians respond to polls. The internet enables much faster and more widespread polling. Individuals can (when aggregated in a poll) have a more efficient way to respond to the decisions of leaders and direct policy.

===Economic Democracy===
*The internet provides jobs (e.g. tech-service in India), access to markets, and an ability to acquire and use capital that leads to the emergence of a stronger middle class. People who are not living hand-to-mouth have more leisure to educate themselves, engage in politics, and pressure governments to act in their interests.
*Further the internet reduces the ability of some local suppliers to maintain monopoly power in the market as access to the web allows for the world to become the local market place and enhances consumer sovereignty in the process.

===Examples to Discuss===
The following are some examples from various countries concerning the question of how the internet can enhance citizens participation in politics. Some thoughts for possible arguments are also included.

*'''ePetitions''': [http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open?sort=signers/ In England], British citizens can petition the Prime Minister directly online. This system allows millions of British people to say what they want directly to the government. Today, there are more than 1.5 million signatures only for the "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" petition. (For more examples of countries adopting e-petition, see [http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/ Scotland] and [http://www.zebralog.de/en/000195.html Germany])
*'''eVoting''': Some countries have an election system that allows voters to transmit their ballots over the internet.(See, for example, [http://www.geneve.ch/evoting/english/welcome.asp Geneva eVoting Project])
**Possible Arguments: How can we ensure that the system will support the principle of âone man, one voteâ? Will there be a vote robbery problem (voters might cast their ballot on counterfeit voting sites)? What about the voters' privacy; will their information be revealed?
*'''eRulemaking Initiative'''[http://www.epa.gov/oei/proceedings/2005/pdfs/morales.pdf]: This is an attempt to increase citizen participation and understanding in the rulemaking process by making the process easily accessible via the internet. Citizens have an opportunity to become educated about the current rules and policies and have the ability to participate in the rulemaking process by submitting comments which will improve the quality of the leaders' decision-making processes.
**In the US, there is an eRulemaking Initiative which was launched in January 2003 by the Bush Administration. They established the eRulemaking website - regulations.gov â which allows anyone to read and comment on proposed federal regulations. In fall 2005, the newer version of this site was released by incorporating the ongoing development of the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) which provides the public and agencies access to the entire regulatory docket, including rules, supporting documents, and public comments. (see [http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main/ regulation.gov] and [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-3-1-er.html whitehouse.gov])
*'''Online Dialogues''': The internet makes it possible to have online interactive regulatory dialogues among large number of people, allowing them to discuss any social or political issues with each other as well as with government officials. For example, in 2001, the EPA established an online dialogue project (which won an E-Gov 2002 Explorer Award) on its new draft Public Involvement Policy so that the public could participate and help the officers to determine what kind of revisions to make to the policies. (For more examples of public online dialogues, go to [http://www.info-ren.org/what/dialogues_projects.shtml info-ren.org]
*'''Thailand's political change in 2006''': The internet is an alternative source of information when the government controls and restricts the freedom of the mainstream media (TV, newspaper, radio etc.) to shut the eyes and ears of the people. (see [http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/24/news/thai.php iht.com] and [http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,98445,00.html asiaweek.com]) . For example, it is fair to say that strong criticism of the policies and actions of the former Thai government through various mechanisms online (blog, email, IM, video/audio sharing websites etc.) was one of the main factors that led to the significant [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2n703TFOYM political movements] and changes in Thailand last year. Various facts and criticisms that could not be found anywhere through the mainstream media are often available online [http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=&mode=related&v=_yRtLEc5YAE Tak Bai] and [http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/18/thaila12251.htm hrw.org] for examples).
*'''Campaign websites''': Perhaps the reason that the campaign websites of [http://www.americansformitt.com/ Romney], [http://www.barackobama.com/ Obama], [http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ Clinton], [http://johnedwards.com/splash/ Edwards] are so tame and fail to really make use of the interactive power of the internet is that they fear the power it gives to individuals. They realize that the internet has the power to take politics off the pedestal and make it rough, dirty, personal and democratic, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman Truman]'s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan_Railcar Whistlestop] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_1948 Campaign of 1948]. They don't actually want to interact with the people. They want scripted sound-bites and tame debates. They feel it's easier to get elected and rule when citizens are not individually empowered to interact with their leaders, because then the leaders would actually be accountable to the people. Since the internet has the capacity to enable a more personal, democratic style of campaigning and governing, they fear the internet. That explains why they fail to make full use of the internet to provide a truly interactive experience for voters.
*'''Semiotic Democracy''': Was the Obama [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo advertisement] criticizing Hillary Clinton, modeled after the 1984 Apple advertisement, an example of a new trend in politics, wherein individuals are creating content and meaning without the authorization of the candidates they intend to support? Or was it just a fluke? If this is a new trend, how will it shape politics in the future? Is this something we should encourage or discourage?

==Class Discussion Questions==
*The study of the effect of the internet on democracy is very new. One of the most significant question is to ask what a democracy needs to thrive, and ask whether that thing is being enhanced compared to a world without the internet.
*In what new ways could individuals harness the internet to increase their power in participatory democracy?
*Is the effect of the internet on participatory democracy going to increase in the future, or have we reached its zenith?
*Will the internet have more of an effect on improving democracy in countries that currently don't have democracies, or that have new democracies, than it will in countries with established democracies?
*Many of these claims are subject to the retort "Yeah, in theory that's good, but it doesn't happen." Well, only time will tell. There seem to be plenty of stories from [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] about these things happening abroad. Perhaps the internet is a more important tool for developing (or future) democracies, rather than the already-settled democracies of the West.
*Rather than ask whether the internet ''is'' a force for democracy, the more fruitful line of inquiry would be to explore how we can ''make'' the internet a ''stronger'' force for democracy.
**We know individuals are empowered in a lot of ways by the internet, especially [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE Web 2.0]. Now we need to find a way to use that to empower them in the political sphere.

The Affirmative Argument

2007-05-02T21:41:35Z

Amornchai: /* Economic Democracy */

==The Question==

'''"Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world."'''

Quick Link to [[The Negative Argument]]

==The Argument in Favor of the Resolution:==

===Introduction===
Experience has shown that in order for participatory democracy to thrive, there are a number of necessary ingredients that a society must exhibit. Among these are a strong, unbiased, truthful media, fair and balanced elections, a politically engaged citizenry, a citizenry educated on political matters, transparency and accountability, and economic democracy.

It is our contention here that the internet has the capacity to, and in certain circumstances already has, improved the health of participatory democracies along each of these metrics. In other words, as compared to a world without the internet, the world with an internet is more conducive to participatory democracy.

However for the purposes of our argument as presented here the focus will be predominantly on societies that already have some level of participatory democracy. In states where there is in effect no channel for civic participation then it is additionally likely that access to the internet is also likely to be stringently prescribed as for example in the DPRK

Although there are a number of arguments that the internet enhances democracy in a more general sense, our focus here is on the effect the internet has on the power of ''individual citizens'' to influence the political process in a way that, depending on the baseline, either enhances existing democracies or helps bring about new democracies.

===A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media===

Democracy cannot work without abundant, readily available information. (See [[Note 1]]) If leaders, elected or not, are to be held accountable to the wishes of the people, the people must know what the leaders are doing. The privately owned media (defined here very generally as widely available information sources not controlled by the government) has long served as a watchdog of the government, and as the most important supplier of political information to citizens. The internet enhances the power of individual citizens to leverage the reach of traditional media outlets, and also to serve in the watchdog and information spreading roles themselves:
*By aggregating potentially inflammatory or interesting stories, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] raises the likelihood that one of those stories will become viral on the internet, or be noticed by the mainstream media. Therefore, Global Voices gives a lone, otherwise insignificant blogger/activist/witness the power to tell other citizens about an issue in a way that she could not have done before the advent of the internet.
**Assuming leaders know but do not care about the problem (or are causing it themselves) the faster a story becomes salient to a significant portion of the public, the sooner a 'tipping point' will be reached when people demand change in a voice loud enough that leaders must listen. This effect is particularly important in places where democracy does not yet exist. In other words, the ability of individuals to spread subversive news makes democratic revolution more likely, insofar as widespread knowledge of injustice motivates citizens to act.
**Assuming leaders would care about the problem but are unaware, this new ability of individual citizens to put out an alert will result in faster action. It's easier to fix problems while they're still small.
**In countries with a biased media, or a media that is controlled by a corrupt government that limits the freedom of media to tell citizens things the government does not want them to know, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/07/government-minister-suing-bahraini-blogger/ bloggers can fill the gap] in terms of the watchdog and information-spreading functions.
**In places where the media is not biased or controlled, but is ineffective at serving as a watchdog or spreading information because of a lack of resources or poor physical communication channels, the internet allows those media outlets (or individual bloggers) to move information quickly and efficiently to those citizens who have internet access. This effect will be present even in minimally wired countries. As long as there is one wired person in an area, the internet can get the information there despite weather, treacherous topography, war etc, and word of mouth will do the rest. The internet can get information to places that newspapers, mail and even TV cannot. This is of course assuming a basic âinternet infrastructureâ already exists.
*While [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html Shirky's curve] does point out that there are still a few dominant players in the information market in the blogging world, many of these players are individuals. One popular blogger can reach more people than a billion dollar newspaper empire. That's a lot of power for an individual. And it is possible that in a place with corrupt media, the lone blogger will be the ''only'' voice of truth that people can trust, and he'll have enormous power over the political process.
*Even in places with "good" media, the internet still enhances participatory democracy in various ways. For example, bloggers can add nuance to the "sound bite culture" of mainstream media. People who are interested in a story they see on TV can go online to learn more, and bloggers will be there to provide that information. Bloggers can provide detail and analysis that traditional media outlets might not find it profitable to provide. Bloggers can also act as an extension of the editorial pages, including serving as "letters to the editor" that don't get published. If the mainstream media is only providing the facts, the bloggers can provide direction for citizens on how to interpret those facts. For example, bloggers can speculate behind the facts to the possible motivations of the leaders, a topic in which citizens might be greatly interested but don't often get because traditional reporters don't often speculate. (There is a lot of potential for problems and abuse here, as we mentioned in [[Note 1]], but the fact remains that these extra functions online do have the capacity to enhance participatory democracy by enhancing the traditional media functions of supplying information and serving as a watchdog.)
*Blogs may also have potential as a new situs for investigative journalism. Where a "story" is not an existing object to be found but rather the constructed product of large time and energy investments, the internet opens the door for that effort to be distributed across the citizenry. By analogy, see [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ SETI@home].
**The website Talking Points Memo has been following the firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys since well before it hit the front pages. A handful of full-time investigative journalists at "TPM Muckraker" leveraged the time and energy of the blog's readership to go in-depth into the story. The 8 firings were covered in local newspapers and aggregated by readers who reported the stories to the site; readers later sifted through Justice Department documents and reported their findings to TPM. We return to the image of bloggers-in-pajamas, but this time they are cast as a disaggregated, 24-hour news bureau. "Assignment Zero" at Wired Magazine also seeks to leverage this citizen-powered journalism. NPR: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9083501 Talking Points Site Kept Attorneys Story Alive]

===Fair and Balanced Elections===
As a definitional rather than an aspirational matter, true democracy entails elections that are actually decided by the voters, in which the best-suited candidate can rise to the top and be elected.
*The internet makes it possible for an outsider or a fringe-party candidate to spread his message, even if he starts at a severe handicap because he is not supported by an established political machine or wealthy donors that favor tried-and-true incumbents. Websites and email are basically free, which means that any candidate can spread his message if it's one that people are willing to read.
**For example, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is running for office, and trying to use the internet to harness the grass roots. [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/12/bangladesh-can-the-power-of-one-save-the-nation/ Click here for more]. [http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/12/d7021201085.htm See his open letter here].
*As for the fairness of elections, see the Transparency and Accountability section below.

===Engaged Citizenry===
In a system that is ostensibly run by the people, more engagement by citizens is better. (See [[Note 2]]) The internet can be used to encourage individuals to become more active, and enables those who are active to be more effective.
*Citizens become engaged when they come to believe there is a serious problem that needs addressing. Seeing is believing. The internet enables single witnesses to 'show' everybody else the truth using firsthand accounts via [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/caught-on-camera-human-rights-video-on-gv/ YouTube videos]. Liars, criminals, bullies and tyrants lose plausible deniability when everybody ''sees'' them committing their crimes. The citizenry then mobilizes against what they now believe is a violation of rights. That was not as easy before the internet. But even then it was extremely powerful (e.g. Rodney King [http://www.multishow.com.ar/rodneyking/ video] and the incredible public reaction to a perceived injustice in the form of the Los Angeles riots). That effect is magnified with the internet.
*The internet enables individual activists to become super-activists. (see Palfrey's "classical and jazz" argument, that the internet enables people to do better what they were otherwise doing.) Those who were already engaged are able to reach more people and spread their message more effectively using blogs, email lists etc. What could have only been done by a huge organization can now be done by one highly motivated individual.
*The internet enables far-flung individuals to combine on big projects (for example, [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Seti@home]) which, because so many people have a vested interest in them, become accurate and popular. As Wikipedia has done for the world of encyclopedias, so a political communal project could become a 'public forum' on the internet where everybody can participate in the political debate. Even non-elite citizens can participate in this kind of forum, taking the power and focus away from the few talking heads that have heretofore dominated political discourse.
**The content of blogs and the links they provide tend to take one side of a particular issue. Any given blog has a tendency to reinforce the preconceived notions of its regular readers. But a centralized wiki is a place where all sides of an issue could focus and make sure that all nuances of every issue are presented truthfully and completely. It could be a great resource for others to become educated on the issues.
**A wiki would also provide a forum for people who want to be engaged on a small scale; one might not have enough to say to warrant a blog, but has one small argument or a few facts that could be added to a wiki.
*The blogosphere as a whole (as opposed to individual blogs) already acts as a 'public forum' on the internet for some issues and in some places. There are communities of bloggers that discuss particular issues in conversation with each other, in a way that millions of people can read and comment. So, those who are engaged enough to say something to the public have a place to do so.
**However, 'blogosphere as public forum' is less effective than it could be because bloggers tend not to present the opinions of their opponents or link to opposing arguments. So the conversations tend to be one-sided. Whereas the editorial pages of newspapers or radio call-in programs or physical public fora like public parks enabled both sides of an issue to be heard, the blogosphere doesn't always operate like that.
*The internet greases the wheels of political activity by otherwise un-engaged citizens. For example, there might be voters who are unwilling to walk door to door to campaign, but are happy to send emails to their friends. Or they might be unwilling to go to the effort to stamp an envelope to send a donation, but will click on PayPal. Citizens who have a 'day job' no longer have to sacrifice those other activities, because political involvement is so easy and efficient on the internet. Of course the increase in the quantity of political activity does not in and of itself assure an improvement in the quality of that engagement. Traditional political involvement involved real costs to those engaged not merely financial but just as critically their time. In a sense therefore those involved presumably were willing to âpayâ such a price as the issue was worth at least that much to them (cost/benefit analysis). Where the actual cost of engagement is extremely low, that is negligible, as is the case with the internet then there is a risk that some of the engagement may be the result of short term concerns and which are responded to in a greater than proportionate manner simply due to the ease to air oneâs views. However this is a normative issue and it is impractical (if not downright dangerous) for an external party to make interpersonal comparisons of the degrees of concern that different individuals might hold on a particular subject.
**Such low levels of involvement may not seem like much, but when aggregated across (potentially) hundreds of millions of people, it adds up.
**Once such people have been brought into political involvement, they may develop a taste for it, and become more active. They will at least be more motivated to vote, bringing up voter participation numbers.
**Even people at a low level of political engagement may find themselves on email lists (such as the annoyingly active one run by [http://www.moveon.org/ Moveon.org]). While an individual may have initially become involved because of one small issue, they may be exposed to other interesting issues in these emails, and might become further involved. (see [http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.html Sunstein's argument] about the need for a common space where people will be exposed to new ideas. Email lists can serve this function).
*The very structure of the internet means that it's unlikely there will ever be any sort of centralized control structure. Instead, individual members of the community that might have ''wanted'' to be involved before, but were afraid, are now emboldened to generate input more openly. They may feel more comfortable to expose their political ideas on the internet â especially if their ideas contradict policies/rules of their current government. Government censorship and surveillance are certainly problematic, but a determined activist can make her thoughts known online with some degree of anonymity in ways that were not possible before the internet.
**It is the tech firms (usually American) that enable government censorship and surveillance online. While there are other ways to unclog the channels of information in repressive regimes such as [http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-4780 GOFA] and the Voluntary Principles (no link provided due to confidentiality), the most interesting thing about the internet is that because of its structure, this type of government or corporate intervention is helpful but not necessary. Whereas there is not much an individual could do about government censorship of a TV station or newspaper, the internet enables "user-innovators" like MIT's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Richard Stallman] to develop and disseminate software that prevents/thwarts government attempts to control political thought online. (See Eric von Hippel's book [http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm "Democratizing Innovation"] for more on the phenomenon of user-innovation.) Without the internet, anti-establishment individuals would not have as much power to unclog the channels of political discussion. Interestingly, China has adopted the GNU Linux operating system, leaving their filtering and surveillance vulnerable to individual subversive action. The recent censoring of certain websites in Thailand was achieved through the main gateway into Thailand which is CAT (Communications Authority of Thailand). Although initially both CAT and the Ministry for Information and communications technology (a government ministry) initially denied that censorship was taking place blaming each other for the âdifficultyâ to gain access to You Tube, amongst others, it quickly became apparent that they were acting collaboratively.
*While it is hard to break into the club of top bloggers [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html described by Shirky], people do. There is a much more active revolving door in the blogging world than in traditional media. All the individuals in the long tail of Shirky's curve have an incentive to educate themselves on political matters and get involved, in hopes that they'll be the one to have the power of the big bloggers. In the physical world, there is a slim chance that any given person will end up owning a media empire. But online, anybody could become the next Andrew Sullivan or Wonkette or Daily Kos. So, the internet provides a space where the dream of hitting the big time is realistic. And even those that don't make it will be more engaged in the political process in hopes of hitting it big. On balance, it's better to have more people paying attention to politics and honing their argumentation skills.
*If voting can be done through the internet, the number of voters will increase greatly since people tend not to go to cast their vote at the designated poll if it inconveniences them to travel there. But if people can log on and vote from their office, they are far more likely to do so.

===Educated Citizenry===
In a system where citizens are running the country, its important that they know what they're talking about. The most obvious advantage of the internet is its ability to quickly and cheaply educate citizens about political matters.
*Even in countries where the government tries to restrict the educational function of the internet through censorship and filtering, individuals can [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/access-flickr-iran/ circumvent those controls], enabling other citizens to be educated about things the incumbent government doesn't want them to know. The cycle of government repression and citizen circumvention is a tit-for-tat that would have never been possible before the internet. Before, the secret police had only to destroy the printing press, and that put a stop to the production of subversive educational materials in that place. The ability of individual hackers to disable government censorship is an enormous power that individuals did not have before the advent of the internet.
*Even as China and other countries try to "let in the light while keeping out the flies", a few flies are getting in. It only takes a little bit of information in the hands of the right people to get other people talking, breed discontent, and cause change. A little education goes a long way. The [http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/rebel.html photo] of the unknown rebel in Tienanmen Square is an example of a small bit of information that could have a profound effect on a political regime if it were widely seen and its significance discussed.
*As we discussed in class on February 13, perhaps the most effective way to campaign for a cause is by word of mouth. Individuals with Live Journals are able to "speak to" and perhaps educate friends and family all the way across the country, or around the world. That kind of discourse is important for a democracy. We may never know whether or how it changes votes, but it's good that people are discussing political issues. Again, a little bit of education is better than none, and can have a profound effect in the hands of the right people.
**Even if votes aren't changed in the short term, the development of this inter-personal discourse online helps lay a foundation for a time when it may matter more. For example, if a big event happens, there will already be a network of inter-connected bloggers and their readers in place to get the "real" story out, mouth to mouth, in a way that people trust. And it will be a tool for mobilizing people to demand change.
*The country/world is a lot smaller than it was before the internet. Before the internet, one might have theoretically cared that control of the government came down to one close senate race in Virginia, but one might not have ''known'' about it. And even if one knew, there was not much you could do about it on the afternoon of November 7 if one was in Oregon. But now, people can educate a huge amount of interested people very quickly. And in turn, those people can become involved by sending money, VOIPing people in that area encouraging them to vote etc. The internet allows the whole country to participate in what used to be purely 'local' elections by educating people that those elections are important.
*The internet makes it easy to find information online. From the Pew survey, it seems that people are relying more on the internet as their source of political information [http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Politics_2006.pdf]

===Transparency and Accountability===
*Any individual who happens to know the truth can break the story. The major networks can no longer act as bottlenecks to stop important stories from getting out there (if the networks are in bed with the interested parties). For example, Senator Allen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7gq7GQ71c macaca comment] is said to have derailed his campaign because the internet enabled it to be seen by so many people who were outraged by it. There is no evidence to support this, but it is possible that a network might overlook something like that in hopes of garnering favor with a candidate, but could be pressured into making it a big deal by the tidal wave of interest online.
*The internet enables extensive and fast fact checking. A person at a town hall with a candidate could have her laptop open and check voting records as the candidate answered a question, and expose the lie right away. Even if this doesn't happen often, candidates will know it ''can'', and will be scared into being more honest and transparent.
*Flip-flopping will be exposed. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI Romney] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI McCain] can't get away with their recent flip-flopping because we have video footage of them holding opposite positions. The internet makes it extremely easy for individuals to expose the lies to others.
*Politicians respond to polls. The internet enables much faster and more widespread polling. Individuals can (when aggregated in a poll) have a more efficient way to respond to the decisions of leaders and direct policy.

===Economic Democracy===
*The internet provides jobs (e.g. tech-service in India), access to markets, and an ability to acquire and use capital that leads to the emergence of a stronger middle class. People who are not living hand-to-mouth have more leisure to educate themselves, engage in politics, and pressure governments to act in their interests. Further the internet reduces the ability of some local suppliers to maintain monopoly power in the market as access to the web allows for the world to become the local market place and enhances consumer sovereignty in the process.

===Examples to Discuss===
The following are some examples from various countries concerning the question of how the internet can enhance citizens participation in politics. Some thoughts for possible arguments are also included.

*'''ePetitions''': [http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open?sort=signers/ In England], British citizens can petition the Prime Minister directly online. This system allows millions of British people to say what they want directly to the government. Today, there are more than 1.5 million signatures only for the "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" petition. (For more examples of countries adopting e-petition, see [http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/ Scotland] and [http://www.zebralog.de/en/000195.html Germany])
*'''eVoting''': Some countries have an election system that allows voters to transmit their ballots over the internet.(See, for example, [http://www.geneve.ch/evoting/english/welcome.asp Geneva eVoting Project])
**Possible Arguments: How can we ensure that the system will support the principle of âone man, one voteâ? Will there be a vote robbery problem (voters might cast their ballot on counterfeit voting sites)? What about the voters' privacy; will their information be revealed?
*'''eRulemaking Initiative'''[http://www.epa.gov/oei/proceedings/2005/pdfs/morales.pdf]: This is an attempt to increase citizen participation and understanding in the rulemaking process by making the process easily accessible via the internet. Citizens have an opportunity to become educated about the current rules and policies and have the ability to participate in the rulemaking process by submitting comments which will improve the quality of the leaders' decision-making processes.
**In the US, there is an eRulemaking Initiative which was launched in January 2003 by the Bush Administration. They established the eRulemaking website - regulations.gov â which allows anyone to read and comment on proposed federal regulations. In fall 2005, the newer version of this site was released by incorporating the ongoing development of the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) which provides the public and agencies access to the entire regulatory docket, including rules, supporting documents, and public comments. (see [http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main/ regulation.gov] and [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-3-1-er.html whitehouse.gov])
*'''Online Dialogues''': The internet makes it possible to have online interactive regulatory dialogues among large number of people, allowing them to discuss any social or political issues with each other as well as with government officials. For example, in 2001, the EPA established an online dialogue project (which won an E-Gov 2002 Explorer Award) on its new draft Public Involvement Policy so that the public could participate and help the officers to determine what kind of revisions to make to the policies. (For more examples of public online dialogues, go to [http://www.info-ren.org/what/dialogues_projects.shtml info-ren.org]
*'''Thailand's political change in 2006''': The internet is an alternative source of information when the government controls and restricts the freedom of the mainstream media (TV, newspaper, radio etc.) to shut the eyes and ears of the people. (see [http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/24/news/thai.php iht.com] and [http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,98445,00.html asiaweek.com]) . For example, it is fair to say that strong criticism of the policies and actions of the former Thai government through various mechanisms online (blog, email, IM, video/audio sharing websites etc.) was one of the main factors that led to the significant [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2n703TFOYM political movements] and changes in Thailand last year. Various facts and criticisms that could not be found anywhere through the mainstream media are often available online [http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=&mode=related&v=_yRtLEc5YAE Tak Bai] and [http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/18/thaila12251.htm hrw.org] for examples).
*'''Campaign websites''': Perhaps the reason that the campaign websites of [http://www.americansformitt.com/ Romney], [http://www.barackobama.com/ Obama], [http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ Clinton], [http://johnedwards.com/splash/ Edwards] are so tame and fail to really make use of the interactive power of the internet is that they fear the power it gives to individuals. They realize that the internet has the power to take politics off the pedestal and make it rough, dirty, personal and democratic, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman Truman]'s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan_Railcar Whistlestop] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_1948 Campaign of 1948]. They don't actually want to interact with the people. They want scripted sound-bites and tame debates. They feel it's easier to get elected and rule when citizens are not individually empowered to interact with their leaders, because then the leaders would actually be accountable to the people. Since the internet has the capacity to enable a more personal, democratic style of campaigning and governing, they fear the internet. That explains why they fail to make full use of the internet to provide a truly interactive experience for voters.
*'''Semiotic Democracy''': Was the Obama [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo advertisement] criticizing Hillary Clinton, modeled after the 1984 Apple advertisement, an example of a new trend in politics, wherein individuals are creating content and meaning without the authorization of the candidates they intend to support? Or was it just a fluke? If this is a new trend, how will it shape politics in the future? Is this something we should encourage or discourage?

==Class Discussion Questions==
*The study of the effect of the internet on democracy is very new. One of the most significant question is to ask what a democracy needs to thrive, and ask whether that thing is being enhanced compared to a world without the internet.
*In what new ways could individuals harness the internet to increase their power in participatory democracy?
*Is the effect of the internet on participatory democracy going to increase in the future, or have we reached its zenith?
*Will the internet have more of an effect on improving democracy in countries that currently don't have democracies, or that have new democracies, than it will in countries with established democracies?
*Many of these claims are subject to the retort "Yeah, in theory that's good, but it doesn't happen." Well, only time will tell. There seem to be plenty of stories from [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] about these things happening abroad. Perhaps the internet is a more important tool for developing (or future) democracies, rather than the already-settled democracies of the West.
*Rather than ask whether the internet ''is'' a force for democracy, the more fruitful line of inquiry would be to explore how we can ''make'' the internet a ''stronger'' force for democracy.
**We know individuals are empowered in a lot of ways by the internet, especially [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE Web 2.0]. Now we need to find a way to use that to empower them in the political sphere.

The Affirmative Argument

2007-05-02T21:36:55Z

Amornchai: /* Engaged Citizenry */

==The Question==

'''"Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world."'''

Quick Link to [[The Negative Argument]]

==The Argument in Favor of the Resolution:==

===Introduction===
Experience has shown that in order for participatory democracy to thrive, there are a number of necessary ingredients that a society must exhibit. Among these are a strong, unbiased, truthful media, fair and balanced elections, a politically engaged citizenry, a citizenry educated on political matters, transparency and accountability, and economic democracy.

It is our contention here that the internet has the capacity to, and in certain circumstances already has, improved the health of participatory democracies along each of these metrics. In other words, as compared to a world without the internet, the world with an internet is more conducive to participatory democracy.

However for the purposes of our argument as presented here the focus will be predominantly on societies that already have some level of participatory democracy. In states where there is in effect no channel for civic participation then it is additionally likely that access to the internet is also likely to be stringently prescribed as for example in the DPRK

Although there are a number of arguments that the internet enhances democracy in a more general sense, our focus here is on the effect the internet has on the power of ''individual citizens'' to influence the political process in a way that, depending on the baseline, either enhances existing democracies or helps bring about new democracies.

===A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media===

Democracy cannot work without abundant, readily available information. (See [[Note 1]]) If leaders, elected or not, are to be held accountable to the wishes of the people, the people must know what the leaders are doing. The privately owned media (defined here very generally as widely available information sources not controlled by the government) has long served as a watchdog of the government, and as the most important supplier of political information to citizens. The internet enhances the power of individual citizens to leverage the reach of traditional media outlets, and also to serve in the watchdog and information spreading roles themselves:
*By aggregating potentially inflammatory or interesting stories, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] raises the likelihood that one of those stories will become viral on the internet, or be noticed by the mainstream media. Therefore, Global Voices gives a lone, otherwise insignificant blogger/activist/witness the power to tell other citizens about an issue in a way that she could not have done before the advent of the internet.
**Assuming leaders know but do not care about the problem (or are causing it themselves) the faster a story becomes salient to a significant portion of the public, the sooner a 'tipping point' will be reached when people demand change in a voice loud enough that leaders must listen. This effect is particularly important in places where democracy does not yet exist. In other words, the ability of individuals to spread subversive news makes democratic revolution more likely, insofar as widespread knowledge of injustice motivates citizens to act.
**Assuming leaders would care about the problem but are unaware, this new ability of individual citizens to put out an alert will result in faster action. It's easier to fix problems while they're still small.
**In countries with a biased media, or a media that is controlled by a corrupt government that limits the freedom of media to tell citizens things the government does not want them to know, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/07/government-minister-suing-bahraini-blogger/ bloggers can fill the gap] in terms of the watchdog and information-spreading functions.
**In places where the media is not biased or controlled, but is ineffective at serving as a watchdog or spreading information because of a lack of resources or poor physical communication channels, the internet allows those media outlets (or individual bloggers) to move information quickly and efficiently to those citizens who have internet access. This effect will be present even in minimally wired countries. As long as there is one wired person in an area, the internet can get the information there despite weather, treacherous topography, war etc, and word of mouth will do the rest. The internet can get information to places that newspapers, mail and even TV cannot. This is of course assuming a basic âinternet infrastructureâ already exists.
*While [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html Shirky's curve] does point out that there are still a few dominant players in the information market in the blogging world, many of these players are individuals. One popular blogger can reach more people than a billion dollar newspaper empire. That's a lot of power for an individual. And it is possible that in a place with corrupt media, the lone blogger will be the ''only'' voice of truth that people can trust, and he'll have enormous power over the political process.
*Even in places with "good" media, the internet still enhances participatory democracy in various ways. For example, bloggers can add nuance to the "sound bite culture" of mainstream media. People who are interested in a story they see on TV can go online to learn more, and bloggers will be there to provide that information. Bloggers can provide detail and analysis that traditional media outlets might not find it profitable to provide. Bloggers can also act as an extension of the editorial pages, including serving as "letters to the editor" that don't get published. If the mainstream media is only providing the facts, the bloggers can provide direction for citizens on how to interpret those facts. For example, bloggers can speculate behind the facts to the possible motivations of the leaders, a topic in which citizens might be greatly interested but don't often get because traditional reporters don't often speculate. (There is a lot of potential for problems and abuse here, as we mentioned in [[Note 1]], but the fact remains that these extra functions online do have the capacity to enhance participatory democracy by enhancing the traditional media functions of supplying information and serving as a watchdog.)
*Blogs may also have potential as a new situs for investigative journalism. Where a "story" is not an existing object to be found but rather the constructed product of large time and energy investments, the internet opens the door for that effort to be distributed across the citizenry. By analogy, see [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ SETI@home].
**The website Talking Points Memo has been following the firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys since well before it hit the front pages. A handful of full-time investigative journalists at "TPM Muckraker" leveraged the time and energy of the blog's readership to go in-depth into the story. The 8 firings were covered in local newspapers and aggregated by readers who reported the stories to the site; readers later sifted through Justice Department documents and reported their findings to TPM. We return to the image of bloggers-in-pajamas, but this time they are cast as a disaggregated, 24-hour news bureau. "Assignment Zero" at Wired Magazine also seeks to leverage this citizen-powered journalism. NPR: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9083501 Talking Points Site Kept Attorneys Story Alive]

===Fair and Balanced Elections===
As a definitional rather than an aspirational matter, true democracy entails elections that are actually decided by the voters, in which the best-suited candidate can rise to the top and be elected.
*The internet makes it possible for an outsider or a fringe-party candidate to spread his message, even if he starts at a severe handicap because he is not supported by an established political machine or wealthy donors that favor tried-and-true incumbents. Websites and email are basically free, which means that any candidate can spread his message if it's one that people are willing to read.
**For example, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is running for office, and trying to use the internet to harness the grass roots. [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/12/bangladesh-can-the-power-of-one-save-the-nation/ Click here for more]. [http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/12/d7021201085.htm See his open letter here].
*As for the fairness of elections, see the Transparency and Accountability section below.

===Engaged Citizenry===
In a system that is ostensibly run by the people, more engagement by citizens is better. (See [[Note 2]]) The internet can be used to encourage individuals to become more active, and enables those who are active to be more effective.
*Citizens become engaged when they come to believe there is a serious problem that needs addressing. Seeing is believing. The internet enables single witnesses to 'show' everybody else the truth using firsthand accounts via [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/caught-on-camera-human-rights-video-on-gv/ YouTube videos]. Liars, criminals, bullies and tyrants lose plausible deniability when everybody ''sees'' them committing their crimes. The citizenry then mobilizes against what they now believe is a violation of rights. That was not as easy before the internet. But even then it was extremely powerful (e.g. Rodney King [http://www.multishow.com.ar/rodneyking/ video] and the incredible public reaction to a perceived injustice in the form of the Los Angeles riots). That effect is magnified with the internet.
*The internet enables individual activists to become super-activists. (see Palfrey's "classical and jazz" argument, that the internet enables people to do better what they were otherwise doing.) Those who were already engaged are able to reach more people and spread their message more effectively using blogs, email lists etc. What could have only been done by a huge organization can now be done by one highly motivated individual.
*The internet enables far-flung individuals to combine on big projects (for example, [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Seti@home]) which, because so many people have a vested interest in them, become accurate and popular. As Wikipedia has done for the world of encyclopedias, so a political communal project could become a 'public forum' on the internet where everybody can participate in the political debate. Even non-elite citizens can participate in this kind of forum, taking the power and focus away from the few talking heads that have heretofore dominated political discourse.
**The content of blogs and the links they provide tend to take one side of a particular issue. Any given blog has a tendency to reinforce the preconceived notions of its regular readers. But a centralized wiki is a place where all sides of an issue could focus and make sure that all nuances of every issue are presented truthfully and completely. It could be a great resource for others to become educated on the issues.
**A wiki would also provide a forum for people who want to be engaged on a small scale; one might not have enough to say to warrant a blog, but has one small argument or a few facts that could be added to a wiki.
*The blogosphere as a whole (as opposed to individual blogs) already acts as a 'public forum' on the internet for some issues and in some places. There are communities of bloggers that discuss particular issues in conversation with each other, in a way that millions of people can read and comment. So, those who are engaged enough to say something to the public have a place to do so.
**However, 'blogosphere as public forum' is less effective than it could be because bloggers tend not to present the opinions of their opponents or link to opposing arguments. So the conversations tend to be one-sided. Whereas the editorial pages of newspapers or radio call-in programs or physical public fora like public parks enabled both sides of an issue to be heard, the blogosphere doesn't always operate like that.
*The internet greases the wheels of political activity by otherwise un-engaged citizens. For example, there might be voters who are unwilling to walk door to door to campaign, but are happy to send emails to their friends. Or they might be unwilling to go to the effort to stamp an envelope to send a donation, but will click on PayPal. Citizens who have a 'day job' no longer have to sacrifice those other activities, because political involvement is so easy and efficient on the internet. Of course the increase in the quantity of political activity does not in and of itself assure an improvement in the quality of that engagement. Traditional political involvement involved real costs to those engaged not merely financial but just as critically their time. In a sense therefore those involved presumably were willing to âpayâ such a price as the issue was worth at least that much to them (cost/benefit analysis). Where the actual cost of engagement is extremely low, that is negligible, as is the case with the internet then there is a risk that some of the engagement may be the result of short term concerns and which are responded to in a greater than proportionate manner simply due to the ease to air oneâs views. However this is a normative issue and it is impractical (if not downright dangerous) for an external party to make interpersonal comparisons of the degrees of concern that different individuals might hold on a particular subject.
**Such low levels of involvement may not seem like much, but when aggregated across (potentially) hundreds of millions of people, it adds up.
**Once such people have been brought into political involvement, they may develop a taste for it, and become more active. They will at least be more motivated to vote, bringing up voter participation numbers.
**Even people at a low level of political engagement may find themselves on email lists (such as the annoyingly active one run by [http://www.moveon.org/ Moveon.org]). While an individual may have initially become involved because of one small issue, they may be exposed to other interesting issues in these emails, and might become further involved. (see [http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.html Sunstein's argument] about the need for a common space where people will be exposed to new ideas. Email lists can serve this function).
*The very structure of the internet means that it's unlikely there will ever be any sort of centralized control structure. Instead, individual members of the community that might have ''wanted'' to be involved before, but were afraid, are now emboldened to generate input more openly. They may feel more comfortable to expose their political ideas on the internet â especially if their ideas contradict policies/rules of their current government. Government censorship and surveillance are certainly problematic, but a determined activist can make her thoughts known online with some degree of anonymity in ways that were not possible before the internet.
**It is the tech firms (usually American) that enable government censorship and surveillance online. While there are other ways to unclog the channels of information in repressive regimes such as [http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-4780 GOFA] and the Voluntary Principles (no link provided due to confidentiality), the most interesting thing about the internet is that because of its structure, this type of government or corporate intervention is helpful but not necessary. Whereas there is not much an individual could do about government censorship of a TV station or newspaper, the internet enables "user-innovators" like MIT's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Richard Stallman] to develop and disseminate software that prevents/thwarts government attempts to control political thought online. (See Eric von Hippel's book [http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm "Democratizing Innovation"] for more on the phenomenon of user-innovation.) Without the internet, anti-establishment individuals would not have as much power to unclog the channels of political discussion. Interestingly, China has adopted the GNU Linux operating system, leaving their filtering and surveillance vulnerable to individual subversive action. The recent censoring of certain websites in Thailand was achieved through the main gateway into Thailand which is CAT (Communications Authority of Thailand). Although initially both CAT and the Ministry for Information and communications technology (a government ministry) initially denied that censorship was taking place blaming each other for the âdifficultyâ to gain access to You Tube, amongst others, it quickly became apparent that they were acting collaboratively.
*While it is hard to break into the club of top bloggers [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html described by Shirky], people do. There is a much more active revolving door in the blogging world than in traditional media. All the individuals in the long tail of Shirky's curve have an incentive to educate themselves on political matters and get involved, in hopes that they'll be the one to have the power of the big bloggers. In the physical world, there is a slim chance that any given person will end up owning a media empire. But online, anybody could become the next Andrew Sullivan or Wonkette or Daily Kos. So, the internet provides a space where the dream of hitting the big time is realistic. And even those that don't make it will be more engaged in the political process in hopes of hitting it big. On balance, it's better to have more people paying attention to politics and honing their argumentation skills.
*If voting can be done through the internet, the number of voters will increase greatly since people tend not to go to cast their vote at the designated poll if it inconveniences them to travel there. But if people can log on and vote from their office, they are far more likely to do so.

===Educated Citizenry===
In a system where citizens are running the country, its important that they know what they're talking about. The most obvious advantage of the internet is its ability to quickly and cheaply educate citizens about political matters.
*Even in countries where the government tries to restrict the educational function of the internet through censorship and filtering, individuals can [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/access-flickr-iran/ circumvent those controls], enabling other citizens to be educated about things the incumbent government doesn't want them to know. The cycle of government repression and citizen circumvention is a tit-for-tat that would have never been possible before the internet. Before, the secret police had only to destroy the printing press, and that put a stop to the production of subversive educational materials in that place. The ability of individual hackers to disable government censorship is an enormous power that individuals did not have before the advent of the internet.
*Even as China and other countries try to "let in the light while keeping out the flies", a few flies are getting in. It only takes a little bit of information in the hands of the right people to get other people talking, breed discontent, and cause change. A little education goes a long way. The [http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/rebel.html photo] of the unknown rebel in Tienanmen Square is an example of a small bit of information that could have a profound effect on a political regime if it were widely seen and its significance discussed.
*As we discussed in class on February 13, perhaps the most effective way to campaign for a cause is by word of mouth. Individuals with Live Journals are able to "speak to" and perhaps educate friends and family all the way across the country, or around the world. That kind of discourse is important for a democracy. We may never know whether or how it changes votes, but it's good that people are discussing political issues. Again, a little bit of education is better than none, and can have a profound effect in the hands of the right people.
**Even if votes aren't changed in the short term, the development of this inter-personal discourse online helps lay a foundation for a time when it may matter more. For example, if a big event happens, there will already be a network of inter-connected bloggers and their readers in place to get the "real" story out, mouth to mouth, in a way that people trust. And it will be a tool for mobilizing people to demand change.
*The country/world is a lot smaller than it was before the internet. Before the internet, one might have theoretically cared that control of the government came down to one close senate race in Virginia, but one might not have ''known'' about it. And even if one knew, there was not much you could do about it on the afternoon of November 7 if one was in Oregon. But now, people can educate a huge amount of interested people very quickly. And in turn, those people can become involved by sending money, VOIPing people in that area encouraging them to vote etc. The internet allows the whole country to participate in what used to be purely 'local' elections by educating people that those elections are important.
*The internet makes it easy to find information online. From the Pew survey, it seems that people are relying more on the internet as their source of political information [http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Politics_2006.pdf]

===Transparency and Accountability===
*Any individual who happens to know the truth can break the story. The major networks can no longer act as bottlenecks to stop important stories from getting out there (if the networks are in bed with the interested parties). For example, Senator Allen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7gq7GQ71c macaca comment] is said to have derailed his campaign because the internet enabled it to be seen by so many people who were outraged by it. There is no evidence to support this, but it is possible that a network might overlook something like that in hopes of garnering favor with a candidate, but could be pressured into making it a big deal by the tidal wave of interest online.
*The internet enables extensive and fast fact checking. A person at a town hall with a candidate could have her laptop open and check voting records as the candidate answered a question, and expose the lie right away. Even if this doesn't happen often, candidates will know it ''can'', and will be scared into being more honest and transparent.
*Flip-flopping will be exposed. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI Romney] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI McCain] can't get away with their recent flip-flopping because we have video footage of them holding opposite positions. The internet makes it extremely easy for individuals to expose the lies to others.
*Politicians respond to polls. The internet enables much faster and more widespread polling. Individuals can (when aggregated in a poll) have a more efficient way to respond to the decisions of leaders and direct policy.

===Economic Democracy===
*The internet provides jobs (e.g. tech-service in India), access to markets, and an ability to acquire and use capital that leads to the emergence of a stronger middle class. People who are not living hand-to-mouth have more leisure to educate themselves, engage in politics, and pressure governments to act in their interests.

===Examples to Discuss===
The following are some examples from various countries concerning the question of how the internet can enhance citizens participation in politics. Some thoughts for possible arguments are also included.

*'''ePetitions''': [http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open?sort=signers/ In England], British citizens can petition the Prime Minister directly online. This system allows millions of British people to say what they want directly to the government. Today, there are more than 1.5 million signatures only for the "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" petition. (For more examples of countries adopting e-petition, see [http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/ Scotland] and [http://www.zebralog.de/en/000195.html Germany])
*'''eVoting''': Some countries have an election system that allows voters to transmit their ballots over the internet.(See, for example, [http://www.geneve.ch/evoting/english/welcome.asp Geneva eVoting Project])
**Possible Arguments: How can we ensure that the system will support the principle of âone man, one voteâ? Will there be a vote robbery problem (voters might cast their ballot on counterfeit voting sites)? What about the voters' privacy; will their information be revealed?
*'''eRulemaking Initiative'''[http://www.epa.gov/oei/proceedings/2005/pdfs/morales.pdf]: This is an attempt to increase citizen participation and understanding in the rulemaking process by making the process easily accessible via the internet. Citizens have an opportunity to become educated about the current rules and policies and have the ability to participate in the rulemaking process by submitting comments which will improve the quality of the leaders' decision-making processes.
**In the US, there is an eRulemaking Initiative which was launched in January 2003 by the Bush Administration. They established the eRulemaking website - regulations.gov â which allows anyone to read and comment on proposed federal regulations. In fall 2005, the newer version of this site was released by incorporating the ongoing development of the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) which provides the public and agencies access to the entire regulatory docket, including rules, supporting documents, and public comments. (see [http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main/ regulation.gov] and [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-3-1-er.html whitehouse.gov])
*'''Online Dialogues''': The internet makes it possible to have online interactive regulatory dialogues among large number of people, allowing them to discuss any social or political issues with each other as well as with government officials. For example, in 2001, the EPA established an online dialogue project (which won an E-Gov 2002 Explorer Award) on its new draft Public Involvement Policy so that the public could participate and help the officers to determine what kind of revisions to make to the policies. (For more examples of public online dialogues, go to [http://www.info-ren.org/what/dialogues_projects.shtml info-ren.org]
*'''Thailand's political change in 2006''': The internet is an alternative source of information when the government controls and restricts the freedom of the mainstream media (TV, newspaper, radio etc.) to shut the eyes and ears of the people. (see [http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/24/news/thai.php iht.com] and [http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,98445,00.html asiaweek.com]) . For example, it is fair to say that strong criticism of the policies and actions of the former Thai government through various mechanisms online (blog, email, IM, video/audio sharing websites etc.) was one of the main factors that led to the significant [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2n703TFOYM political movements] and changes in Thailand last year. Various facts and criticisms that could not be found anywhere through the mainstream media are often available online [http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=&mode=related&v=_yRtLEc5YAE Tak Bai] and [http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/18/thaila12251.htm hrw.org] for examples).
*'''Campaign websites''': Perhaps the reason that the campaign websites of [http://www.americansformitt.com/ Romney], [http://www.barackobama.com/ Obama], [http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ Clinton], [http://johnedwards.com/splash/ Edwards] are so tame and fail to really make use of the interactive power of the internet is that they fear the power it gives to individuals. They realize that the internet has the power to take politics off the pedestal and make it rough, dirty, personal and democratic, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman Truman]'s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan_Railcar Whistlestop] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_1948 Campaign of 1948]. They don't actually want to interact with the people. They want scripted sound-bites and tame debates. They feel it's easier to get elected and rule when citizens are not individually empowered to interact with their leaders, because then the leaders would actually be accountable to the people. Since the internet has the capacity to enable a more personal, democratic style of campaigning and governing, they fear the internet. That explains why they fail to make full use of the internet to provide a truly interactive experience for voters.
*'''Semiotic Democracy''': Was the Obama [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo advertisement] criticizing Hillary Clinton, modeled after the 1984 Apple advertisement, an example of a new trend in politics, wherein individuals are creating content and meaning without the authorization of the candidates they intend to support? Or was it just a fluke? If this is a new trend, how will it shape politics in the future? Is this something we should encourage or discourage?

==Class Discussion Questions==
*The study of the effect of the internet on democracy is very new. One of the most significant question is to ask what a democracy needs to thrive, and ask whether that thing is being enhanced compared to a world without the internet.
*In what new ways could individuals harness the internet to increase their power in participatory democracy?
*Is the effect of the internet on participatory democracy going to increase in the future, or have we reached its zenith?
*Will the internet have more of an effect on improving democracy in countries that currently don't have democracies, or that have new democracies, than it will in countries with established democracies?
*Many of these claims are subject to the retort "Yeah, in theory that's good, but it doesn't happen." Well, only time will tell. There seem to be plenty of stories from [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] about these things happening abroad. Perhaps the internet is a more important tool for developing (or future) democracies, rather than the already-settled democracies of the West.
*Rather than ask whether the internet ''is'' a force for democracy, the more fruitful line of inquiry would be to explore how we can ''make'' the internet a ''stronger'' force for democracy.
**We know individuals are empowered in a lot of ways by the internet, especially [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE Web 2.0]. Now we need to find a way to use that to empower them in the political sphere.

The Affirmative Argument

2007-04-28T17:20:06Z

Amornchai: /* Engaged Citizenry */

==The Question==

'''"Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world."'''

Quick Link to [[The Negative Argument]]

==The Argument in Favor of the Resolution:==

===Introduction===
Experience has shown that in order for participatory democracy to thrive, there are a number of necessary ingredients that a society must exhibit. Among these are a strong, unbiased, truthful media, fair and balanced elections, a politically engaged citizenry, a citizenry educated on political matters, transparency and accountability, and economic democracy.

It is our contention here that the internet has the capacity to, and in certain circumstances already has, improved the health of participatory democracies along each of these metrics. In other words, as compared to a world without the internet, the world with an internet is more conducive to participatory democracy.

However for the purposes of our argument as presented here the focus will be predominantly on societies that already have some level of participatory democracy. In states where there is in effect no channel for civic participation then it is additionally likely that access to the internet is also likely to be stringently prescribed as for example in the DPRK

Although there are a number of arguments that the internet enhances democracy in a more general sense, our focus here is on the effect the internet has on the power of ''individual citizens'' to influence the political process in a way that, depending on the baseline, either enhances existing democracies or helps bring about new democracies.

===A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media===

Democracy cannot work without abundant, readily available information. (See [[Note 1]]) If leaders, elected or not, are to be held accountable to the wishes of the people, the people must know what the leaders are doing. The privately owned media (defined here very generally as widely available information sources not controlled by the government) has long served as a watchdog of the government, and as the most important supplier of political information to citizens. The internet enhances the power of individual citizens to leverage the reach of traditional media outlets, and also to serve in the watchdog and information spreading roles themselves:
*By aggregating potentially inflammatory or interesting stories, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] raises the likelihood that one of those stories will become viral on the internet, or be noticed by the mainstream media. Therefore, Global Voices gives a lone, otherwise insignificant blogger/activist/witness the power to tell other citizens about an issue in a way that she could not have done before the advent of the internet.
**Assuming leaders know but do not care about the problem (or are causing it themselves) the faster a story becomes salient to a significant portion of the public, the sooner a 'tipping point' will be reached when people demand change in a voice loud enough that leaders must listen. This effect is particularly important in places where democracy does not yet exist. In other words, the ability of individuals to spread subversive news makes democratic revolution more likely, insofar as widespread knowledge of injustice motivates citizens to act.
**Assuming leaders would care about the problem but are unaware, this new ability of individual citizens to put out an alert will result in faster action. It's easier to fix problems while they're still small.
**In countries with a biased media, or a media that is controlled by a corrupt government that limits the freedom of media to tell citizens things the government does not want them to know, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/07/government-minister-suing-bahraini-blogger/ bloggers can fill the gap] in terms of the watchdog and information-spreading functions.
**In places where the media is not biased or controlled, but is ineffective at serving as a watchdog or spreading information because of a lack of resources or poor physical communication channels, the internet allows those media outlets (or individual bloggers) to move information quickly and efficiently to those citizens who have internet access. This effect will be present even in minimally wired countries. As long as there is one wired person in an area, the internet can get the information there despite weather, treacherous topography, war etc, and word of mouth will do the rest. The internet can get information to places that newspapers, mail and even TV cannot. This is of course assuming a basic âinternet infrastructureâ already exists.
*While [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html Shirky's curve] does point out that there are still a few dominant players in the information market in the blogging world, many of these players are individuals. One popular blogger can reach more people than a billion dollar newspaper empire. That's a lot of power for an individual. And it is possible that in a place with corrupt media, the lone blogger will be the ''only'' voice of truth that people can trust, and he'll have enormous power over the political process.
*Even in places with "good" media, the internet still enhances participatory democracy in various ways. For example, bloggers can add nuance to the "sound bite culture" of mainstream media. People who are interested in a story they see on TV can go online to learn more, and bloggers will be there to provide that information. Bloggers can provide detail and analysis that traditional media outlets might not find it profitable to provide. Bloggers can also act as an extension of the editorial pages, including serving as "letters to the editor" that don't get published. If the mainstream media is only providing the facts, the bloggers can provide direction for citizens on how to interpret those facts. For example, bloggers can speculate behind the facts to the possible motivations of the leaders, a topic in which citizens might be greatly interested but don't often get because traditional reporters don't often speculate. (There is a lot of potential for problems and abuse here, as we mentioned in [[Note 1]], but the fact remains that these extra functions online do have the capacity to enhance participatory democracy by enhancing the traditional media functions of supplying information and serving as a watchdog.)
*Blogs may also have potential as a new situs for investigative journalism. Where a "story" is not an existing object to be found but rather the constructed product of large time and energy investments, the internet opens the door for that effort to be distributed across the citizenry. By analogy, see [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ SETI@home].
**The website Talking Points Memo has been following the firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys since well before it hit the front pages. A handful of full-time investigative journalists at "TPM Muckraker" leveraged the time and energy of the blog's readership to go in-depth into the story. The 8 firings were covered in local newspapers and aggregated by readers who reported the stories to the site; readers later sifted through Justice Department documents and reported their findings to TPM. We return to the image of bloggers-in-pajamas, but this time they are cast as a disaggregated, 24-hour news bureau. "Assignment Zero" at Wired Magazine also seeks to leverage this citizen-powered journalism. NPR: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9083501 Talking Points Site Kept Attorneys Story Alive]

===Fair and Balanced Elections===
As a definitional rather than an aspirational matter, true democracy entails elections that are actually decided by the voters, in which the best-suited candidate can rise to the top and be elected.
*The internet makes it possible for an outsider or a fringe-party candidate to spread his message, even if he starts at a severe handicap because he is not supported by an established political machine or wealthy donors that favor tried-and-true incumbents. Websites and email are basically free, which means that any candidate can spread his message if it's one that people are willing to read.
**For example, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is running for office, and trying to use the internet to harness the grass roots. [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/12/bangladesh-can-the-power-of-one-save-the-nation/ Click here for more]. [http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/12/d7021201085.htm See his open letter here].
*As for the fairness of elections, see the Transparency and Accountability section below.

===Engaged Citizenry===
In a system that is ostensibly run by the people, more engagement by citizens is better. (See [[Note 2]]) The internet can be used to encourage individuals to become more active, and enables those who are active to be more effective.
*Citizens become engaged when they come to believe there is a serious problem that needs addressing. Seeing is believing. The internet enables single witnesses to 'show' everybody else the truth using firsthand accounts via [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/caught-on-camera-human-rights-video-on-gv/ YouTube videos]. Liars, criminals, bullies and tyrants lose plausible deniability when everybody ''sees'' them committing their crimes. The citizenry then mobilizes against what they now believe is a violation of rights. That was not as easy before the internet. But even then it was extremely powerful (e.g. Rodney King [http://www.multishow.com.ar/rodneyking/ video] and the incredible public reaction to a perceived injustice in the form of the Los Angeles riots). That effect is magnified with the internet.
*The internet enables individual activists to become super-activists. (see Palfrey's "classical and jazz" argument, that the internet enables people to do better what they were otherwise doing.) Those who were already engaged are able to reach more people and spread their message more effectively using blogs, email lists etc. What could have only been done by a huge organization can now be done by one highly motivated individual.
*The internet enables far-flung individuals to combine on big projects (for example, [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia], [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ Seti@home]) which, because so many people have a vested interest in them, become accurate and popular. As Wikipedia has done for the world of encyclopedias, so a political communal project could become a 'public forum' on the internet where everybody can participate in the political debate. Even non-elite citizens can participate in this kind of forum, taking the power and focus away from the few talking heads that have heretofore dominated political discourse.
**The content of blogs and the links they provide tend to take one side of a particular issue. Any given blog has a tendency to reinforce the preconceived notions of its regular readers. But a centralized wiki is a place where all sides of an issue could focus and make sure that all nuances of every issue are presented truthfully and completely. It could be a great resource for others to become educated on the issues.
**A wiki would also provide a forum for people who want to be engaged on a small scale; one might not have enough to say to warrant a blog, but has one small argument or a few facts that could be added to a wiki.
*The blogosphere as a whole (as opposed to individual blogs) already acts as a 'public forum' on the internet for some issues and in some places. There are communities of bloggers that discuss particular issues in conversation with each other, in a way that millions of people can read and comment. So, those who are engaged enough to say something to the public have a place to do so.
**However, 'blogosphere as public forum' is less effective than it could be because bloggers tend not to present the opinions of their opponents or link to opposing arguments. So the conversations tend to be one-sided. Whereas the editorial pages of newspapers or radio call-in programs or physical public fora like public parks enabled both sides of an issue to be heard, the blogosphere doesn't always operate like that.
*The internet greases the wheels of political activity by otherwise un-engaged citizens. For example, there might be voters who are unwilling to walk door to door to campaign, but are happy to send emails to their friends. Or they might be unwilling to go to the effort to stamp an envelope to send a donation, but will click on PayPal. Citizens who have a 'day job' no longer have to sacrifice those other activities, because political involvement is so easy and efficient on the internet.
**Such low levels of involvement may not seem like much, but when aggregated across (potentially) hundreds of millions of people, it adds up.
**Once such people have been brought into political involvement, they may develop a taste for it, and become more active. They will at least be more motivated to vote, bringing up voter participation numbers.
**Even people at a low level of political engagement may find themselves on email lists (such as the annoyingly active one run by [http://www.moveon.org/ Moveon.org]). While an individual may have initially become involved because of one small issue, they may be exposed to other interesting issues in these emails, and might become further involved. (see [http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.html Sunstein's argument] about the need for a common space where people will be exposed to new ideas. Email lists can serve this function).
*The very structure of the internet means that it's unlikely there will ever be any sort of centralized control structure. Instead, individual members of the community that might have ''wanted'' to be involved before, but were afraid, are now emboldened to generate input more openly. They may feel more comfortable to expose their political ideas on the internet â especially if their ideas contradict policies/rules of their current government. Government censorship and surveillance are certainly problematic, but a determined activist can make her thoughts known online with some degree of anonymity in ways that were not possible before the internet.
**It is the tech firms (usually American) that enable government censorship and surveillance online. While there are other ways to unclog the channels of information in repressive regimes such as [http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h109-4780 GOFA] and the Voluntary Principles (no link provided due to confidentiality), the most interesting thing about the internet is that because of its structure, this type of government or corporate intervention is helpful but not necessary. Whereas there is not much an individual could do about government censorship of a TV station or newspaper, the internet enables "user-innovators" like MIT's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Richard Stallman] to develop and disseminate software that prevents/thwarts government attempts to control political thought online. (See Eric von Hippel's book [http://web.mit.edu/evhippel/www/democ1.htm "Democratizing Innovation"] for more on the phenomenon of user-innovation.) Without the internet, anti-establishment individuals would not have as much power to unclog the channels of political discussion. Interestingly, China has adopted the GNU Linux operating system, leaving their filtering and surveillance vulnerable to individual subversive action. The recent censoring of certain websites in Thailand was achieved through the main gateway into Thailand which is CAT (Communications Authority of Thailand). Although initially both CAT and the Ministry for Information and communications technology (a government ministry) initially denied that censorship was taking place blaming each other for the âdifficultyâ to gain access to You Tube, amongst others, it quickly became apparent that they were acting collaboratively.
*While it is hard to break into the club of top bloggers [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html described by Shirky], people do. There is a much more active revolving door in the blogging world than in traditional media. All the individuals in the long tail of Shirky's curve have an incentive to educate themselves on political matters and get involved, in hopes that they'll be the one to have the power of the big bloggers. In the physical world, there is a slim chance that any given person will end up owning a media empire. But online, anybody could become the next Andrew Sullivan or Wonkette or Daily Kos. So, the internet provides a space where the dream of hitting the big time is realistic. And even those that don't make it will be more engaged in the political process in hopes of hitting it big. On balance, it's better to have more people paying attention to politics and honing their argumentation skills.
*If voting can be done through the internet, the number of voters will increase greatly since people tend not to go to cast their vote at the designated poll if it inconveniences them to travel there. But if people can log on and vote from their office, they are far more likely to do so.

===Educated Citizenry===
In a system where citizens are running the country, its important that they know what they're talking about. The most obvious advantage of the internet is its ability to quickly and cheaply educate citizens about political matters.
*Even in countries where the government tries to restrict the educational function of the internet through censorship and filtering, individuals can [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/access-flickr-iran/ circumvent those controls], enabling other citizens to be educated about things the incumbent government doesn't want them to know. The cycle of government repression and citizen circumvention is a tit-for-tat that would have never been possible before the internet. Before, the secret police had only to destroy the printing press, and that put a stop to the production of subversive educational materials in that place. The ability of individual hackers to disable government censorship is an enormous power that individuals did not have before the advent of the internet.
*Even as China and other countries try to "let in the light while keeping out the flies", a few flies are getting in. It only takes a little bit of information in the hands of the right people to get other people talking, breed discontent, and cause change. A little education goes a long way. The [http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/rebel.html photo] of the unknown rebel in Tienanmen Square is an example of a small bit of information that could have a profound effect on a political regime if it were widely seen and its significance discussed.
*As we discussed in class on February 13, perhaps the most effective way to campaign for a cause is by word of mouth. Individuals with Live Journals are able to "speak to" and perhaps educate friends and family all the way across the country, or around the world. That kind of discourse is important for a democracy. We may never know whether or how it changes votes, but it's good that people are discussing political issues. Again, a little bit of education is better than none, and can have a profound effect in the hands of the right people.
**Even if votes aren't changed in the short term, the development of this inter-personal discourse online helps lay a foundation for a time when it may matter more. For example, if a big event happens, there will already be a network of inter-connected bloggers and their readers in place to get the "real" story out, mouth to mouth, in a way that people trust. And it will be a tool for mobilizing people to demand change.
*The country/world is a lot smaller than it was before the internet. Before the internet, one might have theoretically cared that control of the government came down to one close senate race in Virginia, but one might not have ''known'' about it. And even if one knew, there was not much you could do about it on the afternoon of November 7 if one was in Oregon. But now, people can educate a huge amount of interested people very quickly. And in turn, those people can become involved by sending money, VOIPing people in that area encouraging them to vote etc. The internet allows the whole country to participate in what used to be purely 'local' elections by educating people that those elections are important.
*The internet makes it easy to find information online. From the Pew survey, it seems that people are relying more on the internet as their source of political information [http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Politics_2006.pdf]

===Transparency and Accountability===
*Any individual who happens to know the truth can break the story. The major networks can no longer act as bottlenecks to stop important stories from getting out there (if the networks are in bed with the interested parties). For example, Senator Allen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7gq7GQ71c macaca comment] is said to have derailed his campaign because the internet enabled it to be seen by so many people who were outraged by it. There is no evidence to support this, but it is possible that a network might overlook something like that in hopes of garnering favor with a candidate, but could be pressured into making it a big deal by the tidal wave of interest online.
*The internet enables extensive and fast fact checking. A person at a town hall with a candidate could have her laptop open and check voting records as the candidate answered a question, and expose the lie right away. Even if this doesn't happen often, candidates will know it ''can'', and will be scared into being more honest and transparent.
*Flip-flopping will be exposed. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI Romney] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI McCain] can't get away with their recent flip-flopping because we have video footage of them holding opposite positions. The internet makes it extremely easy for individuals to expose the lies to others.
*Politicians respond to polls. The internet enables much faster and more widespread polling. Individuals can (when aggregated in a poll) have a more efficient way to respond to the decisions of leaders and direct policy.

===Economic Democracy===
*The internet provides jobs (e.g. tech-service in India), access to markets, and an ability to acquire and use capital that leads to the emergence of a stronger middle class. People who are not living hand-to-mouth have more leisure to educate themselves, engage in politics, and pressure governments to act in their interests.

===Examples to Discuss===
The following are some examples from various countries concerning the question of how the internet can enhance citizens participation in politics. Some thoughts for possible arguments are also included.

*'''ePetitions''': [http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open?sort=signers/ In England], British citizens can petition the Prime Minister directly online. This system allows millions of British people to say what they want directly to the government. Today, there are more than 1.5 million signatures only for the "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" petition. (For more examples of countries adopting e-petition, see [http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/ Scotland] and [http://www.zebralog.de/en/000195.html Germany])
*'''eVoting''': Some countries have an election system that allows voters to transmit their ballots over the internet.(See, for example, [http://www.geneve.ch/evoting/english/welcome.asp Geneva eVoting Project])
**Possible Arguments: How can we ensure that the system will support the principle of âone man, one voteâ? Will there be a vote robbery problem (voters might cast their ballot on counterfeit voting sites)? What about the voters' privacy; will their information be revealed?
*'''eRulemaking Initiative'''[http://www.epa.gov/oei/proceedings/2005/pdfs/morales.pdf]: This is an attempt to increase citizen participation and understanding in the rulemaking process by making the process easily accessible via the internet. Citizens have an opportunity to become educated about the current rules and policies and have the ability to participate in the rulemaking process by submitting comments which will improve the quality of the leaders' decision-making processes.
**In the US, there is an eRulemaking Initiative which was launched in January 2003 by the Bush Administration. They established the eRulemaking website - regulations.gov â which allows anyone to read and comment on proposed federal regulations. In fall 2005, the newer version of this site was released by incorporating the ongoing development of the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) which provides the public and agencies access to the entire regulatory docket, including rules, supporting documents, and public comments. (see [http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main/ regulation.gov] and [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-3-1-er.html whitehouse.gov])
*'''Online Dialogues''': The internet makes it possible to have online interactive regulatory dialogues among large number of people, allowing them to discuss any social or political issues with each other as well as with government officials. For example, in 2001, the EPA established an online dialogue project (which won an E-Gov 2002 Explorer Award) on its new draft Public Involvement Policy so that the public could participate and help the officers to determine what kind of revisions to make to the policies. (For more examples of public online dialogues, go to [http://www.info-ren.org/what/dialogues_projects.shtml info-ren.org]
*'''Thailand's political change in 2006''': The internet is an alternative source of information when the government controls and restricts the freedom of the mainstream media (TV, newspaper, radio etc.) to shut the eyes and ears of the people. (see [http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/24/news/thai.php iht.com] and [http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,98445,00.html asiaweek.com]) . For example, it is fair to say that strong criticism of the policies and actions of the former Thai government through various mechanisms online (blog, email, IM, video/audio sharing websites etc.) was one of the main factors that led to the significant [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2n703TFOYM political movements] and changes in Thailand last year. Various facts and criticisms that could not be found anywhere through the mainstream media are often available online [http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=&mode=related&v=_yRtLEc5YAE Tak Bai] and [http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/18/thaila12251.htm hrw.org] for examples).
*'''Campaign websites''': Perhaps the reason that the campaign websites of [http://www.americansformitt.com/ Romney], [http://www.barackobama.com/ Obama], [http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ Clinton], [http://johnedwards.com/splash/ Edwards] are so tame and fail to really make use of the interactive power of the internet is that they fear the power it gives to individuals. They realize that the internet has the power to take politics off the pedestal and make it rough, dirty, personal and democratic, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman Truman]'s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan_Railcar Whistlestop] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_1948 Campaign of 1948]. They don't actually want to interact with the people. They want scripted sound-bites and tame debates. They feel it's easier to get elected and rule when citizens are not individually empowered to interact with their leaders, because then the leaders would actually be accountable to the people. Since the internet has the capacity to enable a more personal, democratic style of campaigning and governing, they fear the internet. That explains why they fail to make full use of the internet to provide a truly interactive experience for voters.
*'''Semiotic Democracy''': Was the Obama [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6h3G-lMZxjo advertisement] criticizing Hillary Clinton, modeled after the 1984 Apple advertisement, an example of a new trend in politics, wherein individuals are creating content and meaning without the authorization of the candidates they intend to support? Or was it just a fluke? If this is a new trend, how will it shape politics in the future? Is this something we should encourage or discourage?

==Class Discussion Questions==
*The study of the effect of the internet on democracy is very new. One of the most significant question is to ask what a democracy needs to thrive, and ask whether that thing is being enhanced compared to a world without the internet.
*In what new ways could individuals harness the internet to increase their power in participatory democracy?
*Is the effect of the internet on participatory democracy going to increase in the future, or have we reached its zenith?
*Will the internet have more of an effect on improving democracy in countries that currently don't have democracies, or that have new democracies, than it will in countries with established democracies?
*Many of these claims are subject to the retort "Yeah, in theory that's good, but it doesn't happen." Well, only time will tell. There seem to be plenty of stories from [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] about these things happening abroad. Perhaps the internet is a more important tool for developing (or future) democracies, rather than the already-settled democracies of the West.
*Rather than ask whether the internet ''is'' a force for democracy, the more fruitful line of inquiry would be to explore how we can ''make'' the internet a ''stronger'' force for democracy.
**We know individuals are empowered in a lot of ways by the internet, especially [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE Web 2.0]. Now we need to find a way to use that to empower them in the political sphere.

Von Hippel questions

2007-04-17T22:14:55Z

Amornchai:

Questions for Prof. von Hippel, Apr. 17 class:

*In some instances, manufacturers produce a product with the expectation a user will modify parts of it. For example, Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) software packages such as UG NX and TeamCenter Engineering are built with a suite of tools available that all (or almost all) users find necessary. These programs also allow a high degree of user customization to tailor the product to the particular application. Individual users can re-work sections of code to customize the application. While this is similar in some aspects to open source development, it differs in that the UG kernel is still proprietary and a particular userâs innovations are not generally shared with others (partially because they are so user specific). Additionally, the manufacturer provides some level of support to aid users in customizing portions of the code.
**To what extent are the positive aspects of user innovation realized in this model and to what extent are they limited?
**Are there other (existing or potential) applications of user/manufacturer cooperation on innovation?
*** Microsoft's [http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/default.mspx Shared Source Initiative] is essentially a hybrid (or, more accurately, a trio of hybrids) of proprietary and open-source licensing and intellectual property models. It is clearly an attempt to enable and leverage user-driven innovation without completely relinquishing IP and related rights. Is this the best of both worlds? Or do the limitations in the Shared Source weaken some of the incentives for user innovation, both market and non-market?

*Prof. von Hippel discusses the tendency of some users to reveal their innovations freely to the public. Although there are numerous examples of free revealing, I wonder how significant, on average, these innovations are. It seems that some of the innovations that are most significant to the market at large are often created and protected by large companies--I'm thinking here about medications, major software applications, etc. There seems to be a big difference between marginal modifications of library software and the new Windows platform. Chapter 6 offers some possible motivations to reveal innovations, but to what extent can we really expect innovators to reveal fundamental innovations that might enjoy large market share? As an empirical matter, how often does a freely revealed user innovation actually capture a larger market share than more protected innovations? Aren't user innovations more significant at making improvements at the margins?

* The IP law is generally used, inter alia, to foster innovation in a system where the manufacturere is the center of the innovation development (by assuring that the cost e.g. R&D of those manufacturers will be recovered). Thus, the idea of user-centered innovation from Prof. Von Hippel's book means a different IP system - less restrictive but more flexible and more freely?

*Prof. von Hippel: In chapter 8 you address a number of policy concerns that constrain user innovation. Your general recommendation is that user innovation needs to be considered as a part of social welfare. You dedicate a paragraph to "Control over Distribution Channels" that is basically speaking to the policy issue of 'net neutrality.' You argue that ownership of content and infrastructure should be separated (I assume through legislation?) but those who would argue the other side would likewise claim that social welfare is at stake and that innovation of infrastructure would be harmed by such separation. Why is the chilling effect on user innovation of applications at the ends more significant than the effect on innovation of the infrastructure? Is there a balance to be struck and would mandating a separation of ownership really achieve it

* Can we characterize manufacturers as "users" of end-user input and innovation? How can we encourage manufacturers to distribute their own innovations in taking advantage of the user community? Do they lack the incentives typically associated with users, especially lead users? Does IP law threaten to inhibit the spread of these innovations?

*Do you think your theory also applies to those low-tech or brand-driven products, such as makeups, etc., as technology is not the only value embedded in products.

Von Hippel questions

2007-04-17T20:43:03Z

Amornchai:

The Affirmative Argument

2007-04-11T07:12:54Z

Amornchai: /* A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media */

==The Question==

'''"Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world."'''

Quick Link to [[The Negative Argument]]

==The Argument in Favor of the Resolution:==

===Introduction===
Experience has shown that in order for participatory democracy to thrive, there are a number of necessary ingredients that a society must exhibit. Among these are a strong, unbiased, truthful media, fair and balanced elections, a politically engaged citizenry, a citizenry educated on political matters, transparency and accountability, and economic democracy.

It is our contention here that the internet has the capacity to, and in certain circumstances already has, improved the health of participatory democracies along each of these metrics. In other words, as compared to a world without the internet, the world with an internet is more conducive to participatory democracy.

However for the purposes of our argument as presented here the focus will be predominantly on societies that already have some level of participatory democracy. In states where there is in effect no channel for civic participation then it is additionally likely that access to the internet is also likely to be stringently prescribed as for example in the DPRK

Although there are a number of arguments that the internet enhances democracy in a more general sense, our focus here is on the effect the internet has on the power of ''individual citizens'' to influence the political process in a way that, depending on the baseline, either enhances existing democracies or helps bring about new democracies.

===A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media===

Democracy cannot work without abundant, readily available information. (See [[Note 1]]) If leaders, elected or not, are to be held accountable to the wishes of the people, the people must know what the leaders are doing. The privately owned media (defined here very generally as widely available information sources not controlled by the government) has long served as a watchdog of the government, and as the most important supplier of political information to citizens. The internet enhances the power of individual citizens to leverage the reach of traditional media outlets, and also to serve in the watchdog and information spreading roles themselves:
*By aggregating potentially inflammatory or interesting stories, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] raises the likelihood that one of those stories will become viral on the internet, or be noticed by the mainstream media. Therefore, Global Voices gives a lone, otherwise insignificant blogger/activist/witness the power to tell other citizens about an issue in a way that she could not have done before the advent of the internet.
**Assuming leaders know but do not care about the problem (or are causing it themselves) the faster a story becomes salient to a significant portion of the public, the sooner a 'tipping point' will be reached when ut out an alert will result in faster action. It's easier to fix problems while they're still small.
**In countries with a biased media, or a media that is controlled by a corrupt government that limits the freedom of media to tell citizens things the government does not want them to know, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/07/government-minister-suing-bahraini-blogger/ bloggers can fill the gap] in terms of the watchdog and information-spreading functions.
***Even with an unbiased media it is still the case that Bloggers can provide additional detail and analysis that may be unrealistic for a traditional media to publish/broadcast.
**In places where the media is not biased or controlled, but is ineffective at serving as a watchdog or spreading information because of a lack of resources or poor physical communication channels, the internet allows those media outlets (or individual bloggers) to move information quickly and efficiently to those citizens who have internet access. This effect will be present even in minimally wired countries. As long as there is one wired person in an area, the internet can get the information there despite weather, treacherous topography, war etc, and word of mouth will do the rest. The internet can get information to places that newspapers, mail and even TV cannot. This is of course assuming a basic âinternet infrastructureâ already exists.
*While [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html Shirky's curve] does point out that there are still a few dominant players in the information market in the blogging world, many of these players are individuals. One popular blogger can reach more people than a billion dollar newspaper empire. That's a lot of power for an individual. And it is possible that in a place with corrupt media, the lone blogger will be the ''only'' voice of truth that people can trust, and he'll have enormous power over the political process.
*Even in places with "good" media, the internet still enhances participatory democracy in various ways. For example, bloggers can add nuance to the "sound bite culture" of mainstream media. People who are interested in a story they see on TV can go online to learn more, and bloggers will be there to provide that information. Bloggers can also act as an extension of the editorial pages, including serving as "letters to the editor" that don't get published. If the mainstream media is only providing the facts, the bloggers can provide direction for citizens on how to interpret those facts. For example, bloggers can speculate behind the facts to the possible motivations of the leaders, a topic in which citizens might be greatly interested but don't often get because traditional reporters don't often speculate. (There is a lot of potential for problems and abuse here, as we mentioned in [[Note 1]], but the fact remains that these extra functions online do have the capacity to enhance participatory democracy by enhancing the traditional media functions of supplying information and serving as a watchdog.)
*Blogs may also have potential as a new situs for investigative journalism. Where a "story" is not an existing object to be found but rather the constructed product of large time and energy investments, the internet opens the door for that effort to be distributed across the citizenry. By analogy, see [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ SETI@home].
**The website Talking Points Memo has been following the firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys since well before it hit the front pages. A handful of full-time investigative journalists at "TPM Muckraker" leveraged the time and energy of the blog's readership to go in-depth into the story. The 8 firings were covered in local newspapers and aggregated by readers who reported the stories to the site; readers later sifted through Justice Department documents and reported their findings to TPM. We return to the image of bloggers-in-pajamas, but this time they are cast as a disaggregated, 24-hour news bureau. "Assignment Zero" at Wired Magazine also seeks to leverage this citizen-powered journalism. NPR: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9083501 Talking Points Site Kept Attorneys Story Alive]

===Fair and Balanced Elections===
As a definitional rather than an aspirational matter, true democracy entails elections that are actually decided by the voters, in which the best-suited candidate can rise to the top and be elected.
*The internet makes it possible for an outsider or a fringe-party candidate to spread his message, even if he starts at a severe handicap because he is not supported by an established political machine or wealthy donors that favor tried-and-true incumbents. Websites and email are basically free, which means that any candidate can spread his message if it's one that people are willing to read.
**For example, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is running for office, and trying to use the internet to harness the grass roots. [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/12/bangladesh-can-the-power-of-one-save-the-nation/ Click here for more]. [http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/12/d7021201085.htm See his open letter here].
*As for the fairness of elections, see the Transparency and Accountability section below.

===Engaged Citizenry===
In a system that is ostensibly run by the people, more engagement by citizens is better. (See [[Note 2]]) The internet can be used to encourage individuals to become more active, and enables those who are active to be more effective.
*Citizens become engaged when they come to believe there is a serious problem that needs addressing. Seeing is believing. The internet enables single witnesses to 'show' everybody else the truth using firsthand accounts via [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/caught-on-camera-human-rights-video-on-gv/ YouTube videos]. Liars, criminals, bullies and tyrants lose plausible deniability when everybody ''sees'' them committing their crimes. The citizenry then mobilizes against what they now believe is a violation of rights. That was not as easy before the internet. But even then it was extremely powerful (e.g. Rodney King [http://www.multishow.com.ar/rodneyking/ video] and the incredible public reaction to a perceived injustice in the form of the Los Angeles riots). That effect is magnified with the internet.
*The internet enables individual activists to become super-activists. (see Palfrey's "classical and jazz" argument, that the internet enables people to do better what they were otherwise doing.) Those who were already engaged are able to reach more people and spread their message more effectively using blogs, email lists etc. What could have only been done by a huge organization can now be done by one highly motivated individual.
*The internet enables far-flung individuals to combine on big projects (for example, [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia]) which, because so many people have a vested interest in them, become accurate and popular. As Wikipedia has done for the world of encyclopedias, so a political communal project could become a 'public forum' on the internet where everybody can participate in the political debate. Even non-elite citizens can participate in this kind of forum, taking the power and focus away from the few talking heads that have heretofore dominated political discourse.
**The content of blogs and the links they provide tend to take one side of a particular issue. Any given blog has a tendency to reinforce the preconceived notions of its regular readers. But a centralized wiki is a place where all sides of an issue could focus and make sure that all nuances of every issue are presented truthfully and completely. It could be a great resource for others to become educated on the issues.
**A wiki would also provide a forum for people who want to be engaged on a small scale; one might not have enough to say to warrant a blog, but has one small argument or a few facts that could be added to a wiki.
*The blogosphere as a whole (as opposed to individual blogs) already acts as a 'public forum' on the internet for some issues and in some places. There are communities of bloggers that discuss particular issues in conversation with each other, in a way that millions of people can read and comment. So, those who are engaged enough to say something to the public have a place to do so.
**However, 'blogosphere as public forum' is less effective than it could be because bloggers tend not to present the opinions of their opponents or link to opposing arguments. So the conversations tend to be one-sided. Whereas the editorial pages of newspapers or radio call-in programs or physical public fora like public parks enabled both sides of an issue to be heard, the blogosphere doesn't always operate like that.
*The internet greases the wheels of political activity by otherwise un-engaged citizens. For example, there might be voters who are unwilling to walk door to door to campaign, but are happy to send emails to their friends. Or they might be unwilling to go to the effort to stamp an envelope to send a donation, but will click on PayPal. Citizens who have a 'day job' no longer have to sacrifice those other activities, because political involvement is so easy and efficient on the internet.
**Such low levels of involvement may not seem like much, but when aggregated across (potentially) hundreds of millions of people, it adds up.
**Once such people have been brought into political involvement, they may develop a taste for it, and become more active. They will at least be more motivated to vote, bringing up voter participation numbers.
**Even people at a low level of political engagement may find themselves on email lists (such as the annoyingly active one run by [http://www.moveon.org/ Moveon.org]). While an individual may have initially become involved because of one small issue, they may be exposed to other interesting issues in these emails, and might become further involved. (see [http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.html Sunstein's argument] about the need for a common space where people will be exposed to new ideas. Email lists can serve this function).
*The very structure of the internet means that it's unlikely there will ever be any sort of centralized control structure. Instead, individual members of the community that might have ''wanted'' to be involved before, but were afraid, are now emboldened to generate input both freely and openly. They may feel more comfortable to expose their political ideas on the internet â especially if their ideas contradict policies/rules of their current government.
**It is the tech firms (usually American) that enable government censorship and surveillance online. Individuals like MIT's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Richard Stallman] have the power to develop and disseminate software that prevents/thwarts government attempts to control political thought online. Without the internet, anti-establishment individuals would not have as much power to unclog the channels of political discussion. Interestingly, China has adopted the GNU Linux operating system, leaving their filtering and surveillance vulnerable to individual subversive action.
*While it is hard to break into the club of top bloggers [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html described by Shirky], people do. There is a much more active revolving door in the blogging world than in traditional media. All the individuals in the long tail of Shirky's curve have an incentive to educate themselves on political matters and get involved, in hopes that they'll be the one to have the power of the big bloggers. In the physical world, there is a slim chance that any given person will end up owning a media empire. But online, anybody could become the next Andrew Sullivan or Wonkette or Daily Kos. So, the internet provides a space where the dream of hitting the big time is realistic. And even those that don't make it will be more engaged in the political process in hopes of hitting it big. On balance, it's better to have more people paying attention to politics and honing their argumentation skills.
*If voting can be done through internet, the number of voters will increase greatly since people tend not to go to cast their vote at the designated poll if it inconveniences them to travel there. But if people can log on and vote from their office, they are far more likely to do so.

===Educated Citizenry===
In a system where citizens are running the country, its important that they know what they're talking about. The most obvious advantage of the internet is its ability to quickly and cheaply educate citizens about political matters.
*Even in countries where the government tries to restrict the educational function of the internet through censorship and filtering, individuals can [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/access-flickr-iran/ circumvent those controls], enabling other citizens to be educated about things the incumbent government doesn't want them to know. It's a tit-for-tat that would have never been possible before the internet. Before, the secret police had only to destroy the printing press, and that put a stop to the production of subversive educational materials in that place. The ability of individual hackers to disable government censorship is an enormous power that individuals did not have before the advent of the internet.
*Even as China and other countries try to "let in the light while keeping out the flies", a few flies are getting in. It only takes a little bit of information in the hands of the right people to get other people talking, breed discontent, and cause change. A little education goes a long way.
*As we talked about in class on February 13, perhaps the most effective way to campaign for a cause is by word of mouth. Individuals with Live Journals are able to "speak to" and perhaps educate friends and family all the way across the country, or around the world. That kind of discourse is important for a democracy. We may never know whether or how it changes votes, but it's good that people are discussing political issues. Again, a little bit of education is better than none, and can have a profound effect in the hands of the right people.
**Even if votes aren't changed in the short term, the development of this inter-personal discourse online helps lay a foundation for a time when it may matter more. For example, if a big event happens, there will already be a network of inter-connected bloggers and their readers in place to get the "real" story out, mouth to mouth, in a way that people trust. And it will be a tool for mobilizing people to demand change.
*The country/world is a lot smaller than it was before the internet. Before the internet, one might have theoretically cared that control of the government came down to one close senate race in Virginia, but one might not have ''known'' about it. And even if one knew, there was not much you could do about it on the afternoon of November 7 if one was in Oregon. But now, people can educate a huge amount of interested people very quickly. And in turn, those people can become involved by sending money, VOIPing people in that area etc. The internet allows the whole country to participate in what used to be purely 'local' elections by educating people that those elections are important.
*The internet makes it easy to find information online. From the Pew survey, it seems that people are relying more on the internet as their source of political information [http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Politics_2006.pdf]

===Transparency and Accountability===
*Any individual who happens to know the truth can break the story. The major networks can no longer act as bottlenecks to stop important stories from getting out there (if the networks are in bed with the interested parties). For example, Senator Allen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7gq7GQ71c macaca comment] is said to have derailed his campaign because the internet enabled it to be seen by so many people who were outraged by it. There is no evidence to support this, but it is possible that a network might overlook something like that in hopes of garnering favor with a candidate, but could be pressured into making it a big deal by the tidal wave of interest online.
*The internet enables extensive and fast fact checking. A person at a town hall with a candidate could have her laptop open and check voting records as the candidate answered a question, and expose the lie right away. Even if this doesn't happen often, candidates will know it ''can'', and will be scared into being more honest and transparent.
*Flip-flopping will be exposed. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI Romney] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI McCain] can't get away with their recent flip-flopping because we have video footage of them holding opposite positions. The internet makes it extremely easy for individuals to expose the lies to others.
*Politicians respond to polls. The internet enables much faster and more widespread polling. Individuals can (when aggregated in a poll) have a more efficient way to respond to the decisions of leaders and direct policy.

===Economic Democracy===
*The internet provides jobs (e.g. tech-service in India), access to markets, and an ability to acquire and use capital that leads to the emergence of a stronger middle class. People who are not living hand-to-mouth have more leisure to educate themselves, engage in politics, and pressure governments to act in their interests.

===Examples to Discuss===
The following are some examples from various countries supporting argument that how internet can enhance citizens participation in politics around the world. Some thoughts for possible arguments are also included.

*'''ePetitions''': [http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open?sort=signers/ In England], British citizens can petition the Prime Minister directly online. This system allows millions of British people to say what they want directly to the government. Today, there are more than 1.5 million signatures only for the "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" petition. (For more examples of countries adopting e-petition, see [http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/ Scotland] and [http://www.zebralog.de/en/000195.html Germany])
*'''eVoting''': Some countries make the voting available online by creating an election system that allow voters to transmit their ballot over the internet.(See, for example, [http://www.geneve.ch/evoting/english/welcome.asp Geneva eVoting Project])
**Possible Arguments: How can we ensure that the system will support the principle of âone man, one voteâ? Will there be a vote robbery problem (voters might cast their ballot on counterfeit voting sites)? What about the voters' privacy, will their information be revealed?
*'''eRulemaking Initiative'''[http://www.epa.gov/oei/proceedings/2005/pdfs/morales.pdf]: This is an attempt to increase the citizen participation and understanding in rulemaking process by making the process to be easily accessible via internet. This, as a result, gives an opportunity for the citizen to be educated of the current rules and policies and has a potential to encourage citizen to participate more in the rulemaking process by allowing them to provide a comment which in turn will improve the quality of the rulemaking [decision.
**In the US, there is a eRulemaking Initiative launched in January 2003 by Bush Administration establishing the eRulemaking website - regulations.gov â which allows anyone to read and comment on proposed federal regulations. In fall 2005, the newer version of this site was released by incorporating the ongoing development of the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) which provides the public and agencies access to the entire regulatory docket, including rules, supporting documents, and public comments. (see [http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main/ regulation.gov] and [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-3-1-er.html whitehouse.gov])
*'''Online Dialogues''': Internet makes it possible to have online interactive regulatory dialogues among large number of people allowing them to discuss any social or political issues with each other as well as with government officials. For example, in 2001, the EPA established an online dialogue project (which won an E-Gov 2002 Explorer Award) on its new draft Public Involvement Policy so that the public can participate and help the officers to determine what kind of revisions to make to such policy. (For more example of public online dialogues can be found at [http://www.info-ren.org/what/dialogues_projects.shtml info-ren.org]
*'''Thailand's political change in 2006''': Internet is an alternative source of information when the government control and restrict the media freedom over the mainstream media (TV, newspaper, radio etc.) to shut the eyes and ears of the people (see [http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/24/news/thai.php iht.com] and [http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,98445,00.html asiaweek.com]) . For example, it is fair to say that strong criticism on the policies and actions of the former Thai government through various mechanism online (blog, email, IM, video/audio sharing website etc.) was one of the main factors that led to the significant [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2n703TFOYM political movements] and changes in Thailand last year. Various fact and criticism that could not be found anywhere through mainstream medias are often available online (see [http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=

The Affirmative Argument

2007-04-11T07:12:06Z

Amornchai: /* A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media */

==The Question==

'''"Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world."'''

Quick Link to [[The Negative Argument]]

==The Argument in Favor of the Resolution:==

===Introduction===
Experience has shown that in order for participatory democracy to thrive, there are a number of necessary ingredients that a society must exhibit. Among these are a strong, unbiased, truthful media, fair and balanced elections, a politically engaged citizenry, a citizenry educated on political matters, transparency and accountability, and economic democracy.

It is our contention here that the internet has the capacity to, and in certain circumstances already has, improved the health of participatory democracies along each of these metrics. In other words, as compared to a world without the internet, the world with an internet is more conducive to participatory democracy.

However for the purposes of our argument as presented here the focus will be predominantly on societies that already have some level of participatory democracy. In states where there is in effect no channel for civic participation then it is additionally likely that access to the internet is also likely to be stringently prescribed as for example in the DPRK

Although there are a number of arguments that the internet enhances democracy in a more general sense, our focus here is on the effect the internet has on the power of ''individual citizens'' to influence the political process in a way that, depending on the baseline, either enhances existing democracies or helps bring about new democracies.

===A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media===

Democracy cannot work without abundant, readily available information. (See [[Note 1]]) If leaders, elected or not, are to be held accountable to the wishes of the people, the people must know what the leaders are doing. The privately owned media (defined here very generally as widely available information sources not controlled by the government) has long served as a watchdog of the government, and as the most important supplier of political information to citizens. The internet enhances the power of individual citizens to leverage the reach of traditional media outlets, and also to serve in the watchdog and information spreading roles themselves:
*By aggregating potentially inflammatory or interesting stories, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] raises the likelihood that one of those stories will become viral on the internet, or be noticed by the mainstream media. Therefore, Global Voices gives a lone, otherwise insignificant blogger/activist/witness the power to tell other citizens about an issue in a way that she could not have done before the advent of the internet.
**Assuming leaders know but do not care about the problem (or are causing it themselves) the faster a story becomes salient to a significant portion of the public, the sooner a 'tipping point' will be reached when ut out an alert will result in faster action. It's easier to fix problems while they're still small.
**In countries with a biased media, or a media that is controlled by a corrupt government that limits the freedom of media to tell citizens things the government does not want them to know, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/07/government-minister-suing-bahraini-blogger/ bloggers can fill the gap] in terms of the watchdog and information-spreading functions.
***Even with an unbiased media it is still the case that Bloggers can provide additional detail and analysis that may be unrealistic for a traditional media to publish/broadcast.
**In places where the media is not biased or controlled, but is ineffective at serving as a watchdog or spreading information because of a lack of resources or poor physical communication channels, the internet allows those media outlets (or individual bloggers) to move information quickly and efficiently to those citizens who have internet access. This effect will be present even in minimally wired countries. As long as there is one wired person in an area, the internet can get the information there despite weather, treacherous topography, war etc, and word of mouth will do the rest. The internet can get information to places that newspapers, mail and even TV cannot.
*While [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html Shirky's curve] does point out that there are still a few dominant players in the information market in the blogging world, many of these players are individuals. One popular blogger can reach more people than a billion dollar newspaper empire. That's a lot of power for an individual. And it is possible that in a place with corrupt media, the lone blogger will be the ''only'' voice of truth that people can trust, and he'll have enormous power over the political process.
*Even in places with "good" media, the internet still enhances participatory democracy in various ways. For example, bloggers can add nuance to the "sound bite culture" of mainstream media. People who are interested in a story they see on TV can go online to learn more, and bloggers will be there to provide that information. Bloggers can also act as an extension of the editorial pages, including serving as "letters to the editor" that don't get published. If the mainstream media is only providing the facts, the bloggers can provide direction for citizens on how to interpret those facts. For example, bloggers can speculate behind the facts to the possible motivations of the leaders, a topic in which citizens might be greatly interested but don't often get because traditional reporters don't often speculate. (There is a lot of potential for problems and abuse here, as we mentioned in [[Note 1]], but the fact remains that these extra functions online do have the capacity to enhance participatory democracy by enhancing the traditional media functions of supplying information and serving as a watchdog.)
*Blogs may also have potential as a new situs for investigative journalism. Where a "story" is not an existing object to be found but rather the constructed product of large time and energy investments, the internet opens the door for that effort to be distributed across the citizenry. By analogy, see [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ SETI@home].
**The website Talking Points Memo has been following the firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys since well before it hit the front pages. A handful of full-time investigative journalists at "TPM Muckraker" leveraged the time and energy of the blog's readership to go in-depth into the story. The 8 firings were covered in local newspapers and aggregated by readers who reported the stories to the site; readers later sifted through Justice Department documents and reported their findings to TPM. We return to the image of bloggers-in-pajamas, but this time they are cast as a disaggregated, 24-hour news bureau. "Assignment Zero" at Wired Magazine also seeks to leverage this citizen-powered journalism. NPR: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9083501 Talking Points Site Kept Attorneys Story Alive]

===Fair and Balanced Elections===
As a definitional rather than an aspirational matter, true democracy entails elections that are actually decided by the voters, in which the best-suited candidate can rise to the top and be elected.
*The internet makes it possible for an outsider or a fringe-party candidate to spread his message, even if he starts at a severe handicap because he is not supported by an established political machine or wealthy donors that favor tried-and-true incumbents. Websites and email are basically free, which means that any candidate can spread his message if it's one that people are willing to read.
**For example, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is running for office, and trying to use the internet to harness the grass roots. [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/12/bangladesh-can-the-power-of-one-save-the-nation/ Click here for more]. [http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/12/d7021201085.htm See his open letter here].
*As for the fairness of elections, see the Transparency and Accountability section below.

===Engaged Citizenry===
In a system that is ostensibly run by the people, more engagement by citizens is better. (See [[Note 2]]) The internet can be used to encourage individuals to become more active, and enables those who are active to be more effective.
*Citizens become engaged when they come to believe there is a serious problem that needs addressing. Seeing is believing. The internet enables single witnesses to 'show' everybody else the truth using firsthand accounts via [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/caught-on-camera-human-rights-video-on-gv/ YouTube videos]. Liars, criminals, bullies and tyrants lose plausible deniability when everybody ''sees'' them committing their crimes. The citizenry then mobilizes against what they now believe is a violation of rights. That was not as easy before the internet. But even then it was extremely powerful (e.g. Rodney King [http://www.multishow.com.ar/rodneyking/ video] and the incredible public reaction to a perceived injustice in the form of the Los Angeles riots). That effect is magnified with the internet.
*The internet enables individual activists to become super-activists. (see Palfrey's "classical and jazz" argument, that the internet enables people to do better what they were otherwise doing.) Those who were already engaged are able to reach more people and spread their message more effectively using blogs, email lists etc. What could have only been done by a huge organization can now be done by one highly motivated individual.
*The internet enables far-flung individuals to combine on big projects (for example, [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia]) which, because so many people have a vested interest in them, become accurate and popular. As Wikipedia has done for the world of encyclopedias, so a political communal project could become a 'public forum' on the internet where everybody can participate in the political debate. Even non-elite citizens can participate in this kind of forum, taking the power and focus away from the few talking heads that have heretofore dominated political discourse.
**The content of blogs and the links they provide tend to take one side of a particular issue. Any given blog has a tendency to reinforce the preconceived notions of its regular readers. But a centralized wiki is a place where all sides of an issue could focus and make sure that all nuances of every issue are presented truthfully and completely. It could be a great resource for others to become educated on the issues.
**A wiki would also provide a forum for people who want to be engaged on a small scale; one might not have enough to say to warrant a blog, but has one small argument or a few facts that could be added to a wiki.
*The blogosphere as a whole (as opposed to individual blogs) already acts as a 'public forum' on the internet for some issues and in some places. There are communities of bloggers that discuss particular issues in conversation with each other, in a way that millions of people can read and comment. So, those who are engaged enough to say something to the public have a place to do so.
**However, 'blogosphere as public forum' is less effective than it could be because bloggers tend not to present the opinions of their opponents or link to opposing arguments. So the conversations tend to be one-sided. Whereas the editorial pages of newspapers or radio call-in programs or physical public fora like public parks enabled both sides of an issue to be heard, the blogosphere doesn't always operate like that.
*The internet greases the wheels of political activity by otherwise un-engaged citizens. For example, there might be voters who are unwilling to walk door to door to campaign, but are happy to send emails to their friends. Or they might be unwilling to go to the effort to stamp an envelope to send a donation, but will click on PayPal. Citizens who have a 'day job' no longer have to sacrifice those other activities, because political involvement is so easy and efficient on the internet.
**Such low levels of involvement may not seem like much, but when aggregated across (potentially) hundreds of millions of people, it adds up.
**Once such people have been brought into political involvement, they may develop a taste for it, and become more active. They will at least be more motivated to vote, bringing up voter participation numbers.
**Even people at a low level of political engagement may find themselves on email lists (such as the annoyingly active one run by [http://www.moveon.org/ Moveon.org]). While an individual may have initially become involved because of one small issue, they may be exposed to other interesting issues in these emails, and might become further involved. (see [http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.html Sunstein's argument] about the need for a common space where people will be exposed to new ideas. Email lists can serve this function).
*The very structure of the internet means that it's unlikely there will ever be any sort of centralized control structure. Instead, individual members of the community that might have ''wanted'' to be involved before, but were afraid, are now emboldened to generate input both freely and openly. They may feel more comfortable to expose their political ideas on the internet â especially if their ideas contradict policies/rules of their current government.
**It is the tech firms (usually American) that enable government censorship and surveillance online. Individuals like MIT's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Richard Stallman] have the power to develop and disseminate software that prevents/thwarts government attempts to control political thought online. Without the internet, anti-establishment individuals would not have as much power to unclog the channels of political discussion. Interestingly, China has adopted the GNU Linux operating system, leaving their filtering and surveillance vulnerable to individual subversive action.
*While it is hard to break into the club of top bloggers [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html described by Shirky], people do. There is a much more active revolving door in the blogging world than in traditional media. All the individuals in the long tail of Shirky's curve have an incentive to educate themselves on political matters and get involved, in hopes that they'll be the one to have the power of the big bloggers. In the physical world, there is a slim chance that any given person will end up owning a media empire. But online, anybody could become the next Andrew Sullivan or Wonkette or Daily Kos. So, the internet provides a space where the dream of hitting the big time is realistic. And even those that don't make it will be more engaged in the political process in hopes of hitting it big. On balance, it's better to have more people paying attention to politics and honing their argumentation skills.
*If voting can be done through internet, the number of voters will increase greatly since people tend not to go to cast their vote at the designated poll if it inconveniences them to travel there. But if people can log on and vote from their office, they are far more likely to do so.

===Educated Citizenry===
In a system where citizens are running the country, its important that they know what they're talking about. The most obvious advantage of the internet is its ability to quickly and cheaply educate citizens about political matters.
*Even in countries where the government tries to restrict the educational function of the internet through censorship and filtering, individuals can [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/access-flickr-iran/ circumvent those controls], enabling other citizens to be educated about things the incumbent government doesn't want them to know. It's a tit-for-tat that would have never been possible before the internet. Before, the secret police had only to destroy the printing press, and that put a stop to the production of subversive educational materials in that place. The ability of individual hackers to disable government censorship is an enormous power that individuals did not have before the advent of the internet.
*Even as China and other countries try to "let in the light while keeping out the flies", a few flies are getting in. It only takes a little bit of information in the hands of the right people to get other people talking, breed discontent, and cause change. A little education goes a long way.
*As we talked about in class on February 13, perhaps the most effective way to campaign for a cause is by word of mouth. Individuals with Live Journals are able to "speak to" and perhaps educate friends and family all the way across the country, or around the world. That kind of discourse is important for a democracy. We may never know whether or how it changes votes, but it's good that people are discussing political issues. Again, a little bit of education is better than none, and can have a profound effect in the hands of the right people.
**Even if votes aren't changed in the short term, the development of this inter-personal discourse online helps lay a foundation for a time when it may matter more. For example, if a big event happens, there will already be a network of inter-connected bloggers and their readers in place to get the "real" story out, mouth to mouth, in a way that people trust. And it will be a tool for mobilizing people to demand change.
*The country/world is a lot smaller than it was before the internet. Before the internet, one might have theoretically cared that control of the government came down to one close senate race in Virginia, but one might not have ''known'' about it. And even if one knew, there was not much you could do about it on the afternoon of November 7 if one was in Oregon. But now, people can educate a huge amount of interested people very quickly. And in turn, those people can become involved by sending money, VOIPing people in that area etc. The internet allows the whole country to participate in what used to be purely 'local' elections by educating people that those elections are important.
*The internet makes it easy to find information online. From the Pew survey, it seems that people are relying more on the internet as their source of political information [http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Politics_2006.pdf]

===Transparency and Accountability===
*Any individual who happens to know the truth can break the story. The major networks can no longer act as bottlenecks to stop important stories from getting out there (if the networks are in bed with the interested parties). For example, Senator Allen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7gq7GQ71c macaca comment] is said to have derailed his campaign because the internet enabled it to be seen by so many people who were outraged by it. There is no evidence to support this, but it is possible that a network might overlook something like that in hopes of garnering favor with a candidate, but could be pressured into making it a big deal by the tidal wave of interest online.
*The internet enables extensive and fast fact checking. A person at a town hall with a candidate could have her laptop open and check voting records as the candidate answered a question, and expose the lie right away. Even if this doesn't happen often, candidates will know it ''can'', and will be scared into being more honest and transparent.
*Flip-flopping will be exposed. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI Romney] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI McCain] can't get away with their recent flip-flopping because we have video footage of them holding opposite positions. The internet makes it extremely easy for individuals to expose the lies to others.
*Politicians respond to polls. The internet enables much faster and more widespread polling. Individuals can (when aggregated in a poll) have a more efficient way to respond to the decisions of leaders and direct policy.

===Economic Democracy===
*The internet provides jobs (e.g. tech-service in India), access to markets, and an ability to acquire and use capital that leads to the emergence of a stronger middle class. People who are not living hand-to-mouth have more leisure to educate themselves, engage in politics, and pressure governments to act in their interests.

===Examples to Discuss===
The following are some examples from various countries supporting argument that how internet can enhance citizens participation in politics around the world. Some thoughts for possible arguments are also included.

*'''ePetitions''': [http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open?sort=signers/ In England], British citizens can petition the Prime Minister directly online. This system allows millions of British people to say what they want directly to the government. Today, there are more than 1.5 million signatures only for the "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" petition. (For more examples of countries adopting e-petition, see [http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/ Scotland] and [http://www.zebralog.de/en/000195.html Germany])
*'''eVoting''': Some countries make the voting available online by creating an election system that allow voters to transmit their ballot over the internet.(See, for example, [http://www.geneve.ch/evoting/english/welcome.asp Geneva eVoting Project])
**Possible Arguments: How can we ensure that the system will support the principle of âone man, one voteâ? Will there be a vote robbery problem (voters might cast their ballot on counterfeit voting sites)? What about the voters' privacy, will their information be revealed?
*'''eRulemaking Initiative'''[http://www.epa.gov/oei/proceedings/2005/pdfs/morales.pdf]: This is an attempt to increase the citizen participation and understanding in rulemaking process by making the process to be easily accessible via internet. This, as a result, gives an opportunity for the citizen to be educated of the current rules and policies and has a potential to encourage citizen to participate more in the rulemaking process by allowing them to provide a comment which in turn will improve the quality of the rulemaking [decision.
**In the US, there is a eRulemaking Initiative launched in January 2003 by Bush Administration establishing the eRulemaking website - regulations.gov â which allows anyone to read and comment on proposed federal regulations. In fall 2005, the newer version of this site was released by incorporating the ongoing development of the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) which provides the public and agencies access to the entire regulatory docket, including rules, supporting documents, and public comments. (see [http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main/ regulation.gov] and [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-3-1-er.html whitehouse.gov])
*'''Online Dialogues''': Internet makes it possible to have online interactive regulatory dialogues among large number of people allowing them to discuss any social or political issues with each other as well as with government officials. For example, in 2001, the EPA established an online dialogue project (which won an E-Gov 2002 Explorer Award) on its new draft Public Involvement Policy so that the public can participate and help the officers to determine what kind of revisions to make to such policy. (For more example of public online dialogues can be found at [http://www.info-ren.org/what/dialogues_projects.shtml info-ren.org]
*'''Thailand's political change in 2006''': Internet is an alternative source of information when the government control and restrict the media freedom over the mainstream media (TV, newspaper, radio etc.) to shut the eyes and ears of the people (see [http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/24/news/thai.php iht.com] and [http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,98445,00.html asiaweek.com]) . For example, it is fair to say that strong criticism on the policies and actions of the former Thai government through various mechanism online (blog, email, IM, video/audio sharing website etc.) was one of the main factors that led to the significant [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2n703TFOYM political movements] and changes in Thailand last year. Various fact and criticism that could not be found anywhere through mainstream medias are often available online (see [http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=

The Affirmative Argument

2007-04-11T07:10:58Z

Amornchai: /* Introduction */

==The Question==

'''"Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world."'''

Quick Link to [[The Negative Argument]]

==The Argument in Favor of the Resolution:==

===Introduction===
Experience has shown that in order for participatory democracy to thrive, there are a number of necessary ingredients that a society must exhibit. Among these are a strong, unbiased, truthful media, fair and balanced elections, a politically engaged citizenry, a citizenry educated on political matters, transparency and accountability, and economic democracy.

It is our contention here that the internet has the capacity to, and in certain circumstances already has, improved the health of participatory democracies along each of these metrics. In other words, as compared to a world without the internet, the world with an internet is more conducive to participatory democracy.

However for the purposes of our argument as presented here the focus will be predominantly on societies that already have some level of participatory democracy. In states where there is in effect no channel for civic participation then it is additionally likely that access to the internet is also likely to be stringently prescribed as for example in the DPRK

Although there are a number of arguments that the internet enhances democracy in a more general sense, our focus here is on the effect the internet has on the power of ''individual citizens'' to influence the political process in a way that, depending on the baseline, either enhances existing democracies or helps bring about new democracies.

===A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media===

Democracy cannot work without abundant, readily available information. (See [[Note 1]]) If leaders, elected or not, are to be held accountable to the wishes of the people, the people must know what the leaders are doing. The privately owned media (defined here very generally as widely available information sources not controlled by the government) has long served as a watchdog of the government, and as the most important supplier of political information to citizens. The internet enhances the power of individual citizens to leverage the reach of traditional media outlets, and also to serve in the watchdog and information spreading roles themselves:
*By aggregating potentially inflammatory or interesting stories, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] raises the likelihood that one of those stories will become viral on the internet, or be noticed by the mainstream media. Therefore, Global Voices gives a lone, otherwise insignificant blogger/activist/witness the power to tell other citizens about an issue in a way that she could not have done before the advent of the internet.
**Assuming leaders know but do not care about the problem (or are causing it themselves) the faster a story becomes salient to a significant portion of the public, the sooner a 'tipping point' will be reached when ut out an alert will result in faster action. It's easier to fix problems while they're still small.
**In countries with a biased media, or a media that is controlled by a corrupt government that limits the freedom of media to tell citizens things the government does not want them to know, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/07/government-minister-suing-bahraini-blogger/ bloggers can fill the gap] in terms of the watchdog and information-spreading functions.
**In places where the media is not biased or controlled, but is ineffective at serving as a watchdog or spreading information because of a lack of resources or poor physical communication channels, the internet allows those media outlets (or individual bloggers) to move information quickly and efficiently to those citizens who have internet access. This effect will be present even in minimally wired countries. As long as there is one wired person in an area, the internet can get the information there despite weather, treacherous topography, war etc, and word of mouth will do the rest. The internet can get information to places that newspapers, mail and even TV cannot.
*While [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html Shirky's curve] does point out that there are still a few dominant players in the information market in the blogging world, many of these players are individuals. One popular blogger can reach more people than a billion dollar newspaper empire. That's a lot of power for an individual. And it is possible that in a place with corrupt media, the lone blogger will be the ''only'' voice of truth that people can trust, and he'll have enormous power over the political process.
*Even in places with "good" media, the internet still enhances participatory democracy in various ways. For example, bloggers can add nuance to the "sound bite culture" of mainstream media. People who are interested in a story they see on TV can go online to learn more, and bloggers will be there to provide that information. Bloggers can also act as an extension of the editorial pages, including serving as "letters to the editor" that don't get published. If the mainstream media is only providing the facts, the bloggers can provide direction for citizens on how to interpret those facts. For example, bloggers can speculate behind the facts to the possible motivations of the leaders, a topic in which citizens might be greatly interested but don't often get because traditional reporters don't often speculate. (There is a lot of potential for problems and abuse here, as we mentioned in [[Note 1]], but the fact remains that these extra functions online do have the capacity to enhance participatory democracy by enhancing the traditional media functions of supplying information and serving as a watchdog.)
*Blogs may also have potential as a new situs for investigative journalism. Where a "story" is not an existing object to be found but rather the constructed product of large time and energy investments, the internet opens the door for that effort to be distributed across the citizenry. By analogy, see [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ SETI@home].
**The website Talking Points Memo has been following the firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys since well before it hit the front pages. A handful of full-time investigative journalists at "TPM Muckraker" leveraged the time and energy of the blog's readership to go in-depth into the story. The 8 firings were covered in local newspapers and aggregated by readers who reported the stories to the site; readers later sifted through Justice Department documents and reported their findings to TPM. We return to the image of bloggers-in-pajamas, but this time they are cast as a disaggregated, 24-hour news bureau. "Assignment Zero" at Wired Magazine also seeks to leverage this citizen-powered journalism. NPR: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9083501 Talking Points Site Kept Attorneys Story Alive]

===Fair and Balanced Elections===
As a definitional rather than an aspirational matter, true democracy entails elections that are actually decided by the voters, in which the best-suited candidate can rise to the top and be elected.
*The internet makes it possible for an outsider or a fringe-party candidate to spread his message, even if he starts at a severe handicap because he is not supported by an established political machine or wealthy donors that favor tried-and-true incumbents. Websites and email are basically free, which means that any candidate can spread his message if it's one that people are willing to read.
**For example, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is running for office, and trying to use the internet to harness the grass roots. [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/12/bangladesh-can-the-power-of-one-save-the-nation/ Click here for more]. [http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/12/d7021201085.htm See his open letter here].
*As for the fairness of elections, see the Transparency and Accountability section below.

===Engaged Citizenry===
In a system that is ostensibly run by the people, more engagement by citizens is better. (See [[Note 2]]) The internet can be used to encourage individuals to become more active, and enables those who are active to be more effective.
*Citizens become engaged when they come to believe there is a serious problem that needs addressing. Seeing is believing. The internet enables single witnesses to 'show' everybody else the truth using firsthand accounts via [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/caught-on-camera-human-rights-video-on-gv/ YouTube videos]. Liars, criminals, bullies and tyrants lose plausible deniability when everybody ''sees'' them committing their crimes. The citizenry then mobilizes against what they now believe is a violation of rights. That was not as easy before the internet. But even then it was extremely powerful (e.g. Rodney King [http://www.multishow.com.ar/rodneyking/ video] and the incredible public reaction to a perceived injustice in the form of the Los Angeles riots). That effect is magnified with the internet.
*The internet enables individual activists to become super-activists. (see Palfrey's "classical and jazz" argument, that the internet enables people to do better what they were otherwise doing.) Those who were already engaged are able to reach more people and spread their message more effectively using blogs, email lists etc. What could have only been done by a huge organization can now be done by one highly motivated individual.
*The internet enables far-flung individuals to combine on big projects (for example, [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia]) which, because so many people have a vested interest in them, become accurate and popular. As Wikipedia has done for the world of encyclopedias, so a political communal project could become a 'public forum' on the internet where everybody can participate in the political debate. Even non-elite citizens can participate in this kind of forum, taking the power and focus away from the few talking heads that have heretofore dominated political discourse.
**The content of blogs and the links they provide tend to take one side of a particular issue. Any given blog has a tendency to reinforce the preconceived notions of its regular readers. But a centralized wiki is a place where all sides of an issue could focus and make sure that all nuances of every issue are presented truthfully and completely. It could be a great resource for others to become educated on the issues.
**A wiki would also provide a forum for people who want to be engaged on a small scale; one might not have enough to say to warrant a blog, but has one small argument or a few facts that could be added to a wiki.
*The blogosphere as a whole (as opposed to individual blogs) already acts as a 'public forum' on the internet for some issues and in some places. There are communities of bloggers that discuss particular issues in conversation with each other, in a way that millions of people can read and comment. So, those who are engaged enough to say something to the public have a place to do so.
**However, 'blogosphere as public forum' is less effective than it could be because bloggers tend not to present the opinions of their opponents or link to opposing arguments. So the conversations tend to be one-sided. Whereas the editorial pages of newspapers or radio call-in programs or physical public fora like public parks enabled both sides of an issue to be heard, the blogosphere doesn't always operate like that.
*The internet greases the wheels of political activity by otherwise un-engaged citizens. For example, there might be voters who are unwilling to walk door to door to campaign, but are happy to send emails to their friends. Or they might be unwilling to go to the effort to stamp an envelope to send a donation, but will click on PayPal. Citizens who have a 'day job' no longer have to sacrifice those other activities, because political involvement is so easy and efficient on the internet.
**Such low levels of involvement may not seem like much, but when aggregated across (potentially) hundreds of millions of people, it adds up.
**Once such people have been brought into political involvement, they may develop a taste for it, and become more active. They will at least be more motivated to vote, bringing up voter participation numbers.
**Even people at a low level of political engagement may find themselves on email lists (such as the annoyingly active one run by [http://www.moveon.org/ Moveon.org]). While an individual may have initially become involved because of one small issue, they may be exposed to other interesting issues in these emails, and might become further involved. (see [http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.html Sunstein's argument] about the need for a common space where people will be exposed to new ideas. Email lists can serve this function).
*The very structure of the internet means that it's unlikely there will ever be any sort of centralized control structure. Instead, individual members of the community that might have ''wanted'' to be involved before, but were afraid, are now emboldened to generate input both freely and openly. They may feel more comfortable to expose their political ideas on the internet â especially if their ideas contradict policies/rules of their current government.
**It is the tech firms (usually American) that enable government censorship and surveillance online. Individuals like MIT's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Richard Stallman] have the power to develop and disseminate software that prevents/thwarts government attempts to control political thought online. Without the internet, anti-establishment individuals would not have as much power to unclog the channels of political discussion. Interestingly, China has adopted the GNU Linux operating system, leaving their filtering and surveillance vulnerable to individual subversive action.
*While it is hard to break into the club of top bloggers [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html described by Shirky], people do. There is a much more active revolving door in the blogging world than in traditional media. All the individuals in the long tail of Shirky's curve have an incentive to educate themselves on political matters and get involved, in hopes that they'll be the one to have the power of the big bloggers. In the physical world, there is a slim chance that any given person will end up owning a media empire. But online, anybody could become the next Andrew Sullivan or Wonkette or Daily Kos. So, the internet provides a space where the dream of hitting the big time is realistic. And even those that don't make it will be more engaged in the political process in hopes of hitting it big. On balance, it's better to have more people paying attention to politics and honing their argumentation skills.
*If voting can be done through internet, the number of voters will increase greatly since people tend not to go to cast their vote at the designated poll if it inconveniences them to travel there. But if people can log on and vote from their office, they are far more likely to do so.

===Educated Citizenry===
In a system where citizens are running the country, its important that they know what they're talking about. The most obvious advantage of the internet is its ability to quickly and cheaply educate citizens about political matters.
*Even in countries where the government tries to restrict the educational function of the internet through censorship and filtering, individuals can [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/access-flickr-iran/ circumvent those controls], enabling other citizens to be educated about things the incumbent government doesn't want them to know. It's a tit-for-tat that would have never been possible before the internet. Before, the secret police had only to destroy the printing press, and that put a stop to the production of subversive educational materials in that place. The ability of individual hackers to disable government censorship is an enormous power that individuals did not have before the advent of the internet.
*Even as China and other countries try to "let in the light while keeping out the flies", a few flies are getting in. It only takes a little bit of information in the hands of the right people to get other people talking, breed discontent, and cause change. A little education goes a long way.
*As we talked about in class on February 13, perhaps the most effective way to campaign for a cause is by word of mouth. Individuals with Live Journals are able to "speak to" and perhaps educate friends and family all the way across the country, or around the world. That kind of discourse is important for a democracy. We may never know whether or how it changes votes, but it's good that people are discussing political issues. Again, a little bit of education is better than none, and can have a profound effect in the hands of the right people.
**Even if votes aren't changed in the short term, the development of this inter-personal discourse online helps lay a foundation for a time when it may matter more. For example, if a big event happens, there will already be a network of inter-connected bloggers and their readers in place to get the "real" story out, mouth to mouth, in a way that people trust. And it will be a tool for mobilizing people to demand change.
*The country/world is a lot smaller than it was before the internet. Before the internet, one might have theoretically cared that control of the government came down to one close senate race in Virginia, but one might not have ''known'' about it. And even if one knew, there was not much you could do about it on the afternoon of November 7 if one was in Oregon. But now, people can educate a huge amount of interested people very quickly. And in turn, those people can become involved by sending money, VOIPing people in that area etc. The internet allows the whole country to participate in what used to be purely 'local' elections by educating people that those elections are important.
*The internet makes it easy to find information online. From the Pew survey, it seems that people are relying more on the internet as their source of political information [http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Politics_2006.pdf]

===Transparency and Accountability===
*Any individual who happens to know the truth can break the story. The major networks can no longer act as bottlenecks to stop important stories from getting out there (if the networks are in bed with the interested parties). For example, Senator Allen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7gq7GQ71c macaca comment] is said to have derailed his campaign because the internet enabled it to be seen by so many people who were outraged by it. There is no evidence to support this, but it is possible that a network might overlook something like that in hopes of garnering favor with a candidate, but could be pressured into making it a big deal by the tidal wave of interest online.
*The internet enables extensive and fast fact checking. A person at a town hall with a candidate could have her laptop open and check voting records as the candidate answered a question, and expose the lie right away. Even if this doesn't happen often, candidates will know it ''can'', and will be scared into being more honest and transparent.
*Flip-flopping will be exposed. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI Romney] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI McCain] can't get away with their recent flip-flopping because we have video footage of them holding opposite positions. The internet makes it extremely easy for individuals to expose the lies to others.
*Politicians respond to polls. The internet enables much faster and more widespread polling. Individuals can (when aggregated in a poll) have a more efficient way to respond to the decisions of leaders and direct policy.

===Economic Democracy===
*The internet provides jobs (e.g. tech-service in India), access to markets, and an ability to acquire and use capital that leads to the emergence of a stronger middle class. People who are not living hand-to-mouth have more leisure to educate themselves, engage in politics, and pressure governments to act in their interests.

===Examples to Discuss===
The following are some examples from various countries supporting argument that how internet can enhance citizens participation in politics around the world. Some thoughts for possible arguments are also included.

*'''ePetitions''': [http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open?sort=signers/ In England], British citizens can petition the Prime Minister directly online. This system allows millions of British people to say what they want directly to the government. Today, there are more than 1.5 million signatures only for the "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" petition. (For more examples of countries adopting e-petition, see [http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/ Scotland] and [http://www.zebralog.de/en/000195.html Germany])
*'''eVoting''': Some countries make the voting available online by creating an election system that allow voters to transmit their ballot over the internet.(See, for example, [http://www.geneve.ch/evoting/english/welcome.asp Geneva eVoting Project])
**Possible Arguments: How can we ensure that the system will support the principle of âone man, one voteâ? Will there be a vote robbery problem (voters might cast their ballot on counterfeit voting sites)? What about the voters' privacy, will their information be revealed?
*'''eRulemaking Initiative'''[http://www.epa.gov/oei/proceedings/2005/pdfs/morales.pdf]: This is an attempt to increase the citizen participation and understanding in rulemaking process by making the process to be easily accessible via internet. This, as a result, gives an opportunity for the citizen to be educated of the current rules and policies and has a potential to encourage citizen to participate more in the rulemaking process by allowing them to provide a comment which in turn will improve the quality of the rulemaking [decision.
**In the US, there is a eRulemaking Initiative launched in January 2003 by Bush Administration establishing the eRulemaking website - regulations.gov â which allows anyone to read and comment on proposed federal regulations. In fall 2005, the newer version of this site was released by incorporating the ongoing development of the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) which provides the public and agencies access to the entire regulatory docket, including rules, supporting documents, and public comments. (see [http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main/ regulation.gov] and [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-3-1-er.html whitehouse.gov])
*'''Online Dialogues''': Internet makes it possible to have online interactive regulatory dialogues among large number of people allowing them to discuss any social or political issues with each other as well as with government officials. For example, in 2001, the EPA established an online dialogue project (which won an E-Gov 2002 Explorer Award) on its new draft Public Involvement Policy so that the public can participate and help the officers to determine what kind of revisions to make to such policy. (For more example of public online dialogues can be found at [http://www.info-ren.org/what/dialogues_projects.shtml info-ren.org]
*'''Thailand's political change in 2006''': Internet is an alternative source of information when the government control and restrict the media freedom over the mainstream media (TV, newspaper, radio etc.) to shut the eyes and ears of the people (see [http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/24/news/thai.php iht.com] and [http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,98445,00.html asiaweek.com]) . For example, it is fair to say that strong criticism on the policies and actions of the former Thai government through various mechanism online (blog, email, IM, video/audio sharing website etc.) was one of the main factors that led to the significant [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2n703TFOYM political movements] and changes in Thailand last year. Various fact and criticism that could not be found anywhere through mainstream medias are often available online (see [http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=

The Affirmative Argument

2007-04-11T07:10:38Z

Amornchai: /* Introduction */

==The Question==

'''"Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world."'''

Quick Link to [[The Negative Argument]]

==The Argument in Favor of the Resolution:==

===Introduction===
Experience has shown that in order for participatory democracy to thrive, there are a number of necessary ingredients that a society must exhibit. Among these are a strong, unbiased, truthful media, fair and balanced elections, a politically engaged citizenry, a citizenry educated on political matters, transparency and accountability, and economic democracy.

It is our contention here that the internet has the capacity to, and in certain circumstances already has, improved the health of participatory democracies along each of these metrics. In other words, as compared to a world without the internet, the world with an internet is more conducive to participatory democracy. However for the purposes of our argument as presented here the focus will be predominantly on societies that already have some level of participatory democracy. In states where there is in effect no channel for civic participation then it is additionally likely that access to the internet is also likely to be stringently prescribed as for example in the DPRK

Although there are a number of arguments that the internet enhances democracy in a more general sense, our focus here is on the effect the internet has on the power of ''individual citizens'' to influence the political process in a way that, depending on the baseline, either enhances existing democracies or helps bring about new democracies.

===A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media===

Democracy cannot work without abundant, readily available information. (See [[Note 1]]) If leaders, elected or not, are to be held accountable to the wishes of the people, the people must know what the leaders are doing. The privately owned media (defined here very generally as widely available information sources not controlled by the government) has long served as a watchdog of the government, and as the most important supplier of political information to citizens. The internet enhances the power of individual citizens to leverage the reach of traditional media outlets, and also to serve in the watchdog and information spreading roles themselves:
*By aggregating potentially inflammatory or interesting stories, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] raises the likelihood that one of those stories will become viral on the internet, or be noticed by the mainstream media. Therefore, Global Voices gives a lone, otherwise insignificant blogger/activist/witness the power to tell other citizens about an issue in a way that she could not have done before the advent of the internet.
**Assuming leaders know but do not care about the problem (or are causing it themselves) the faster a story becomes salient to a significant portion of the public, the sooner a 'tipping point' will be reached when ut out an alert will result in faster action. It's easier to fix problems while they're still small.
**In countries with a biased media, or a media that is controlled by a corrupt government that limits the freedom of media to tell citizens things the government does not want them to know, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/07/government-minister-suing-bahraini-blogger/ bloggers can fill the gap] in terms of the watchdog and information-spreading functions.
**In places where the media is not biased or controlled, but is ineffective at serving as a watchdog or spreading information because of a lack of resources or poor physical communication channels, the internet allows those media outlets (or individual bloggers) to move information quickly and efficiently to those citizens who have internet access. This effect will be present even in minimally wired countries. As long as there is one wired person in an area, the internet can get the information there despite weather, treacherous topography, war etc, and word of mouth will do the rest. The internet can get information to places that newspapers, mail and even TV cannot.
*While [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html Shirky's curve] does point out that there are still a few dominant players in the information market in the blogging world, many of these players are individuals. One popular blogger can reach more people than a billion dollar newspaper empire. That's a lot of power for an individual. And it is possible that in a place with corrupt media, the lone blogger will be the ''only'' voice of truth that people can trust, and he'll have enormous power over the political process.
*Even in places with "good" media, the internet still enhances participatory democracy in various ways. For example, bloggers can add nuance to the "sound bite culture" of mainstream media. People who are interested in a story they see on TV can go online to learn more, and bloggers will be there to provide that information. Bloggers can also act as an extension of the editorial pages, including serving as "letters to the editor" that don't get published. If the mainstream media is only providing the facts, the bloggers can provide direction for citizens on how to interpret those facts. For example, bloggers can speculate behind the facts to the possible motivations of the leaders, a topic in which citizens might be greatly interested but don't often get because traditional reporters don't often speculate. (There is a lot of potential for problems and abuse here, as we mentioned in [[Note 1]], but the fact remains that these extra functions online do have the capacity to enhance participatory democracy by enhancing the traditional media functions of supplying information and serving as a watchdog.)
*Blogs may also have potential as a new situs for investigative journalism. Where a "story" is not an existing object to be found but rather the constructed product of large time and energy investments, the internet opens the door for that effort to be distributed across the citizenry. By analogy, see [http://setiathome.ssl.berkeley.edu/ SETI@home].
**The website Talking Points Memo has been following the firing of 8 U.S. Attorneys since well before it hit the front pages. A handful of full-time investigative journalists at "TPM Muckraker" leveraged the time and energy of the blog's readership to go in-depth into the story. The 8 firings were covered in local newspapers and aggregated by readers who reported the stories to the site; readers later sifted through Justice Department documents and reported their findings to TPM. We return to the image of bloggers-in-pajamas, but this time they are cast as a disaggregated, 24-hour news bureau. "Assignment Zero" at Wired Magazine also seeks to leverage this citizen-powered journalism. NPR: [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9083501 Talking Points Site Kept Attorneys Story Alive]

===Fair and Balanced Elections===
As a definitional rather than an aspirational matter, true democracy entails elections that are actually decided by the voters, in which the best-suited candidate can rise to the top and be elected.
*The internet makes it possible for an outsider or a fringe-party candidate to spread his message, even if he starts at a severe handicap because he is not supported by an established political machine or wealthy donors that favor tried-and-true incumbents. Websites and email are basically free, which means that any candidate can spread his message if it's one that people are willing to read.
**For example, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is running for office, and trying to use the internet to harness the grass roots. [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/12/bangladesh-can-the-power-of-one-save-the-nation/ Click here for more]. [http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/12/d7021201085.htm See his open letter here].
*As for the fairness of elections, see the Transparency and Accountability section below.

===Engaged Citizenry===
In a system that is ostensibly run by the people, more engagement by citizens is better. (See [[Note 2]]) The internet can be used to encourage individuals to become more active, and enables those who are active to be more effective.
*Citizens become engaged when they come to believe there is a serious problem that needs addressing. Seeing is believing. The internet enables single witnesses to 'show' everybody else the truth using firsthand accounts via [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/caught-on-camera-human-rights-video-on-gv/ YouTube videos]. Liars, criminals, bullies and tyrants lose plausible deniability when everybody ''sees'' them committing their crimes. The citizenry then mobilizes against what they now believe is a violation of rights. That was not as easy before the internet. But even then it was extremely powerful (e.g. Rodney King [http://www.multishow.com.ar/rodneyking/ video] and the incredible public reaction to a perceived injustice in the form of the Los Angeles riots). That effect is magnified with the internet.
*The internet enables individual activists to become super-activists. (see Palfrey's "classical and jazz" argument, that the internet enables people to do better what they were otherwise doing.) Those who were already engaged are able to reach more people and spread their message more effectively using blogs, email lists etc. What could have only been done by a huge organization can now be done by one highly motivated individual.
*The internet enables far-flung individuals to combine on big projects (for example, [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia]) which, because so many people have a vested interest in them, become accurate and popular. As Wikipedia has done for the world of encyclopedias, so a political communal project could become a 'public forum' on the internet where everybody can participate in the political debate. Even non-elite citizens can participate in this kind of forum, taking the power and focus away from the few talking heads that have heretofore dominated political discourse.
**The content of blogs and the links they provide tend to take one side of a particular issue. Any given blog has a tendency to reinforce the preconceived notions of its regular readers. But a centralized wiki is a place where all sides of an issue could focus and make sure that all nuances of every issue are presented truthfully and completely. It could be a great resource for others to become educated on the issues.
**A wiki would also provide a forum for people who want to be engaged on a small scale; one might not have enough to say to warrant a blog, but has one small argument or a few facts that could be added to a wiki.
*The blogosphere as a whole (as opposed to individual blogs) already acts as a 'public forum' on the internet for some issues and in some places. There are communities of bloggers that discuss particular issues in conversation with each other, in a way that millions of people can read and comment. So, those who are engaged enough to say something to the public have a place to do so.
**However, 'blogosphere as public forum' is less effective than it could be because bloggers tend not to present the opinions of their opponents or link to opposing arguments. So the conversations tend to be one-sided. Whereas the editorial pages of newspapers or radio call-in programs or physical public fora like public parks enabled both sides of an issue to be heard, the blogosphere doesn't always operate like that.
*The internet greases the wheels of political activity by otherwise un-engaged citizens. For example, there might be voters who are unwilling to walk door to door to campaign, but are happy to send emails to their friends. Or they might be unwilling to go to the effort to stamp an envelope to send a donation, but will click on PayPal. Citizens who have a 'day job' no longer have to sacrifice those other activities, because political involvement is so easy and efficient on the internet.
**Such low levels of involvement may not seem like much, but when aggregated across (potentially) hundreds of millions of people, it adds up.
**Once such people have been brought into political involvement, they may develop a taste for it, and become more active. They will at least be more motivated to vote, bringing up voter participation numbers.
**Even people at a low level of political engagement may find themselves on email lists (such as the annoyingly active one run by [http://www.moveon.org/ Moveon.org]). While an individual may have initially become involved because of one small issue, they may be exposed to other interesting issues in these emails, and might become further involved. (see [http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.html Sunstein's argument] about the need for a common space where people will be exposed to new ideas. Email lists can serve this function).
*The very structure of the internet means that it's unlikely there will ever be any sort of centralized control structure. Instead, individual members of the community that might have ''wanted'' to be involved before, but were afraid, are now emboldened to generate input both freely and openly. They may feel more comfortable to expose their political ideas on the internet â especially if their ideas contradict policies/rules of their current government.
**It is the tech firms (usually American) that enable government censorship and surveillance online. Individuals like MIT's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Richard Stallman] have the power to develop and disseminate software that prevents/thwarts government attempts to control political thought online. Without the internet, anti-establishment individuals would not have as much power to unclog the channels of political discussion. Interestingly, China has adopted the GNU Linux operating system, leaving their filtering and surveillance vulnerable to individual subversive action.
*While it is hard to break into the club of top bloggers [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html described by Shirky], people do. There is a much more active revolving door in the blogging world than in traditional media. All the individuals in the long tail of Shirky's curve have an incentive to educate themselves on political matters and get involved, in hopes that they'll be the one to have the power of the big bloggers. In the physical world, there is a slim chance that any given person will end up owning a media empire. But online, anybody could become the next Andrew Sullivan or Wonkette or Daily Kos. So, the internet provides a space where the dream of hitting the big time is realistic. And even those that don't make it will be more engaged in the political process in hopes of hitting it big. On balance, it's better to have more people paying attention to politics and honing their argumentation skills.
*If voting can be done through internet, the number of voters will increase greatly since people tend not to go to cast their vote at the designated poll if it inconveniences them to travel there. But if people can log on and vote from their office, they are far more likely to do so.

===Educated Citizenry===
In a system where citizens are running the country, its important that they know what they're talking about. The most obvious advantage of the internet is its ability to quickly and cheaply educate citizens about political matters.
*Even in countries where the government tries to restrict the educational function of the internet through censorship and filtering, individuals can [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/access-flickr-iran/ circumvent those controls], enabling other citizens to be educated about things the incumbent government doesn't want them to know. It's a tit-for-tat that would have never been possible before the internet. Before, the secret police had only to destroy the printing press, and that put a stop to the production of subversive educational materials in that place. The ability of individual hackers to disable government censorship is an enormous power that individuals did not have before the advent of the internet.
*Even as China and other countries try to "let in the light while keeping out the flies", a few flies are getting in. It only takes a little bit of information in the hands of the right people to get other people talking, breed discontent, and cause change. A little education goes a long way.
*As we talked about in class on February 13, perhaps the most effective way to campaign for a cause is by word of mouth. Individuals with Live Journals are able to "speak to" and perhaps educate friends and family all the way across the country, or around the world. That kind of discourse is important for a democracy. We may never know whether or how it changes votes, but it's good that people are discussing political issues. Again, a little bit of education is better than none, and can have a profound effect in the hands of the right people.
**Even if votes aren't changed in the short term, the development of this inter-personal discourse online helps lay a foundation for a time when it may matter more. For example, if a big event happens, there will already be a network of inter-connected bloggers and their readers in place to get the "real" story out, mouth to mouth, in a way that people trust. And it will be a tool for mobilizing people to demand change.
*The country/world is a lot smaller than it was before the internet. Before the internet, one might have theoretically cared that control of the government came down to one close senate race in Virginia, but one might not have ''known'' about it. And even if one knew, there was not much you could do about it on the afternoon of November 7 if one was in Oregon. But now, people can educate a huge amount of interested people very quickly. And in turn, those people can become involved by sending money, VOIPing people in that area etc. The internet allows the whole country to participate in what used to be purely 'local' elections by educating people that those elections are important.
*The internet makes it easy to find information online. From the Pew survey, it seems that people are relying more on the internet as their source of political information [http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Politics_2006.pdf]

===Transparency and Accountability===
*Any individual who happens to know the truth can break the story. The major networks can no longer act as bottlenecks to stop important stories from getting out there (if the networks are in bed with the interested parties). For example, Senator Allen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7gq7GQ71c macaca comment] is said to have derailed his campaign because the internet enabled it to be seen by so many people who were outraged by it. There is no evidence to support this, but it is possible that a network might overlook something like that in hopes of garnering favor with a candidate, but could be pressured into making it a big deal by the tidal wave of interest online.
*The internet enables extensive and fast fact checking. A person at a town hall with a candidate could have her laptop open and check voting records as the candidate answered a question, and expose the lie right away. Even if this doesn't happen often, candidates will know it ''can'', and will be scared into being more honest and transparent.
*Flip-flopping will be exposed. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI Romney] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI McCain] can't get away with their recent flip-flopping because we have video footage of them holding opposite positions. The internet makes it extremely easy for individuals to expose the lies to others.
*Politicians respond to polls. The internet enables much faster and more widespread polling. Individuals can (when aggregated in a poll) have a more efficient way to respond to the decisions of leaders and direct policy.

===Economic Democracy===
*The internet provides jobs (e.g. tech-service in India), access to markets, and an ability to acquire and use capital that leads to the emergence of a stronger middle class. People who are not living hand-to-mouth have more leisure to educate themselves, engage in politics, and pressure governments to act in their interests.

===Examples to Discuss===
The following are some examples from various countries supporting argument that how internet can enhance citizens participation in politics around the world. Some thoughts for possible arguments are also included.

*'''ePetitions''': [http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open?sort=signers/ In England], British citizens can petition the Prime Minister directly online. This system allows millions of British people to say what they want directly to the government. Today, there are more than 1.5 million signatures only for the "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" petition. (For more examples of countries adopting e-petition, see [http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/ Scotland] and [http://www.zebralog.de/en/000195.html Germany])
*'''eVoting''': Some countries make the voting available online by creating an election system that allow voters to transmit their ballot over the internet.(See, for example, [http://www.geneve.ch/evoting/english/welcome.asp Geneva eVoting Project])
**Possible Arguments: How can we ensure that the system will support the principle of âone man, one voteâ? Will there be a vote robbery problem (voters might cast their ballot on counterfeit voting sites)? What about the voters' privacy, will their information be revealed?
*'''eRulemaking Initiative'''[http://www.epa.gov/oei/proceedings/2005/pdfs/morales.pdf]: This is an attempt to increase the citizen participation and understanding in rulemaking process by making the process to be easily accessible via internet. This, as a result, gives an opportunity for the citizen to be educated of the current rules and policies and has a potential to encourage citizen to participate more in the rulemaking process by allowing them to provide a comment which in turn will improve the quality of the rulemaking [decision.
**In the US, there is a eRulemaking Initiative launched in January 2003 by Bush Administration establishing the eRulemaking website - regulations.gov â which allows anyone to read and comment on proposed federal regulations. In fall 2005, the newer version of this site was released by incorporating the ongoing development of the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) which provides the public and agencies access to the entire regulatory docket, including rules, supporting documents, and public comments. (see [http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main/ regulation.gov] and [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-3-1-er.html whitehouse.gov])
*'''Online Dialogues''': Internet makes it possible to have online interactive regulatory dialogues among large number of people allowing them to discuss any social or political issues with each other as well as with government officials. For example, in 2001, the EPA established an online dialogue project (which won an E-Gov 2002 Explorer Award) on its new draft Public Involvement Policy so that the public can participate and help the officers to determine what kind of revisions to make to such policy. (For more example of public online dialogues can be found at [http://www.info-ren.org/what/dialogues_projects.shtml info-ren.org]
*'''Thailand's political change in 2006''': Internet is an alternative source of information when the government control and restrict the media freedom over the mainstream media (TV, newspaper, radio etc.) to shut the eyes and ears of the people (see [http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/24/news/thai.php iht.com] and [http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/magazine/nations/0,8782,98445,00.html asiaweek.com]) . For example, it is fair to say that strong criticism on the policies and actions of the former Thai government through various mechanism online (blog, email, IM, video/audio sharing website etc.) was one of the main factors that led to the significant [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2n703TFOYM political movements] and changes in Thailand last year. Various fact and criticism that could not be found anywhere through mainstream medias are often available online (see [http://www.youtube.com/watch?search=

Main Page

2007-03-26T23:15:26Z

Amornchai: /* Internet, Law, & Politics in the News */

<div style="float:right">
__TOC__
</div>
<center><big>'''Internet, Law, & Politics'''</big>

Spring Semester 2007, Prof. John Palfrey</center>

'''[[Official Syllabus]]'''

News & Updates:
* The '''final essay''' will be due on May 11, 2007 (the last day of exams).

== Group Projects ==

{| width=100% cellpadding=3 cellspacing=5
|valign=top width="50%"|
[[Debate 1]]: "Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world."

[[Debate 2]]: "Resolved: E-Government is a lot like Al Goreâs âreinventing governmentâ initiative when he was Vice-President: sounds like something that governments should obviously do, but no one much cares and the impact on society, after lots of effort, is negligible. Thereâs no special magic to governing in a digital age."
|valign=top|
[[Debate 3]]: "Resolved: United States technology companies should stay out of regimes that force them to sacrifice the civil liberties of citizens as the cost of doing business in those states."

[[Debate 4]]: "Resolved: The outcome of the digital intellectual property crisis is crucial to whether or not the use of the Internet ultimately has a positive impact in terms of strengthening democracies."
|}

== Class Notes ==
* [[Politics and Network Effects]] (Feb. 13, 2007)
* [[Municipal WiFi]] (Mar. 13, 2007)

== Internet, Law, & Politics in the News ==

* Hello class. In response to the Zittrain article's discussion about how pornography helped fuel the internet boom, I refer you all to this article from Macworld[http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/05/02/pornhd/index.php?lsrc=mwrss] discussing how pornography played a role in VHS winning out over Beta and how pornography may contribute to Blu-ray winning out over HD-DVD. Notice that the article states that the pornography industry is a $57 billion industry. - Scott Lesowitz
* [http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&taxonomyId=16&articleId=9011204&intsrc=hm_topic Embattled Edwards Blogger Quits Campaign], ''Computerworld,'' Feb. 13, 2007.
* [http://www.ft.com/cms/s/b46f5a58-aa2e-11db-83b0-0000779e2340.html On free copies, Benkler, and open books]: "Yochai Benkler is a prominent academic. His widely praised book about the network economy, The Wealth of Networks, was published by Yale Press â a publisher not known for its radicalism. Yet with his publisherâs approval Benklerâs book is available for free online under a Creative Commons license. Instead of paying $40 one can simply download the book. Its sales are reportedly in the top rank of academic books. Benkler is delighted with the additional 20,000 readers who have downloaded it."
* In case there's anybody that has not seen it, this is [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE a cool video] that explains the power of Web 2.0.
* [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/19/AR2007021900934.html Blogger as Lobbyist?] "if you're not for net neutrality, then the blogs will kick your" rear. The grass-roots groups that strongly favor it are relatively small but very noisy, she said, "and you just don't want to have to deal with that."
* [http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,69234-0.html Wi-Fi Cloud Covers Rural Oregon] "While cities around the country are battling over plans to offer free or cheap internet access, this lonely terrain is served by what is billed as the world's largest hotspot, a wireless cloud that stretches over 700 square miles of landscape so dry and desolate it could have been lifted from a cowboy tune."
* [http://www.eff.org/news/archives/2007_03.php#005176 Free Speech Battle Over Online Parody of âColbert Reportâ]: MoveOn and Brave New Films reacted by filing suit against Viacom for illegal takedown of YouTube Video. Here is the link to watch [http://falsiness.org/ "Stop the Falsiness"] video

== Other Interesting Topics ==

*I just found out that there will be a discussion on "Can the internet save democracy?" at Berkman Center on Feb 14, 2007, at 6 PM which subject might be in line with our course. More information can be found on http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/home/

* Beyond Broadcast 2007: From Participatory Culture to Participatory Democracy, will be held on Saturday, February 24 at MIT. Info: http://www.beyondbroadcast.net/blog/

* Reuters: pronounced ''Royters'' - love, [http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2006/sg2118.doc.htm ''Bahn Gi-moon'']

* The Internet is a [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtOoQFa5ug8 Series of Tubes]...awesome video. You can listen to Senator Stevens unaccompanied [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f99PcP0aFNE&mode=related&search= here].

== Related Events ==

* [[Steve Schultze on the Convergence of Pop Culture and Political Action as it Creates a New, Networked Form of Participatory Democracy]]
* [[Beyond Broadcast 2007]]: From Participatory Culture to Participatory Democracy
* [[APALSA event]]
* [[Targeting the Youth Vote]]

==Event Responses==

Scott's Response to the Institute of Politics Event: http://perspectives.com/forums/view_topic.php?id=138638&forum_id=4

The Affirmative Argument

2007-03-06T22:20:20Z

Amornchai: /* Engaged Citizenry */

The Affirmative Argument

2007-03-06T22:19:38Z

Amornchai: /* A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media */

APALSA event

2007-03-04T19:19:59Z

Amornchai: /* Blogging and Asian Pacific American Political Awareness - Amornchai Sirithaporn */

== APLASA Event ==

===Adding Asian-American Voices to the Political Blogosphere - Gwen Hochman===

This morning I attended the APALSA panel on the potential impact of blogging on Asian-American political participation. The panelists included Erik Hananoki, a blogger previously employed by Al Franken; C.N. Le, a UMass Sociology professor who blogs about Asian-American social issues; and Phil Yu, creator of the popular pop culture commentary blog AngryAsianMan.com. The panelists generally agreed that blogs have the potential to affect political change; Erik cited the Dean campaign as everybodyâs favorite example of grass roots blogging, and the format of blogs (updating quickly, often engaging in dialogue with comment from readers and other blogs) was cited as encouraging a new level of reader participation.

A particularly interesting point in the panel came when an audience member directly confronted the panelists with Sonnensteinâs argument about the possible detrimental effect of further fragmentation and balkanization of viewpoints that may result from the internet and blogging. C.N. pointed out that this effect was already happening before the internet, and the panelists uniformly insisted that adding more voices, even if they did not represent the mainstream, was good thing. This belief seemed somewhat contingent on the fact that Asian-Americans generally have lacked representation in political dialogue, and it is unclear how far the âadding voices outweighs unity/objectivity concernsâ argument could extend beyond the specific case of the Asian-American community or other groups for whom lack of representation of any kind is the most pressing concern.

Relatedly, Phil Yuâs AngryAsianMan blog seems to suggest that the goals of providing âobjectiveâ news or information and broadcasting newer, opinionated voices may not actually be irreconcilable. Philâs blog is openly left-leaning, and as evidenced by his obvious discomfort with expressing himself in person, it provides an outlet for a political voice that otherwise might not be heard. At the same time, however, Philâs blog provides an aggregated source for news stories of interest to the Asian-American community and which are largely excluded from the traditional news media; even readers with differing political views have voiced appreciation of that aspect of his blog. Perhaps, as Phil suggests, just getting a group of previously uninvolved people, like most Asian Americans, interested in a subject and blogging or reading about it is itself a contribution to the political process, regardless of what kind of action may or may not follow.

===Blogging and Asian Pacific American Political Awareness - Amornchai Sirithaporn===
I also attended the APALSA conference on Blogging and Asian Pacific American Political Awareness. The following are what I learn from this conference.

First of all, Eric, one of the three panels, said that blogging has an effect not only on a political sphere but also social sphere.
He referred to the Dean campaign as its purpose to reach the glassroot, to raise the fund.
Eric helps create a blog for [http://alfranken.com Al Franken]. The purpose of Al Frankenâs blog is not only providing political issues but also giving more insight information about his personal life style such as telling his stories and telling jokes. Thus, the purpose is also to let people know more about him.

Thereâre several questions asked the panels in the conference.

First question is whether blogging helps increase glassroot movement/mobilization.
*The answer is yes. It is fast and easy for one to create a blog and post something he/she wants to share with others through the Internet. Considered a column written in the newspaper, once the author puts down the pen, it usually takes about 5-6 days for publishing that column and in turn such column often out-dated. However, people can post something in the blog right away.

Another question is whether blogging increase political awareness.
*The panel responded that blogging helps/directs people what they should think or concern about. It also helps educated people by increasing an opportunity to access to the information that will not be available on the mainstream media. Moreover, different blogs can have different issues and thus in turn can fulfill different needs. Blogs increase the participation of individuals. People are not only receiving political information from others but now they actively participate by sharing and contributing their ideas to the community. In the mainstream media, say newspaper, if the reader want to communicate or share his idea, he can only send his idea to the author (it is hardly for him to share it with other people who read the same newspaper), but blogs enable him to share his idea with other blog readers. Another important results deriving from blogs is that everyone can have a voice by creating his blog as his media in order to make his voice heard by others. The larger the collective voice, the more the concerned issue will be heard.

Moreover, there is a specific question about whether blogging has an impact on the Asian American society.
*The answer is again yes. Blog helps Asian American to be in part of American political mainstream. Asian American cans response to the political actions through blog. There might be a misrepresentation made by one of an Asian American showing that his need/voice presents all other Asian Americans needs/voices and blog is one way that others can correct such misrepresentation.

Another interesting question which seems to relate to Shirkyâs article is how can one create creditability for his blog.
*There are two answers to this question (which do not seem to appeal to me). One answer is that it is true that if no one knows about your blog, no one is going to read it. However, as long as you keep writing your blog and writing it well, others will recognize your blog. People will tell others that your blog is good or other blogs/websites will contain a link to your blog. Thus, you just need to keep adding your blog and one day others will recognize it. Another answer for this is that individualâs prestige, such as being a professor or earning a PH.D., helps a lot in creating creditability for your blog.

Finally, one participant asked whether there is any downside of blogs. He also raise question about Sunsteinâs article âDaily weâ.
*The answer is that Sunsteinâs point might be true but he believe that the benefit of blogging is outweigh the downside since blogs give people more opportunity to raise their voice, create more discussion forum for people to discuss their common concerned issues, and enable people to work together which in turn will lead people to achieve their common goal.

===Blogging and Asian Pacific American Political Awareness - Drew Bennett===

Insights from the [http://apalsa.org/ APALSA] panel on [http://www.apalsa.org/panel.html Blogging and Asian American Political Awareness]:

* This panel featured Asian Americans who had taken to the blogosphere for a variety of reasons, but the thread that connected them all was their motivation to voice the opinions of an under-represented minority. This reminded me of many of the virtues of blogging and citizen journalism that Dan Gilmour extols in his narrative of the development of 'New Media.' Specifically, on p.15, Gilmour writes of Dave Winer, a Mac developer who felt the trade press was getting the story wrong about Apple's work and started what was essentially an early blog through an email newsletter to broadcast his insights. Gilmour notes that "He'd [Winer] found journalism wanting, and he bypassed it." This is exactly what all the Asian American bloggers cited as their reasons for taking on the medium and the media, which they viewed as being bankrupt of Asian American viewpoints or furthering stereotypes of the group.

* One of the panelists: "My blog is an extension of myself"
** When we talk about the internet's relationship to politics and democracy, our focus is often too narrow and we forget that identity politics are an important way in which we engage with each other as citizens and express our demands to politicians.

* [http://angryasianman.com/ Phil]: "Our generation isn't seeing the front page of the newspaper for their first taste of news in a day, they're going to CNN or Yahoo or their favorite blog."
** I think this is pretty accurate, but may not bode well for the future of blogs: are they going to be competing with corporate Internet giants once everyone finally puts down the paper news? And in this competition to be the people's portal, are blogs more or less likely to provide a daily me or a daily we?

* Great quote from Eric, who blogged for [http://www.airamerica.com/ Air America] and assisted Al Franken on [http://www.alfranken.com/page/content/al/ his blog]: "I have to credit activists of 20 years ago - how did they get anything done without the internet?"

* The inevitable question of credibility comes up and among the responses is the criticism that msm journalists are far from credible. Phil and C.N. referred to the recent controversy over a [http://www.asian-nation.org/headlines/2007/02/asianweeks-racist-opinion-column/ racist column printed in Asian Week]. All of the bloggers cited the importance of blogs and web-based campaigns in delivering the message of public disgust to the magazine.

Overall, this panel really keyed on the impact blogs and internet technologies can have on democracy and the national discourse by moving people into that discourse from the margins.

APALSA event

2007-03-04T00:30:11Z

Amornchai: /* Blogging and Asian Pacific American Political Awareness - Amornchai Sirithaporn */

== APLASA Event ==

===Adding Asian-American Voices to the Political Blogosphere - Gwen Hochman===

This morning I attended the APALSA panel on the potential impact of blogging on Asian-American political participation. The panelists included Erik Hananoki, a blogger previously employed by Al Franken; C.N. Le, a UMass Sociology professor who blogs about Asian-American social issues; and Phil Yu, creator of the popular pop culture commentary blog AngryAsianMan.com. The panelists generally agreed that blogs have the potential to affect political change; Erik cited the Dean campaign as everybodyâs favorite example of grass roots blogging, and the format of blogs (updating quickly, often engaging in dialogue with comment from readers and other blogs) was cited as encouraging a new level of reader participation.

A particularly interesting point in the panel came when an audience member directly confronted the panelists with Sonnensteinâs argument about the possible detrimental effect of further fragmentation and balkanization of viewpoints that may result from the internet and blogging. C.N. pointed out that this effect was already happening before the internet, and the panelists uniformly insisted that adding more voices, even if they did not represent the mainstream, was good thing. This belief seemed somewhat contingent on the fact that Asian-Americans generally have lacked representation in political dialogue, and it is unclear how far the âadding voices outweighs unity/objectivity concernsâ argument could extend beyond the specific case of the Asian-American community or other groups for whom lack of representation of any kind is the most pressing concern.

Relatedly, Phil Yuâs AngryAsianMan blog seems to suggest that the goals of providing âobjectiveâ news or information and broadcasting newer, opinionated voices may not actually be irreconcilable. Philâs blog is openly left-leaning, and as evidenced by his obvious discomfort with expressing himself in person, it provides an outlet for a political voice that otherwise might not be heard. At the same time, however, Philâs blog provides an aggregated source for news stories of interest to the Asian-American community and which are largely excluded from the traditional news media; even readers with differing political views have voiced appreciation of that aspect of his blog. Perhaps, as Phil suggests, just getting a group of previously uninvolved people, like most Asian Americans, interested in a subject and blogging or reading about it is itself a contribution to the political process, regardless of what kind of action may or may not follow.

===Blogging and Asian Pacific American Political Awareness - Amornchai Sirithaporn===
I also attended the APALSA conference on Blogging and Asian Pacific American Political Awareness. The following are what I learn from this conference.

First of all, Eric, one of the three panels, said that blogging has an effect not only on a political sphere but also social sphere.
He referred to the Dean campaign as its purpose to reach the glassroot, to raise the fund.
Eric helps create a blog for Al Franken www.alfranken.com. The purpose of Al Frankenâs blog is not only providing political issues but also giving more insight information about his personal life style such as telling his stories and telling jokes. Thus, the purpose is to let people know more about him.

Thereâre several questions asked the panels in the conference.

First question is whether blogging helps increase glassroot movement/mobilization.
*The answer is yes. It is fast and easy for one to create a blog and post something he/she wants to share with others through the Internet. Considered a column written in the newspaper, once the author puts down the pen, it usually takes about 5-6 days for publishing that column and in turn such column often out-dated. However, people can post something in the blog right away.

Another question is whether blogging increase political awareness.
*The panel responded that blogging helps/directs people what they should think or concern about. It also helps educated people by increasing an opportunity to access to the information that will not be available on the mainstream media. Moreover, different blogs can have different issues and thus in turn can fulfill different needs. Blogs increase the participation of individuals. People are not only receiving political information from others but now they actively participate by sharing and contributing their ideas to the community. In the mainstream media, say newspaper, if the reader want to communicate or share his idea, he can only send his idea to the author (it is hardly for him to share it with other people who read the same newspaper), but blogs enable him to share his idea with other blog readers. Another important results deriving from blogs is that everyone can have a voice by creating his blog as his media in order to make his voice heard by others. The larger the collective voice, the more the concerned issue will be heard.

Moreover, there is a specific question about whether blogging has an impact on the Asian American society.
*The answer is again yes. Blog helps Asian American to be in part of American political mainstream. Asian American cans response to the political actions through blog. There might be a misrepresentation made by one of an Asian American showing that his need/voice presents all other Asian Americans needs/voices and blog is one way that others can correct such misrepresentation.

Another interesting question which seems to relate to Shirkyâs article is how can one create creditability for his blog.
*There are two answers to this question (which do not seem to appeal to me). One answer is that it is true that if no one knows about your blog, no one is going to read it. However, as long as you keep writing your blog and writing it well, others will recognize your blog. People will tell others that your blog is good or other blogs/websites will contain a link to your blog. Thus, you just need to keep adding your blog and one day others will recognize it. Another answer for this is that individualâs prestige, such as being a professor or earning a PH.D., helps a lot in creating creditability for your blog.

Finally, one participant asked whether there is any downside of blogs. He also raise question about Sunsteinâs article âDaily weâ.
*The answer is that Sunsteinâs point might be true but he believe that the benefit of blogging is outweigh the downside since blogs give people more opportunity to raise their voice, create more discussion forum for people to discuss their common concerned issues, and enable people to work together which in turn will lead people to achieve their common goal.

APALSA event

2007-03-04T00:28:21Z

Amornchai: /* APLASA Event */

== APLASA Event ==

===Adding Asian-American Voices to the Political Blogosphere - Gwen Hochman===

This morning I attended the APALSA panel on the potential impact of blogging on Asian-American political participation. The panelists included Erik Hananoki, a blogger previously employed by Al Franken; C.N. Le, a UMass Sociology professor who blogs about Asian-American social issues; and Phil Yu, creator of the popular pop culture commentary blog AngryAsianMan.com. The panelists generally agreed that blogs have the potential to affect political change; Erik cited the Dean campaign as everybodyâs favorite example of grass roots blogging, and the format of blogs (updating quickly, often engaging in dialogue with comment from readers and other blogs) was cited as encouraging a new level of reader participation.

A particularly interesting point in the panel came when an audience member directly confronted the panelists with Sonnensteinâs argument about the possible detrimental effect of further fragmentation and balkanization of viewpoints that may result from the internet and blogging. C.N. pointed out that this effect was already happening before the internet, and the panelists uniformly insisted that adding more voices, even if they did not represent the mainstream, was good thing. This belief seemed somewhat contingent on the fact that Asian-Americans generally have lacked representation in political dialogue, and it is unclear how far the âadding voices outweighs unity/objectivity concernsâ argument could extend beyond the specific case of the Asian-American community or other groups for whom lack of representation of any kind is the most pressing concern.

Relatedly, Phil Yuâs AngryAsianMan blog seems to suggest that the goals of providing âobjectiveâ news or information and broadcasting newer, opinionated voices may not actually be irreconcilable. Philâs blog is openly left-leaning, and as evidenced by his obvious discomfort with expressing himself in person, it provides an outlet for a political voice that otherwise might not be heard. At the same time, however, Philâs blog provides an aggregated source for news stories of interest to the Asian-American community and which are largely excluded from the traditional news media; even readers with differing political views have voiced appreciation of that aspect of his blog. Perhaps, as Phil suggests, just getting a group of previously uninvolved people, like most Asian Americans, interested in a subject and blogging or reading about it is itself a contribution to the political process, regardless of what kind of action may or may not follow.

===Blogging and Asian Pacific American Political Awareness - Amornchai Sirithaporn===
I also attended the APALSA conference on Blogging and Asian Pacific American Political Awareness. The following are what I learn from this conference.

First of all, Eric, one of the three panels, said that blogging has an effect not only on a political sphere but also social sphere.
He referred to the Dean campaign as its purpose to reach the glassroot, to raise the fund.
Eric helps create a blog for Al Franken www.alfranken.com. The purpose of Al Frankenâs blog is not only providing political issues but also giving more insight information about his personal life style such as telling his stories and telling jokes. Thus, the purpose is to let people know more about him.

Thereâre several questions asked the panel in the conference.
First question is whether blogging helps increase glassroot movement/mobilization.
The answer is yes. It is fast and easy for one to create a blog and post something he/she wants to share with others through the Internet. Considered a column written in the newspaper, once the author puts down the pen, it usually takes about 5-6 days for publishing that column and in turn such column often out-dated. However, people can post something in the blog right away.

Another question is whether blogging increase political awareness.
The panel responded that blogging helps/directs people what they should think or concern about. It also helps educated people by increasing an opportunity to access to the information that will not be available on the mainstream media. Moreover, different blogs can have different issues and thus in turn can fulfill different needs. Blogs increase the participation of individuals. People are not only receiving political information from others but now they actively participate by sharing and contributing their ideas to the community. In the mainstream media, say newspaper, if the reader want to communicate or share his idea, he can only send his idea to the author (it is hardly for him to share it with other people who read the same newspaper), but blogs enable him to share his idea with other blog readers. Another important results deriving from blogs is that everyone can have a voice by creating his blog as his media in order to make his voice heard by others. The larger the collective voice, the more the concerned issue will be heard.

Moreover, there is a specific question about whether blogging has an impact on the Asian American society.
The answer is again yes. Blog helps Asian American to be in part of American political mainstream. Asian American cans response to the political actions through blog. There might be a misrepresentation made by one of an Asian American showing that his need/voice presents all other Asian Americans needs/voices and blog is one way that others can correct such misrepresentation.

Another interesting question which seems to relate to Shirkyâs article is how can one create creditability for his blog.
There are two answers to this question (which do not seem to appeal to me). One answer is that it is true that if no one knows about your blog, no one is going to read it. However, as long as you keep writing your blog and writing it well, others will recognize your blog. People will tell others that your blog is good or other blogs/websites will contain a link to your blog. Thus, you just need to keep adding your blog and one day others will recognize it. Another answer for this is that individualâs prestige, such as being a professor or earning a PH.D., helps a lot in creating creditability for your blog.
Finally, one participant asked whether there is any downside of blogs. He also raise question about Sunsteinâs article âDaily weâ.
The answer is that Sunsteinâs point might be true but he believe that the benefit of blogging is outweigh the downside since blogs give people more opportunity to raise their voice, create more discussion forum for people to discuss their common concerned issues, and enable people to work together which in turn will lead people to achieve their common goal.

APALSA event

2007-03-04T00:25:06Z

Amornchai:

== APLASA Event ==

'''Adding Asian-American Voices to the Political Blogosphere - Gwen Hochman'''

This morning I attended the APALSA panel on the potential impact of blogging on Asian-American political participation. The panelists included Erik Hananoki, a blogger previously employed by Al Franken; C.N. Le, a UMass Sociology professor who blogs about Asian-American social issues; and Phil Yu, creator of the popular pop culture commentary blog AngryAsianMan.com. The panelists generally agreed that blogs have the potential to affect political change; Erik cited the Dean campaign as everybodyâs favorite example of grass roots blogging, and the format of blogs (updating quickly, often engaging in dialogue with comment from readers and other blogs) was cited as encouraging a new level of reader participation.

A particularly interesting point in the panel came when an audience member directly confronted the panelists with Sonnensteinâs argument about the possible detrimental effect of further fragmentation and balkanization of viewpoints that may result from the internet and blogging. C.N. pointed out that this effect was already happening before the internet, and the panelists uniformly insisted that adding more voices, even if they did not represent the mainstream, was good thing. This belief seemed somewhat contingent on the fact that Asian-Americans generally have lacked representation in political dialogue, and it is unclear how far the âadding voices outweighs unity/objectivity concernsâ argument could extend beyond the specific case of the Asian-American community or other groups for whom lack of representation of any kind is the most pressing concern.

Relatedly, Phil Yuâs AngryAsianMan blog seems to suggest that the goals of providing âobjectiveâ news or information and broadcasting newer, opinionated voices may not actually be irreconcilable. Philâs blog is openly left-leaning, and as evidenced by his obvious discomfort with expressing himself in person, it provides an outlet for a political voice that otherwise might not be heard. At the same time, however, Philâs blog provides an aggregated source for news stories of interest to the Asian-American community and which are largely excluded from the traditional news media; even readers with differing political views have voiced appreciation of that aspect of his blog. Perhaps, as Phil suggests, just getting a group of previously uninvolved people, like most Asian Americans, interested in a subject and blogging or reading about it is itself a contribution to the political process, regardless of what kind of action may or may not follow.

I also attended the APALSA conference on Blogging and Asian Pacific American Political Awareness. The following are what I learn from this conference.

First of all, Eric, one of the three panels, said that blogging has an effect not only on a political sphere but also social sphere.
He referred to the Dean campaign as its purpose to reach the glassroot, to raise the fund.
Eric helps create a blog for Al Franken www.alfranken.com. The purpose of Al Frankenâs blog is not only providing political issues but also giving more insight information about his personal life style such as telling his stories and telling jokes. Thus, the purpose is to let people know more about him.

Thereâre several questions asked the panel in the conference.
First question is whether blogging helps increase glassroot movement/mobilization.
The answer is yes. It is fast and easy for one to create a blog and post something he/she wants to share with others through the Internet. Considered a column written in the newspaper, once the author puts down the pen, it usually takes about 5-6 days for publishing that column and in turn such column often out-dated. However, people can post something in the blog right away.

Another question is whether blogging increase political awareness.
The panel responded that blogging helps/directs people what they should think or concern about. It also helps educated people by increasing an opportunity to access to the information that will not be available on the mainstream media. Moreover, different blogs can have different issues and thus in turn can fulfill different needs. Blogs increase the participation of individuals. People are not only receiving political information from others but now they actively participate by sharing and contributing their ideas to the community. In the mainstream media, say newspaper, if the reader want to communicate or share his idea, he can only send his idea to the author (it is hardly for him to share it with other people who read the same newspaper), but blogs enable him to share his idea with other blog readers. Another important results deriving from blogs is that everyone can have a voice by creating his blog as his media in order to make his voice heard by others. The larger the collective voice, the more the concerned issue will be heard.

Moreover, there is a specific question about whether blogging has an impact on the Asian American society.
The answer is again yes. Blog helps Asian American to be in part of American political mainstream. Asian American cans response to the political actions through blog. There might be a misrepresentation made by one of an Asian American showing that his need/voice presents all other Asian Americans needs/voices and blog is one way that others can correct such misrepresentation.

Another interesting question which seems to relate to Shirkyâs article is how can one create creditability for his blog.
There are two answers to this question (which do not seem to appeal to me). One answer is that it is true that if no one knows about your blog, no one is going to read it. However, as long as you keep writing your blog and writing it well, others will recognize your blog. People will tell others that your blog is good or other blogs/websites will contain a link to your blog. Thus, you just need to keep adding your blog and one day others will recognize it. Another answer for this is that individualâs prestige, such as being a professor or earning a PH.D., helps a lot in creating creditability for your blog.
Finally, one participant asked whether there is any downside of blogs. He also raise question about Sunsteinâs article âDaily weâ.
The answer is that Sunsteinâs point might be true but he believe that the benefit of blogging is outweigh the downside since blogs give people more opportunity to raise their voice, create more discussion forum for people to discuss their common concerned issues, and enable people to work together which in turn will lead people to achieve their common goal.

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-20T21:39:57Z

Amornchai: /* Examples to Discuss */

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-20T17:09:20Z

Amornchai: /* Examples to Discuss */

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T19:22:51Z

Amornchai: /* Examples to Discuss */

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T18:49:18Z

Amornchai: /* Examples to Discuss */

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T18:14:57Z

Amornchai: /* Examples to Discuss */

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T03:38:17Z

Amornchai: /* Class Discussion Questions */

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T03:37:02Z

Amornchai: /* Class Discussion Questions */

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T03:35:28Z

Amornchai:

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T03:28:11Z

Amornchai:

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T03:22:44Z

Amornchai:

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T03:10:31Z

Amornchai:

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T03:05:30Z

Amornchai:

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T03:02:54Z

Amornchai:

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T03:00:01Z

Amornchai:

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T02:58:56Z

Amornchai: /* Examples to Discuss */

==The Question==

'''"Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world."'''

Quick Link to [[The Negative Argument]]

==The Argument in Favor of the Resolution:==

===Introduction===
Experience has shown that in order for participatory democracy to thrive, there are a number of necessary ingredients that a society must exhibit. Among these are a strong, unbiased, truthful media, fair and balanced elections, a politically engaged citizenry, a citizenry educated on political matters, transparency and accountability, and economic democracy.

It is our contention here that the internet has the capacity to, and in certain circumstances already has, improved the health of participatory democracies along each of these metrics. In other words, as compared to a world without the internet, the world with an internet is more conducive to participatory democracy.

Although there are a number of arguments that the internet enhances democracy in a more general sense, our focus here is on the effect the internet has on the power of ''individual citizens'' to influence the democratic political process.

===A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media===

Democracy cannot work without abundant, readily available information. If elected leaders are to be held accountable to the wishes of the people, the people must know what the leaders are doing. The privately owned media (defined here very generally as widely available information sources) has long served as a watchdog of the government, and as the most important supplier of political information to citizens. The internet enhances the power of individual citizens to leverage the reach of traditional media outlets, and also to serve in the watchdog and information spreading roles themselves:
*By aggregating potentially inflammatory or interesting stories, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] raises the likelihood that one of those stories will become viral on the internet, or be noticed by the mainstream media. Therefore, Global Voices gives a lone, otherwise insignificant blogger/activist/witness the power to tell other citizens about an issue in a way that she could not have done before the advent of the internet.
**Assuming leaders know but do not care about the problem (or are causing it themselves) the faster a story becomes salient to a significant portion of the public, the sooner a 'tipping point' will be reached when people demand change in a voice loud enough that leaders must listen.
**Assuming leaders would care but just don't know about an issue, this new ability of individual citizens to put out an alert will result in faster action. It's easier to fix problems when they're still small.
*In countries without an unbiased media, or a media that is controlled by a corrupt government that limits the freedom of media to tell citizens things the government does not want them to know, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/07/government-minister-suing-bahraini-blogger/ bloggers can fill the gap] in terms of the watchdog and information-spreading functions.
*While [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html Shirkey's curve] does point out that there are still a few dominant players in the information market, many of these players are individuals. One popular blogger can reach more people than a billion dollar newspaper empire. That's a lot of power for an individual. And it is possible that in a place with corrupt media, the lone blogger will be the ''only'' voice of truth that people can trust, and he'll have enormous power over the political process.

===Fair and Balanced Elections===
As a definitional rather than an aspirational matter, true democracy entails elections that are actually decided by the voters, in which the best-suited candidate can rise to the top and be elected.
*The internet makes it possible for an outsider or a fringe-party candidate to spread his message, even if he starts at a severe handicap because he is not supported by an established political machine or wealthy donors that favor tried-and-true incumbents. Websites and email are basically free, which means that any candidate can spread his message if it's one that people are willing to read.
**For example, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is running for office, and trying to use the internet to harness the grass roots. [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/12/bangladesh-can-the-power-of-one-save-the-nation/ Click here for more]. [http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/12/d7021201085.htm See his open letter here].
*As for the fairness of elections, see the Transparency and Accountability section below.

===Engaged Citizenry===
In a system that is ostensibly run by the people, more engagement by citizens is better. The internet can be used to encourage individuals to become more active, and enables those who are active to be more effective.
*Citizens become engaged when they come to believe there is a serious problem that needs addressing. Seeing is believing. The internet enables single witnesses to 'show' everybody else the truth using firsthand accounts via [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/caught-on-camera-human-rights-video-on-gv/ YouTube videos]. Liars, criminals, bullies and tyrants lose plausible deniability when everybody ''sees'' them committing their crimes. The citizenry then mobilizes against what they now believe is a violation of rights. That was not as easy before the internet. But even then it was extremely powerful (e.g. Rodney King [http://www.multishow.com.ar/rodneyking/ video] and the incredible public reaction to a perceived injustice in the form of the Los Angeles riots). That effect is magnified with the internet.
*The internet enables individual activists to become super-activists. (see Palfrey's "classical and jazz" argument, that the internet enables people to do better what they were otherwise doing.) Those who were already engaged are able to reach more people and spread their message more effectively using blogs, email lists etc. What could have only been done by a huge organization can now be done by one highly motivated individual.
*The internet enables far-flung individuals to combine on big projects (for example, [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia]) which, because so many people have a vested interest in them, become accurate and popular. As Wikipedia has done for the world of encyclopedias, so a political communal project could become a 'public forum' on the internet where everybody can participate in the political debate. Even non-elite citizens can participate in this kind of forum, taking the power and focus away from the few talking heads that have heretofore dominated political discourse.
*The internet greases the wheels of political activity by otherwise un-engaged citizens. For example, there might be voters who are unwilling to walk door to door to campaign, but are happy to send emails to their friends. Or they might be unwilling to go to the effort to stamp an envelope to send a donation, but will click on PayPal. Citizens who have a 'day job' no longer have to sacrifice those other activities, because political involvement is so easy and efficient on the internet.
**Such low levels of involvement may not seem like much, but when aggregated across (potentially) hundreds of millions of people, it adds up.
**Once such people have been brought into political involvement, they may develop a taste for it, and become more active. They will at least be more motivated to vote, bringing up voter participation numbers.
**Even people at a low level of political engagement may find themselves on email lists (such as the annoyingly active one run by [http://www.moveon.org/ Moveon.org]. While an individual may have initially become involved because of one small issue, they may be exposed to other interesting issues in these emails, and might become further involved. (see [http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.html Sunstein's argument] about the need for a common space where people will be exposed to new ideas. Email lists can serve this function).
*The very structure of the internet means that it's unlikely there will ever be any sort of centralized control structure. Instead, individual members of the community that might have ''wanted'' to be involved before, but were afraid, are now emboldened to generate input both freely and openly. They may feel more comfortable to expose their political ideas on the internet â especially if their ideas contradict policies/rules of their current government.
**It is the tech firms (usually American) that enable government censorship and surveillance online. Individuals like MIT's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Richard Stallman] have the power to develop and disseminate software that prevents/thwarts government attempts to control political thought online. Without the internet, anti-establishment individuals would not have as much power to unclog the channels of political discussion. Interestingly, China has adopted the GNU Linux operating system, leaving their filtering and surveillance vulnerable to individual subversive action.
*While it is hard to break into the club of top bloggers [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html described by Shirkey], people do. There is a much more active revolving door in the blogging world than in traditional media. All the individuals in the long tail of Shirkey's curve have an incentive to educate themselves on political matters and get involved, in hopes that they'll be the one to have the power of the big bloggers. Even those that don't make it will be more engaged in the political process. On balance, it's better to have more people paying attention to politics and honing their argumentation skills. The internet causes this to happen.
*If voting can be done through internet, the number of voters will increase greatly since people tend not to go to cast their vote at the designated poll if it inconveniences them to travel there. But if people can log on and vote from their office, they are far more likely to do so.

===Educated Citizenry===
In a system where citizens are running the country, its important that they know what they're talking about. The most obvious advantage of the internet is its ability to quickly and cheaply educate citizens about political matters.
*Even in countries where the government tries to restrict the educational function of the internet through censorship and filtering, individuals can [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/access-flickr-iran/ circumvent those controls], enabling other citizens to be educated about things the incumbent government doesn't want them to know. It's a tit-for-tat that would have never been possible before the internet. Before, the secret police had only to destroy the printing press, and that put a stop to the production of subversive educational materials in that place. The ability of individual hackers to disable government censorship is an enormous power that individuals did not have before the advent of the internet.
*Even as China and other countries try to "let in the light while keeping out the flies", a few flies are getting in. It only takes a little bit of information in the hands of the right people to get other people talking, breed discontent, and cause change. A little education goes a long way.
*As we talked about in class on February 13, perhaps the most effective way to campaign for a cause is by word of mouth. Individuals with Live Journals are able to "speak to" and perhaps educate friends and family all the way across the country, or around the world. That kind of discourse is important for a democracy. We may never know whether or how it changes votes, but it's good that people are discussing political issues. Again, a little bit of education is better than none, and can have a profound effect in the hands of the right people.
**Even if votes aren't changed in the short term, the development of this inter-personal discourse online helps lay a foundation for a time when it may matter more. For example, if a big event happens, there will already be a network of inter-connected bloggers and their readers in place to get the "real" story out, mouth to mouth, in a way that people trust. And it will be a tool for mobilizing people to demand change.
*The country/world is a lot smaller than it was before the internet. Before the internet, one might have theoretically cared that control of the government came down to one close senate race in Virginia, but one might not have ''known'' about it. And even if one knew, there was not much you could do about it on the afternoon of November 7 if one was in Oregon. But now, people can educate a huge amount of interested people very quickly. And in turn, those people can become involved by sending money, VOIPing people in that area etc. The internet allows the whole country to participate in what used to be purely 'local' elections by educating people that those elections are important.
*The internet makes it easy to find information online. From the Pew survey, it seems that people are relying more on the internet as their source of political information [http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Politics_2006.pdf]

===Transparency and Accountability===
*Any individual who happens to know the truth can break the story. The major networks can no longer act as bottlenecks to stop important stories from getting out there (if the networks are in bed with the interested parties). For example, Senator Allen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7gq7GQ71c macaca comment] is said to have derailed his campaign because the internet enabled it to be seen by so many people who were outraged by it. There is no evidence to support this, but it is possible that a network might overlook something like that in hopes of garnering favor with a candidate, but could be pressured into making it a big deal by the tidal wave of interest online.
*The internet enables extensive and fast fact checking. A person at a town hall with a candidate could have her laptop open and check voting records as the candidate answered a question, and expose the lie right away. Even if this doesn't happen often, candidates will know it ''can'', and will be scared into being more honest and transparent.
*Flip-flopping will be exposed. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI Romney] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI McCain] can't get away with their recent flip-flopping because we have video footage of them holding opposite positions. The internet makes it extremely easy for individuals to expose the lies to others.
*Politicians respond to polls. The internet enables much faster and more widespread polling. Individuals can (when aggregated in a poll) have a more efficient way to respond to the decisions of leaders and direct policy.

===Economic Democracy===
*The internet provides jobs (e.g. tech-service in India), access to markets, and an ability to acquire and use capital that leads to the emergence of a stronger middle class. People who are not living hand-to-mouth have more leisure to educate themselves, engage in politics, and pressure governments to act in their interests.

===Class Discussion Questions===
*In what new ways could individuals harness the internet to increase their power in participatory democracy?
*Is the effect of the internet on participatory democracy going to increase in the future, or have we reached its zenith?
*Will the internet have more of an effect on improving democracy in countries that currently don't have democracies or that have new democracies, than it will in countries with established democracies?

===Examples to Discuss===
The following are some examples from various countries supporting argument that how internet can enhance citizens participation in politics around the world. Some thoughts for possible arguments are also included.

*'''ePetitions''': [http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open?sort=signers/ In England], British citizens can petition the Prime Minister directly online. This system allows millions of British people to say what they want directly to the government. Today, there are more than 1.5 million signatures only for the "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" petition. (For more examples of countries adopting e-petition, see [http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/ Scotland] and [http://www.zebralog.de/en/000195.html Germany])
*'''eRulemaking Initiative'''[http://www.epa.gov/oei/proceedings/2005/pdfs/morales.pdf]: This is an attempt to increase the citizen participation and understanding in rulemaking process by making the process to be easily accessible via internet. This, as a result, gives an opportunity for the citizen to be educated of the current rules and policies and has a potential to encourage citizen to participate more in the rulemaking process by allowing them to provide a comment which in turn will improve the quality of the rulemaking [decision.
**In the US, there is a eRulemaking Initiative launched in January 2003 by Bush Administration establishing the eRulemaking website - regulations.gov â which allows anyone to read and comment on proposed federal. In fall 2005, the newer version of this site was released by incorporating the ongoing development of the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) which provides the public and agencies access to the entire regulatory docket, including rules, supporting documents, and public comments. (see [http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main/ regulation.gov] and [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-3-1-er.html whitehouse.gov])
*'''eVoting''': Some countries make the voting available online by creating an election system that allow voters to transmit their ballot over the internet.(See, for example, [http://www.geneve.ch/evoting/english/welcome.asp Geneva eVoting Project])
**Possible Arguments: How can we ensure that the system will support the principle of âone man, one voteâ? Will there be a vote robbery problem (voters might cast their ballot on counterfeit voting sites)? What about the the voters' privacy, will their information be revealed?
*'''Online Dialogues''': Internet makes it possible to have online interactive regulatory dialogues among large number of people allowing them to discuss any social or political issues with each other as well as with government officials. For example, in 2001, the EPA established an online dialogue project (which won an E-Gov 2002 Explorer Award) on its new draft Public Involvement Policy so that the public can participate and help the officers to determine what kind of revisions to make to such policy. (For more example of public online dialogues can be found at [http://www.info-ren.org/what/dialogues_projects.shtml info-ren.org]
*'''Thailand's political change in 2006''': Internet is an alternative source of information when the government control and restrict the media freedom over the mainstream media (TV, newspaper, radio etc.) to shut the eyes and ears of the people. For example, it is fair to say that strong criticism on the policies and actions of the former Thai government through various mechanism online (blog, email, IM, video/audio sharing website etc.) was one of the main factors that led to the significant political movements and changes in Thailand last year. Various fact and criticism that could not be found anywhere through mainstream medias are often available online (see [http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/18/thaila12251.htm hrw.org] for an example).
*'''Campaign websites''': Perhaps the reason that the campaign websites of [http://www.americansformitt.com/ Romney], [http://www.barackobama.com/ Obama], [http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ Clinton], [http://johnedwards.com/splash/ Edwards] are so tame and fail to really make use of the interactive power of the internet is that they fear the power it gives to individuals. They realize that the internet has the power to take politics off the pedestal and make it rough, dirty, personal and democratic, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman Truman]'s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan_Railcar Whistlestop] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_1948 Campaign of 1948]. They don't actually want to interact with the people. They want scripted sound-bites and tame debates.
**Senator Dodd has invited individuals to submit questions via YouTube, which he will respond to via YouTube. If he were to respond to every question, this might make his use of the internet different from that of the other candidates, and perhaps more personal and democratic. But since his answer will be no less scripted than Hillary Clinton's were for her online chat, it's nothing special. Though Dodd does [http://www.chrisdodd.com/start-the-conversation criticize the other candidates] for 'taking at the people' on the Internet, his website is no different.
**Other thoughts: Though we haven't focused much on political candidates (since the question focuses on individuals' use of the net to have political power), there are ways in which the internet is changing politics on the other side of the equation.

===Other Thoughts===
*It's so new that we can't really know much. The best we can do is ask what a democracy needs to thrive, and ask whether that thing is being enhanced compared to a world without the internet.
*Many of these claims are subject to the retort "yeah, in theory that's good, but it doesn't happen." Well, only time will tell. There seem to be plenty of stories from GV about these things happening abroad. Perhaps the internet is a more important tool for developing (or future) democracies, rather than the already-settled democracies of the west.
*It's not like we're going to shut down the internet. It's only going to get more pervasive. So rather than ask whether the internet is a force for democracy, the more fruitful question would be how we can make the internet a force for democracy. We know individuals are empowered in a lot of ways by the internet, especially [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE Web 2.0]. Now we need to find a way to use that to empower them in the political sphere.
*Though we haven't focused much on political candidates (since the question focuses on individuals' use of the net to have political power), there are ways in which the internet is changing politics on the other side of the equation.
**Political candidates seem to think it's a good tool for them, since they have been trying to use it. [http://blog.johnedwards.com/ Edwards], [http://www.chrisdodd.com/start-the-conversation Dodd], [http://www.barackobama.com/ Obama], [http://www.hillaryclinton.com/action/firstpost/?sc=1 Clinton]. It's possible they're just trying to be cool. But maybe they're actually on to something.

The Affirmative Argument

2007-02-19T02:53:40Z

Amornchai: /* Examples to Discuss */

==The Question==

'''"Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world."'''

Quick Link to [[The Negative Argument]]

==The Argument in Favor of the Resolution:==

===Introduction===
Experience has shown that in order for participatory democracy to thrive, there are a number of necessary ingredients that a society must exhibit. Among these are a strong, unbiased, truthful media, fair and balanced elections, a politically engaged citizenry, a citizenry educated on political matters, transparency and accountability, and economic democracy.

It is our contention here that the internet has the capacity to, and in certain circumstances already has, improved the health of participatory democracies along each of these metrics. In other words, as compared to a world without the internet, the world with an internet is more conducive to participatory democracy.

Although there are a number of arguments that the internet enhances democracy in a more general sense, our focus here is on the effect the internet has on the power of ''individual citizens'' to influence the democratic political process.

===A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media===

Democracy cannot work without abundant, readily available information. If elected leaders are to be held accountable to the wishes of the people, the people must know what the leaders are doing. The privately owned media (defined here very generally as widely available information sources) has long served as a watchdog of the government, and as the most important supplier of political information to citizens. The internet enhances the power of individual citizens to leverage the reach of traditional media outlets, and also to serve in the watchdog and information spreading roles themselves:
*By aggregating potentially inflammatory or interesting stories, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/ Global Voices] raises the likelihood that one of those stories will become viral on the internet, or be noticed by the mainstream media. Therefore, Global Voices gives a lone, otherwise insignificant blogger/activist/witness the power to tell other citizens about an issue in a way that she could not have done before the advent of the internet.
**Assuming leaders know but do not care about the problem (or are causing it themselves) the faster a story becomes salient to a significant portion of the public, the sooner a 'tipping point' will be reached when people demand change in a voice loud enough that leaders must listen.
**Assuming leaders would care but just don't know about an issue, this new ability of individual citizens to put out an alert will result in faster action. It's easier to fix problems when they're still small.
*In countries without an unbiased media, or a media that is controlled by a corrupt government that limits the freedom of media to tell citizens things the government does not want them to know, [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/07/government-minister-suing-bahraini-blogger/ bloggers can fill the gap] in terms of the watchdog and information-spreading functions.
*While [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html Shirkey's curve] does point out that there are still a few dominant players in the information market, many of these players are individuals. One popular blogger can reach more people than a billion dollar newspaper empire. That's a lot of power for an individual. And it is possible that in a place with corrupt media, the lone blogger will be the ''only'' voice of truth that people can trust, and he'll have enormous power over the political process.

===Fair and Balanced Elections===
As a definitional rather than an aspirational matter, true democracy entails elections that are actually decided by the voters, in which the best-suited candidate can rise to the top and be elected.
*The internet makes it possible for an outsider or a fringe-party candidate to spread his message, even if he starts at a severe handicap because he is not supported by an established political machine or wealthy donors that favor tried-and-true incumbents. Websites and email are basically free, which means that any candidate can spread his message if it's one that people are willing to read.
**For example, Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is running for office, and trying to use the internet to harness the grass roots. [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/12/bangladesh-can-the-power-of-one-save-the-nation/ Click here for more]. [http://www.thedailystar.net/2007/02/12/d7021201085.htm See his open letter here].
*As for the fairness of elections, see the Transparency and Accountability section below.

===Engaged Citizenry===
In a system that is ostensibly run by the people, more engagement by citizens is better. The internet can be used to encourage individuals to become more active, and enables those who are active to be more effective.
*Citizens become engaged when they come to believe there is a serious problem that needs addressing. Seeing is believing. The internet enables single witnesses to 'show' everybody else the truth using firsthand accounts via [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/caught-on-camera-human-rights-video-on-gv/ YouTube videos]. Liars, criminals, bullies and tyrants lose plausible deniability when everybody ''sees'' them committing their crimes. The citizenry then mobilizes against what they now believe is a violation of rights. That was not as easy before the internet. But even then it was extremely powerful (e.g. Rodney King [http://www.multishow.com.ar/rodneyking/ video] and the incredible public reaction to a perceived injustice in the form of the Los Angeles riots). That effect is magnified with the internet.
*The internet enables individual activists to become super-activists. (see Palfrey's "classical and jazz" argument, that the internet enables people to do better what they were otherwise doing.) Those who were already engaged are able to reach more people and spread their message more effectively using blogs, email lists etc. What could have only been done by a huge organization can now be done by one highly motivated individual.
*The internet enables far-flung individuals to combine on big projects (for example, [http://www.wikipedia.org/ Wikipedia]) which, because so many people have a vested interest in them, become accurate and popular. As Wikipedia has done for the world of encyclopedias, so a political communal project could become a 'public forum' on the internet where everybody can participate in the political debate. Even non-elite citizens can participate in this kind of forum, taking the power and focus away from the few talking heads that have heretofore dominated political discourse.
*The internet greases the wheels of political activity by otherwise un-engaged citizens. For example, there might be voters who are unwilling to walk door to door to campaign, but are happy to send emails to their friends. Or they might be unwilling to go to the effort to stamp an envelope to send a donation, but will click on PayPal. Citizens who have a 'day job' no longer have to sacrifice those other activities, because political involvement is so easy and efficient on the internet.
**Such low levels of involvement may not seem like much, but when aggregated across (potentially) hundreds of millions of people, it adds up.
**Once such people have been brought into political involvement, they may develop a taste for it, and become more active. They will at least be more motivated to vote, bringing up voter participation numbers.
**Even people at a low level of political engagement may find themselves on email lists (such as the annoyingly active one run by [http://www.moveon.org/ Moveon.org]. While an individual may have initially become involved because of one small issue, they may be exposed to other interesting issues in these emails, and might become further involved. (see [http://bostonreview.net/BR26.3/sunstein.html Sunstein's argument] about the need for a common space where people will be exposed to new ideas. Email lists can serve this function).
*The very structure of the internet means that it's unlikely there will ever be any sort of centralized control structure. Instead, individual members of the community that might have ''wanted'' to be involved before, but were afraid, are now emboldened to generate input both freely and openly. They may feel more comfortable to expose their political ideas on the internet â especially if their ideas contradict policies/rules of their current government.
**It is the tech firms (usually American) that enable government censorship and surveillance online. Individuals like MIT's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman Richard Stallman] have the power to develop and disseminate software that prevents/thwarts government attempts to control political thought online. Without the internet, anti-establishment individuals would not have as much power to unclog the channels of political discussion. Interestingly, China has adopted the GNU Linux operating system, leaving their filtering and surveillance vulnerable to individual subversive action.
*While it is hard to break into the club of top bloggers [http://www.shirky.com/writings/powerlaw_weblog.html described by Shirkey], people do. There is a much more active revolving door in the blogging world than in traditional media. All the individuals in the long tail of Shirkey's curve have an incentive to educate themselves on political matters and get involved, in hopes that they'll be the one to have the power of the big bloggers. Even those that don't make it will be more engaged in the political process. On balance, it's better to have more people paying attention to politics and honing their argumentation skills. The internet causes this to happen.
*If voting can be done through internet, the number of voters will increase greatly since people tend not to go to cast their vote at the designated poll if it inconveniences them to travel there. But if people can log on and vote from their office, they are far more likely to do so.

===Educated Citizenry===
In a system where citizens are running the country, its important that they know what they're talking about. The most obvious advantage of the internet is its ability to quickly and cheaply educate citizens about political matters.
*Even in countries where the government tries to restrict the educational function of the internet through censorship and filtering, individuals can [http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/02/14/access-flickr-iran/ circumvent those controls], enabling other citizens to be educated about things the incumbent government doesn't want them to know. It's a tit-for-tat that would have never been possible before the internet. Before, the secret police had only to destroy the printing press, and that put a stop to the production of subversive educational materials in that place. The ability of individual hackers to disable government censorship is an enormous power that individuals did not have before the advent of the internet.
*Even as China and other countries try to "let in the light while keeping out the flies", a few flies are getting in. It only takes a little bit of information in the hands of the right people to get other people talking, breed discontent, and cause change. A little education goes a long way.
*As we talked about in class on February 13, perhaps the most effective way to campaign for a cause is by word of mouth. Individuals with Live Journals are able to "speak to" and perhaps educate friends and family all the way across the country, or around the world. That kind of discourse is important for a democracy. We may never know whether or how it changes votes, but it's good that people are discussing political issues. Again, a little bit of education is better than none, and can have a profound effect in the hands of the right people.
**Even if votes aren't changed in the short term, the development of this inter-personal discourse online helps lay a foundation for a time when it may matter more. For example, if a big event happens, there will already be a network of inter-connected bloggers and their readers in place to get the "real" story out, mouth to mouth, in a way that people trust. And it will be a tool for mobilizing people to demand change.
*The country/world is a lot smaller than it was before the internet. Before the internet, one might have theoretically cared that control of the government came down to one close senate race in Virginia, but one might not have ''known'' about it. And even if one knew, there was not much you could do about it on the afternoon of November 7 if one was in Oregon. But now, people can educate a huge amount of interested people very quickly. And in turn, those people can become involved by sending money, VOIPing people in that area etc. The internet allows the whole country to participate in what used to be purely 'local' elections by educating people that those elections are important.
*The internet makes it easy to find information online. From the Pew survey, it seems that people are relying more on the internet as their source of political information [http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Politics_2006.pdf]

===Transparency and Accountability===
*Any individual who happens to know the truth can break the story. The major networks can no longer act as bottlenecks to stop important stories from getting out there (if the networks are in bed with the interested parties). For example, Senator Allen's [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G7gq7GQ71c macaca comment] is said to have derailed his campaign because the internet enabled it to be seen by so many people who were outraged by it. There is no evidence to support this, but it is possible that a network might overlook something like that in hopes of garnering favor with a candidate, but could be pressured into making it a big deal by the tidal wave of interest online.
*The internet enables extensive and fast fact checking. A person at a town hall with a candidate could have her laptop open and check voting records as the candidate answered a question, and expose the lie right away. Even if this doesn't happen often, candidates will know it ''can'', and will be scared into being more honest and transparent.
*Flip-flopping will be exposed. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9IJUkYUbvI Romney] and [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioy90nF2anI McCain] can't get away with their recent flip-flopping because we have video footage of them holding opposite positions. The internet makes it extremely easy for individuals to expose the lies to others.
*Politicians respond to polls. The internet enables much faster and more widespread polling. Individuals can (when aggregated in a poll) have a more efficient way to respond to the decisions of leaders and direct policy.

===Economic Democracy===
*The internet provides jobs (e.g. tech-service in India), access to markets, and an ability to acquire and use capital that leads to the emergence of a stronger middle class. People who are not living hand-to-mouth have more leisure to educate themselves, engage in politics, and pressure governments to act in their interests.

===Class Discussion Questions===
*In what new ways could individuals harness the internet to increase their power in participatory democracy?
*Is the effect of the internet on participatory democracy going to increase in the future, or have we reached its zenith?
*Will the internet have more of an effect on improving democracy in countries that currently don't have democracies or that have new democracies, than it will in countries with established democracies?

===Examples to Discuss===
The following are some examples from various countries supporting argument that how internet can enhance citizens participation in politics around the world. Some thoughts for possible arguments are also included.

*'''ePetitions''': [http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/list/open?sort=signers/ In England], British citizens can petition the Prime Minister directly online. This system allows millions of British people to say what they want directly to the government. Today, there are more than 1.5 million signatures only for the "Scrap the planned vehicle tracking and road pricing policy" petition. (For more examples of countries adopting e-petition, see [http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/ Scotland] and [http://www.zebralog.de/en/000195.html Germany])
*'''eRulemaking Initiative'''[http://www.epa.gov/oei/proceedings/2005/pdfs/morales.pdf]: This is an attempt to increase the citizen participation and understanding in rulemaking process by making the process to be easily accessible via internet. This, as a result, gives an opportunity for the citizen to be educated of the current rules and policies and has a potential to encourage citizen to participate more in the rulemaking process by allowing them to provide a comment which in turn will improve the quality of the rulemaking [decision.
**In the US, there is a eRulemaking Initiative launched in January 2003 by Bush Administration establishing the eRulemaking website - regulations.gov â which allows anyone to read and comment on proposed federal. In fall 2005, the newer version of this site was released by incorporating the ongoing development of the Federal Docket Management System (FDMS) which provides the public and agencies access to the entire regulatory docket, including rules, supporting documents, and public comments. (see [http://www.regulations.gov/fdmspublic/component/main/ regulation.gov] and [http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/egov/c-3-1-er.html whitehouse.gov])
*'''eVoting''': Some countries make the voting available online by creating an election system that allow voters to transmit their ballot over the internet.(See, for example, [http://www.geneve.ch/evoting/english/welcome.asp Geneva eVoting Project])
**Possible Arguments: How can we ensure that the system will support the principle of âone man, one voteâ? Will there be a vote robbery problem (voters might cast their ballot on counterfeit voting sites)? What about the the voters' privacy, will their information be revealed?
*'''Online Dialogues''': Internet makes it possible to have online interactive regulatory dialogues among large number of people allowing them to discuss any social or political issues with each other as well as with government officials. For example, in 2001, the EPA established an online dialogue project (which won an E-Gov 2002 Explorer Award) on its new draft Public Involvement Policy so that the public can participate and help the officers to determine what kind of revisions to make to such policy. (For more example of public online dialogues can be found at [http://www.info-ren.org/what/dialogues_projects.shtml info-ren.org]
*'''Thailand's political change in 2006''': Internet is an alternative source of information when the government control and restrict the media freedom over the mainstream media (TV, newspaper, radio etc.) to shut the eyes and ears of the people. For example, it is fair to say that strong criticism on the policies and actions of the former Thai government through various mechanism online (blog, email, IM, video/audio sharing website etc.) was one of the main factors that led to the significant political movements and changes in Thailand last year. Various fact and criticism that could not be found anywhere through mainstream medias are often available online (see [http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/01/18/thaila12251.htm hrw.org] for an example).
*'''Campaign websites''': Perhaps the reason that the campaign websites of [http://www.americansformitt.com/ Romney], [http://www.barackobama.com/ Obama], [http://www.hillaryclinton.com/ Clinton], [http://johnedwards.com/splash/ Edwards] are so tame and fail to really make use of the interactive power of the internet is that they fear the power it gives to individuals. They realize that the internet has the power to take politics off the pedestal and make it rough, dirty, personal and democratic, like [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman Truman]'s [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan_Railcar Whistlestop] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election%2C_1948 Campaign of 1948]. They don't actually want to interact with the people. They want scripted sound-bites and tame debates.
**Senator Dodd has invited individuals to submit questions via YouTube, which he will respond to via YouTube. If he were to respond to every question, this might make his use of the internet different from that of the other candidates, and perhaps more personal and democratic. But since his answer will be no less scripted than Hillary Clinton's were for her online chat, it's nothing special. Though Dodd does [http://www.chrisdodd.com/start-the-conversation criticize the other candidates] for 'taking at the people' on the Internet, his website is no different.

===Other Thoughts===
*It's so new that we can't really know much. The best we can do is ask what a democracy needs to thrive, and ask whether that thing is being enhanced compared to a world without the internet.
*Many of these claims are subject to the retort "yeah, in theory that's good, but it doesn't happen." Well, only time will tell. There seem to be plenty of stories from GV about these things happening abroad. Perhaps the internet is a more important tool for developing (or future) democracies, rather than the already-settled democracies of the west.
*It's not like we're going to shut down the internet. It's only going to get more pervasive. So rather than ask whether the internet is a force for democracy, the more fruitful question would be how we can make the internet a force for democracy. We know individuals are empowered in a lot of ways by the internet, especially [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE Web 2.0]. Now we need to find a way to use that to empower them in the political sphere.
*Though we haven't focused much on political candidates (since the question focuses on individuals' use of the net to have political power), there are ways in which the internet is changing politics on the other side of the equation.
**Political candidates seem to think it's a good tool for them, since they have been trying to use it. [http://blog.johnedwards.com/ Edwards], [http://www.chrisdodd.com/start-the-conversation Dodd], [http://www.barackobama.com/ Obama], [http://www.hillaryclinton.com/action/firstpost/?sc=1 Clinton]. It's possible they're just trying to be cool. But maybe they're actually on to something.

The Affirmative Argument

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Amornchai: /* Engaged Citizenry */

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The Affirmative Argument

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