Digital Democracy
Underpinning a good democracy is a good amount and flow of information. But is internet, with its sheer amount and movement of information, a hindrance or help to democracy? I think it is both, but there have been some good news to argue for the latter, which I will share in this post.
Firstly, an observation: while it is easy to get sucked into thinking the digital utopia dream where everyone shares fairly, truthfully, and responsibly, and thus create the perfect democracy, it seems like we need more ‘curation’ rather than less. First, we need people to arrange, systemise and preserve the massive amount of information. Sounds old-fashioned, but information is nothing when it is lost or impossible to find. Then, we need to have people to put the many many information into something meaningful, logical, and fair. We are starting to see new terms and phrases for these people: opinion-makers, knowledge-workers, or the good old academics and journalists.
PERSONAL DEMOCRACY
This need for curation and construction is something that Wikipedia has realised recently when it announced that it will assign editors to sign off on any changes on entries related to living people. Because dead people don’t sue. Unless the dead person, despite Wikipedia saying so, is not actually dead. Does this mean that democracy will not work without editorialising? Or does it mean that the legal frameworks surrounding the flow of information need to be changed in the digital era? The ‘Pirate Party’ in UK and Sweden definitely think so. How much of how we think about our actions are based on pure morality or legality probably requires us to wear the philosophers’ hat, which is not what I want to do here. However, the notion of democracy in the digital era is something that probably needs to be thought about seriously. Which is probably why the Personal Democracy Conference talks about it in 2008.
In case you’re not aware of it, Personal Democracy Forum Conference is ‘the world’s largest and best known conference on the intersection of technology and politics.’ Professor Michael Wesch is very excited about it:
“Instead of lots of people saying, “You know, somebody should … ” there were lots of people saying, “So I did this, this, and this, and now I’m working on doing this, this, and this and we should collaborate … ” In other words, it was a bunch of people blessed with what I once heard Yochai Benkler and Henry Jenkins call “critical optimism.” Nobody there was blindly optimistic, thinking technology was going to make everything better. They were all continually trying to figure out where we are, where we might be going, and the possible downsides and dangers of new technologies so we can use the new technologies to serve human purposes.”
Closer to home, Margaret Simons has just been appointed as the interim director of The Foundation for Public Interest Journalism to experiment on a new model of public journalism. In the United States, they already have a similar “community-funded-reporting” project, spot.us. Whether this will bring about a whole new way of journalism or is a new model to support an old model (which is fine), who knows.
But many of these are news that make my heart aflutter, and made me think that brave and critical optimism is the way to go when it comes to ‘digital democracy’. What do you think?
Hm. I dunno. Let me try it on for size.
I suspect in the first instance that it is access and ability to contribute to information flows which underpins democracy. Totalitarian/authoritarian states flow gallons of information – it’s just that the flow is one way (top down) and the ability to contribute is formally restricted to the state.
I think in the second instance that there is considerably more to democracy than exchange or sharing of information. And I think this is also true of the concept of a ‘brave and critical’ digital democracy. Corporeal or digital, it requires broad-ranging (ie. majority of constituency) participation to give sufficent mandate to any outcome.
I suspect in the third instance that although we will inevitably have professional ‘knowledge-makers’ as you mention above – people who make their living by organising and arranging digital information – such professions may be the ritualistic product of capitalism rather than a necessary condition of digital democracy. That is, where people can create a commodity of their expertise, they will, but there is no reason why non-professionals could not carry out the same task. I’m not across the details of how wikipedia and other digital info-management projects work, but I thought they maintained a high degree of voluntarism? From your post, it sounds like wikipedia are now employing professional staff not through the need to professionalise their information management, but rather through the need to legally cover their arses.
So I think on the whole I’m a bit sus about the enthusiasm of boffins like Michael Wesch. I agree it is good to have people who are pro-active and creative about digital democracy. But I can’t see how this enthusiasm is going to rapidly change one of the constant features of modern democracies: that most of the constituency do not wish to pro-actively participate in the creation and maintenance of a democracy, that they largely want a political system which will operate with minimal supervision and public participation but maximum domestic benefit – ie. more free time to do stuff, and more money do stuff with.
It’s the kind of thing which makes me think digital democracy, at least for some time yet, will be only for the enthusiasts.
So I think my final comment is that although ‘brave’ and ‘critically optimistic’ strike appealing notes as key features of digital democracy, ‘pragmatic’ and ‘broadly appealing’ are features which will also require incorporation.
(Apologies if this is a bit of an uninformed rant, didn’t have time to check thru yr links or ponder full implications)
Hmm.
I tend to be optimistic, but the Internet is such a rapidly evolving medium that it’s difficult to know if I will remain so.
I think moreland shriek was right in saying democracy may be more than the exchange or sharing of informtion. I see it as communication and debate between the public and policy-making individuals. Certainly, the Internet provides the opportunity for this interaction to become more of a two-way thing, and more open. I think the keyword here is opportunity. Whether or not we find an effective way to facilitate this interaction is another thing.
What’s holding me back from being fully optimistic is the Internet’s history of not being used in the way it was intended. Given this, I think we can try as hard as we like to use the Internet in a way that aids democracy, but ultimately its success as a democratic vehicle will depend on how the Internet evolves.
I think I’ll adopt the “open optimism” approach: yes, I’m optimistic; but if it’s looking like the Internet will take another path, I won’t be surprised.
This picture here is related to the movement happened on 4th June 1989 in Beijing, which can be seen as a sign for Chinese intellectuals’ struggling for the political democracy in China during that time.
I guess digital democracy is associated more with netizen’s basic freedom of speech and the government’s regulation on censorship in developing countries like China. The prevalence of internet is like starting a new round of democratic movement again. It is still very common for hundreds of posts regarding sensitive issues in Chinese websites disappeared in two or three hours after their publication, and also there are endless radical websites being forced to shut down every day, but I guess the good thing is the struggles never stop with the rapid development of new internet technology(social networking sites, microblogging, etc….), so that the movement always seems to be going on, no matter subtly or publicly…
Based on that, I agree that “brave and critical optimism is the way to go when it comes to ‘digital democracy’”.
@Ying: Thanks for your insightful comment about this and China. I think society, law, technology, history, governments, are all catching up with each other in this internet world, and it does seem that in China, where all these elements clash and combine faster and in more intense ways, ‘brave and critical optimism’ has such a different meaning than in places with relative freedom of speech like Australia.