Increasing attention is being paid to the political uses of the new communication technologies. Digital Democracy offers an invaluable in-depth explanation of what issues of theory and application are most important to the emergence and development of computer-mediated communication systems for political purposes. The book provides a wide-ranging critical examination of the concept of virtual democracy as discussed in theory and as implemented in practice and policy that has been hitherto unavailable. It addresses how the Internet, World Wide Web and computer-mediated political communication are affecting democracy and focuses on the various theoretical and practical issues involved in digital democracy. Using international examples Digital Democracy attempts to connect theoretical analysis to considerations of practice and policy.
Jan A.G.M. van Dijk (1952) is emeritus professor of communication science and sociology of the information society and still working at the University of Twente, the Netherlands. His main domains of research are the social aspects of the digital media, digital democracy and the digital divide. His best known English books are The Network Society (Four Editions, Sage Publications), Digital Democracy (2000, Sage Publications), The Deepening Divide (2005, Sage Publications), Digital Skills (2014, Palgrave Macmillan), Internet and Democracy (2018, Routledge) and The Digital Divide (2020, Polity Press). Since the year 2020 he is working on an overall work called Power & Technology, combining theories of social and natural power explaining the use of technology in human history. During his long career he was an advisory of many governments and departments as well as the European Commission.
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION AND HISTORY What Is Digital Democracy? - Kenneth L Hacker and Jan van Dijk Computers as Communication - Everett M Rogers and Sheena Malhotra The Rise of Digital Democracy PART TWO: THEORY Models of Democracy and Concepts of Communication - Jan van Dijk Digital Democracy and Political Systems - Martin Hagan Structural Transformations of the Public Sphere - John Keane The Controversies of the Internet and the Revitalization of Local Political Life - Sinikka Sassi PART THREE: PRACTICE White House Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and Political Interactivity - Kenneth L Hacker Guiding Voters through the Net - Anita Elberse, Matthew Hale and William Dutton The Democracy Network in a California Primary The Promise and Practice of Public Debate in Cyberspace - Nicholas Jankowski and Martine van Selm The Widening Information Gap and Policies of Prevention - Jan van Dijk Public Policies for Digital Democracy - Michel Catinat and Thierry Vedel PART FOUR: SUMMARY Summary - Jan van Dijk and Kenneth L Hacker
`Hacker and van Dijk present an insightful collection exploring the nature of digital democracy.... This book does much to demystify the overused terminology associated with digital democracy, and manages to aviod the hyperbole and utopian tendencies often evident within existing analysis of "cyberpolitics".... highly recommended' - Political Theory
