Will New Media Save Democracy?

In the course of 40 interviews with political bloggers, online video producers, and members of The Daily Show online community, a research project funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, we see two significantly different models of democracy envisioned by new media participants. In short: Democracy as mega-mart, vs. democracy as town hall. In the mega-mart model of democracy, an increasing number of voices and broad range of opinions are displayed. Bloggers, journalists, and casual readers browse and consume the one(s) they like. Most read only 1% of 57 million blogs Technorati tracks, and most blogs comment primarily on existing mainstream media, rather than producing investigative journalism that might shape domestic and foreign policy. In the megamart vision, the wide range of choice and freedom of expression are most significant—a vision of democracy modeled on American consumer choice. “You have a lot of people wagging their tongues and spouting off. It might be totally down a rabbit hole, making no sense at all or be very poorly expressed or be incredibly well expressed but a complete line of BS,” said one of our interviewees. “But it’s what you get with a democracy. It’s messy, it’s not always fun, but frankly it is fairly entertaining.” The mega-mart model arguably produces an echochamber—a packaging of the handful of corporate (news) flavors into 57 million variations, most of which are not adding any new “facts” to the conversation. “Let’s not forget that the blogosphere is also one big echo chamber… of he-said, she-said exchanges. No one seems to be coming up with original content these days,” writes “jack of all blogs” on February 8. Another “echochamber” problem is the fear that readers merely gravitate to blogs that suit their pre-conceived political views, and filter everything else out. One of the bloggers we interviewed describes “the kind of blogging where people are just reinforcing their prejudices and their ideologies and echoing each other, attacking the enemy.” Still others disagree with this dismissal--some research shows that readers are more likely to encounter views from diverse political perspectives in the blogosphere than in the traditional print news. But many bloggers we interviewed dispute the megagmart model of democracy and see instead the emergence of a renewed “town hall”: a public forum in which judgments and opinions are rigorously debated. As one Left blogger we interviewed states of his attempts to educate and mobilize his readers, “I’m not just attempting to influence them while they’re online, I’m attempting to influence them for their entire lives.” Our research evidences that bloggers who view media democracy on the town hall model are also more likely to be engaged in offline political activism. Contrary to the myth that online activism is supplanting offline political action – propagated by mainstream media headlines like that of Jennifer Earl’s recent Washington Post op-ed, “Where Have All the Protests Gone? Online” (February 4, 2007, p. B01) – our survey shows online activity may be increasing offline political engagement. Our survey of 157 bloggers and independent viral video producers evidences that 52% agree that, “My online political activity has caused me to take action in my local community (e.g., protest, boycott, etc.).” Since becoming active online, 29.3% of those we surveyed say they are “more active in ‘offline’ political activities,” and 63.1% “spend about the same amount of time in ‘offline’ political activities.” 59.5% say that, “My online participation in political forums has led me to join at least one political gathering or protest.” Bloggers do contribute eyewitness reporting, specialized research, and rigorous investigation. For example, bloggers’ attention to reports that the US military had used illegal phosphorus weapons during the November 2004 siege of Fallujah, and on-the-ground reporting by blogger/journalist Dahr Jamail of Iraq Dispatches, pushed the story to prominence in the UK Independent. The reports forced the Pentagon to admit that white phosphorus had in fact been used in Fallujah. “All the information came from bloggers, came from people doing thins like finding government documents, finding instances where soldiers admitted in filed manuals that they used it and what it looked like, and that the call sign was Whiskey P,” said a blogger who helped investigate the story. http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0222-29.htm [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on February 26, 2007]

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