Does Internet Create Democracy? thesis by Alinta Thornton MA Journalism, University of Technology, Sydney, 1996 Contents Introduction Aim Approach Summary Chapter 1: American approach Frontierism Libertarian individualists Highways and utopia Chapter 2: Concept of public sphere Public sphere Formation of political will Revitalising the public sphere Communication's role in democracy Chapter 3 Theoretical approaches The panopticon Participation Leisure and wealth Rationality and gender Usenet Aus.politics newsgroup First world bias English Status bracketing Indicating status Computer-mediated communication Sproull and Kiesler's research Cues Chapter 4: Social issues Participation Case study: Public Electronic Network Online voting Government reluctance How many public spheres? Distance What is a community? Global community weaker than local Change Practical effects Activist groups Response to electorate Chapter 5 Political economy Commodification Media concentration leads to commodification Advertising Internet as a product Chatper 6: Public sphere potential Supporting factors Anarchy Interactivity Opposing factors Market entry costs Concentration Advertising pressures Individual owners Professional routines Chatper 7: Conclusion Structure Communities Advertising Status Frontier True meaning of "agora" Distance Commodification Entry costs Concentration Conclusion Chapter 8: bibliography Introduction There is intense interest in the Internet's potential to contribute to various sociological phenomena, primarily from American Internet enthusiasts. Foremost among these ideas is that the Internet will contribute to, or even be primarily responsible for, a new era of participatory democracy and a revitalisation of the public sphere. A leading exponent of this notion is the influential Internet citizen Howard Rheingold, whose book Virtual Communities was published in 1993. Rheingold's main argument is that "Virtual Communities could help citizens revitalise democracy, or they could be luring us into an attractively packaged substitute for democratic discourse" (Rheingold, 1993: 276). Rheingold (and others) have promoted the Utopian vision of the electronic agora, an "Athens without slaves". He believes that the technology, "if properly understood and defended by enough citizens, does have democratising potential in the way that alphabets and printing presses had democratising potential" (Rheingold, 1993: 279). Aim In this thesis, I will explore whether Internet can lead to an increase in participatory democracy and a revitalised public sphere. Approach I will investigate the theoretical bases of these ideas, and discuss factors that will affect their potential development. I have chosen to use Rheingold's work as a starting point, because it taps into several important themes that have great influence on thinking about the Internet in theory, practice and government policy. The Internet is an American creation, and most of its users are still American citizens. This makes American theories and attitudes central to the development of the Internet. Rheingold's work is influential among Internet enthusiasts and policy makers. There is currently little overlap between the work of major mass communication theorists and computer-mediated communication theory that bears on the Internet. Both these approaches have value for this discussion. In addition to theoretical resources, I will use material sourced from the Internet itself. I consider this material to be valuable in an exploration of the topic. Some of this comment comes from people based soundly in academic research who have an interest in the Internet (such as Mark Poster), and some originates from people with a strong empirical knowledge of the Internet and its mores, or experience in applying democratic principles to the Internet. Summary Rheingold's notions can be sourced to an influential strand of United States communications research beginning with the Chicago school. He has strong links to the frontier attitude, libertarian themes of individual freedom and resistance against government interference that reverberate so powerfully for many Americans. In Chapter 1, I will explore these themes and discuss how they contribute to contemporary ideas about the Internet. Rheingold's ideal of the Internet's part in democracy is based on two main concepts: the Habermasian public sphere, and the part Internet communities play as a focus for democratic activity. In Chapter 2, I will outline Habermas' theory of the public sphere. I will briefly discuss the role of the media in democracy, and whether there is a need for a revitalisation of the public sphere. In Chapter 3, I canvass theoretical approaches to the Internet, including a discussion of the panopticon school; status bracketing, feminist approaches, and computer mediated communication studies. I will show that participation and access to Internet is a central issue for its role in the public sphere. I discuss Habermas' concept of status bracketing, and ask whether status is bracketed on the Internet. The field of computer mediated communication research has much to contribute to a discussion of the Internet. I focus on Sproull and Keisler's important research on the impact of the medium itself on democratic participation in groups. Chapter 4 discusses social issues that bear on Internet and democracy such as the question of full participation; dominant forces on the Internet; multiple public spheres; the importance of community in democracy; and finally I will explore practical ways that Internet could contribute to actually existing democracy. In Chapter 5, I discuss political economy approaches to mass media theory, and ask how they apply to the Internet as a significant new mass medium. Commodification is a recurrent and important theme in media theory, and it has interesting questions for the new economic sphere of the Internet. Media concentration is a real issue in traditional mass media; will it become an issue on the Internet? This will affect issues such as editorial freedom, publicity and advertising. I use Curran's comments on forces that have undermined the media's role in democracy to highlight some important emerging themes for Internet's role. I also ask whether there are any inherent structural aspects of Internet that may contribute to its potential for democracy. Finally I will bring these themes together to answer my central question: will Internet revitalise the public sphere and participatory democracy? Chapter 1: American approach The American approach to communications research informs much of the debate and policy making surrounding the Internet. This makes an understanding of the themes in this line of theory important to any discussion of Internet as a public sphere. In this chapter, I will explore the Chicago school of communications research, and the profound implications it has had on American thinking about the Internet. Chicago school Communications research in the United States has its origins in the 1880s with the work of Dewey, Mean, Park, Cooley and Ford called "the Chicago school". Basing their view on Herbert Spencer's organic conception of society, they posited the idea that communication and transportation were like the nerves and arteries of society. This "had been realised in the parallel growth of the telegraph and railroad: a thoroughly encephalated social nervous system with the control mechanism of communication divorced from the physical movement of people and things". The Chicago school saw the new communications as a way to create a unified nation and a unified culture: "a great public of common understanding and knowledge" (Carey, 1989:143). They viewed communication as more than information circulation - they developed a concept of communication as the process in which people create a culture and maintain it. significantly, the idea of the public sphere as a concept which allows rational-critical debate and action was a central notion in their thought. Frontierism The Chicago school theorists saw communications as a new frontier. They saw particular significance in the way that frontier people who were previously strangers created community life afresh in the new towns of the West. " This process of community creation, of institution building was, they argued, the formative process in the growth of American democracy" (Carey, 1989:144). Virtual Communities is subtitled "Homesteading on the Virtual Frontier". It cannot be entirely coincidental that Rheingold is often pictured wearing a cowboy hat (see Rheingold, 2). The extent of the frontier concept in Rheingold's thinking can be seen in the following text about the birth of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (Rheingold 1993: 252): "I remember the night the chain of events began. None of us could have known at the time that it would involve the FBI and Secret Service and grow into the founding of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But it did have a kind of western frontier feel to it from the beginning." John Barlow recalled the event in his article Crime and Puzzlement: "So me and my sidekick Howard, we was sitting out in front of the 40 Red Saloon one evening when he all of a sudden says, "Lookee here, what do you reckon?" I look up and there's these two strangers riding into town. They're young and got kind of a restless, bored way about 'em. A person don't need both eyes to see they mean trouble... "Well that wasn't quite how it went. Actually, Howard and I were floating blind as cave fish in the electronic barrens of the WELL, so the whole incident passed as words on a display screen: 'Howard: Interesting couple of new users just signed on. One calls himself Acid and the other's Optik. Barlow: Hmmm. What are their real names? Howard: Check their finger files.'" Libertarian individualists Many people hope that the Internet can be a public space free of interference, both from government control and commercialism. "For those rugged, libertarian individuals who dare to venture there, the realm of cyberspace will reactivate the lost magic of a mythological past. For Timothy Leary, ... cyberpunks are the strong stubborn individuals who have inherited the mantle of the early explorers, mavericks, ronin and freethinkers everywhere" (Stallabrass, 1995:18). It is clear that Rheingold's work (and that of many other Internet enthusiasts) is informed both by the Chicago school, libertarianism and by romantic notions of the American Wild West. This has significance for the development of the Internet, as this strand of thought has great resonance for many Americans. Highways and utopia The Chicago school saw communications technology as a way to improve politics and culture and a way to invigorate democracy. Carey comments that this was part of an unbroken tradition of thought on communications technology he calls the "rhetoric of the technological sublime" (Carey, 1989:144). In this section, I will trace the ideas that contribute to technological utopianism in America, with emphasis on communications technology and the metaphor of the superhighway. In the USA, the growth of technology is seen as part of a larger narrative of progress. Communications technology development expands knowledge and freedom, democratises culture and erodes monopolies of knowledge. Carey comments that "it is the story of the progressive liberation of the human spirit. More information is available and is made to move faster: ignorance is ended; civil strife is brought under control; and a beneficent future, moral and political as well as economic, is opened by the irresistible tendencies of technology" (Carey, 1989:148). It is interesting to trace the connection between transport and communication technology in the USA. Communication between American colonies was slow, and they communicated with one another via London. After the war of 1812, America began to build 'internal improvements' in transport and communications in an attempt to unify the country, or connect the east with the west. "In fact, what developed was the same pattern of communication of the colonial period but now with New York replacing London as the central element in the system" (Carey, 1989:152). This helped to build New York's place as the centre of trade, transport, communication and power in the united states. The United States implemented its policy of improving communication over long distance as a form of power (Carey, 1989:156). This policy continues today, with television programming, movies and the spread of the Internet. Communication has often been viewed as a means of attaining utopia. This becomes a springboard to a more widespread democracy that functions more effectively. Mark Surman (Surman, (1)) comments that: "With every swell of the techno-revolutionary wave, there are at least three ideas that pop up: 1. that massive and positive social change will emerge from the introduction of a single, discreet [sic] communications technology; 2. that these changes will be caused by the inherent technical properties of the hardware; and 3. that the social revolution occurring as a result of the new technology is of a scale not seen for hundreds, or even thousands, of years." In 1834, Jefferson posited a network of highways which would open new lines of communication between the states, and cement their union by "new and indestructible ties" (Carey, 1989). Surman points out that when cable television was introduced in the 1960s, it was meant to "improve education, prevent crime and urban decay, break down social isolation, help people to communicate and enhance democracy" (Surman, 1995). A February 1973 report on the future of cable TV by the National Science Foundation was enthusiastic about what cable TV would offer. It claimed that community groups could use the medium for local action: "instruction for home-bound and institutionalised persons, pre- school education, high school and post secondary degree courses in the home, career education and in-service training, community information programming, community information centres, and municipal closed circuit applications." Needless to say, most of these things have not eventuated (Besser:60). In 1994, Vice-President of the United States, Al Gore, said: "The Global Information Infrastructure ...will circle the globe with information superhighways on which all people can travel. These highways ...will allow us to share information, to connect, and to communicate as a global community. From these connections we will derive robust and sustainable economic progress, strong democracies, better solutions to global and local environmental challenges, improved health care, and - ultimately - a greater sense of shared stewardship of our small planet. The GII [Global Information Infrastructure] will spread participatory democracy. In a sense, the GII will be a metaphor for democracy itself." He believes that the GII will promote the functioning of democracy by enhancing the participation of citizens in decision making. He says "I see a new Athenian Age of democracy forged in the fora the GII will create" (Gore, 1995a: 4). It is particularly telling that Gore refers to the information superhighway in this context - an explicit combination of transport, communication and power. Gore makes a direct connection between the new communication technology and an increase in economic progress. Zoe Druick comments that there is an ideological battle represented by the word 'highway': "Highways are the new world paving its way towards the frontier. Highways are liberation, equality, mobility, autonomy, facility, connection, speed, direction, communication, excitement... The irony in all this idealism around the highway is that we have all had the opposite experience: traffic jams, accidents, the disintegration of post-WW II infrastructures. The point is that the highway is part of a very old narrative of progress completely separate from our everyday experience of actually existing highways" (Druick, 1995). This idealism is not only the old discourse that accompanies new technology, it is also trying to change inegalitarian aspects of the social structure. It is hoped this will be achieved by the production of a counterculture that stems from the new possibilities of technology. (Mattelart and Piemme, 1980: 328). Newt Gingrich, the extreme-right Republican leader of the House of Representatives, and his advisers the Tofflers, explained their views in Wired magazine on the new technology's libertarian potential. They don't advocate the electronic agora, but predict that the new electronic media will produce an electronic marketplace. "In cyberspace, ... market after market is being transformed by technological progress from a 'natural monopoly' to one in which competition is the rule" (Barbrook and Cameron). It seems that new communications technology can reflect any dream. These recurring narratives of progress primarily function to repackage existing social structures into a new technological form, endorsing current power structures (Druick, 1995). The notions I have discussed in this chapter combine to create a powerful argument: the Internet is the new frontier, and we should encircle it with our metaphorical wagons to protect it from whomever might be marauding: government, big business, Big Brother, etc. Chapter 2: Concept of public sphere In Virtual Communities, Rheingold builds on the Habermasian concept of the public sphere: "The idea of modern representative democracy as it was first conceived by Enlightenment philosophers included a recognition of a living web of citizen to citizen communications known as civil society or the public sphere. Although elections are the most visible fundamental characteristics of democratic societies, those elections are assumed to be supported by discussions among citizens at all levels of society about issues of importance to the nation." (Rheingold, 1993: 13). Communication in modern democracies can be divided into two main notions (Dahlgren, 1995): 1. a democratised media, or participatory and alternative media including computer-mediated communication; and 2. social movements and groups using these media actively for social change. In this thesis, I will focus primarily on the first notion. Ideas about the public sphere and its central role in democracy, including Habermas' work, originate with the ancient Greeks. The Greek definition of public and private heavily influence the Western concept of these terms, and ideals of democracy continue to reverberate from the ancient Greek notions. Current debate about this issue centres on Habermas' recently translated book, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Habermas, 1989). In this chapter, I will outline Habermas' theory of the public sphere. I will briefly discuss the role of the media in democracy to ask how the Internet's role can be seen. Public sphere Habermas develops the normative notion of the public sphere as a part of social life where citizens can exchange views on matters of importance to the common good, so that public opinion can be formed. This public sphere comes into being when people gather to discuss issues of political concern. Habermas' work relies on a description of a historical moment during the 17th and 18th centuries when coffee houses, societies and salons became the centre of debate, and extends this to an ideal of participation in the public sphere for today. The importance of this lies in the process of discussion, which must take the form of rational-critical debate. This debate has a set of rules which include avoiding use of emotion or emotive language, and focus on the rationality of the content alone. Participants should have a common interest in truth, which meant that they bracketed status differentials (so that participants speak as if they were equals). Criticism is vital to this process, so that the proposals being put forward can be tested, but also so that participants can discover a meaning together as a result of the process itself (Calhoun, 1993: 13). Formation of political will The online magazine Bad Subjects demonstrates an instance of reasoned consensus formation. The magazine's "manifesto" puts the case for the formation of political will through its online membership (Bad Subjects Production Team, (1995)): "The project of Bad Subjects has always been to provide a forum for the discussion of leftist politics and, out of that, to build a political community and promote social change. ...The on- line mailing list is a space where people can discuss, more informally, political education for everyday life. On the list, people debate the possible ways in which the Left might be more effective at both understanding and transforming contemporary society. It resembles, therefore, a kind of 'safe space' or 'support group' that allows for the free exchange of ideas and positions. ...Even when people do not agree with each other, one result is the on-going production of a 'badsubjectian' position on whatever happens to be the topic at hand. The mailing list, therefore, collectively articulates a position (albeit sometimes a provisional one) on a ic. By participating, list members are acting in ways that suggest the kind of political community the Bad Subjects collective has always tried to work towards." The media and democracy Habermas emphasises the critical role of the media in the public sphere, distinguishing between the early press who highlighted political controversy and the more recent development of media that commodify the news. Habermas outlines the development of newspapers in the early 17th century, commenting that the press "was for the first time established as a genuinely critical organ of a public engaged in critical political debate: as the fourth estate" (Habermas, 1989: 60). While this may have been the case in England, there seems to have been little controversy in some newspapers. In America before the revolution, for example, publishers were not inclined to take sides with loyalists or patriots. News attempted to avoid controversy, and the more distant the news was the more it filled this function. It was rare that editors created a sphere for political debate (Schudson in Calhoun, 1993:154). The role of traditional media (television, magazines and newspapers) in modern democracy is increasingly problematic, and serious questions have arisen about its capacity as a site for political criticism or rational debate. Democracy has become the dominant ideology of modern political life. Yet the gaps between ideology and practice are now so glaring that serious observers feel increasingly bound to ask "Are we able to believe even in the possibility of a role for mass communication in the furtherance of democratic ideals?" (Blumler and Gurevitch). Many of the old centres of the public sphere still exist, but are no longer places for political criticism or rational debate. Many theorists have commented that television and other electronic communications isolate people from one another and "substitute themselves for older spaces of politics" (Poster, (1)). Instead of reporting on politics, the media are active participants in the political process through their role in publicity. Increasingly, the media has become central to political life. Politicians who do not constantly stay abreast of the media's requirements and actively plan their publicity tend to fall quickly out of favour. Those who are not good 'media performers' suffer the same fate. Public debate on television and in newspapers bears little resemblance to the rational-critical debate idealised by Habermas (but rarely achieved in reality). Events are manipulated to provide the maximum televisual impact. Debates are structured so that extreme points of view can clash to maximum effect, increasing ratings but doing little to contribute to the formation of discursive public will or opinion. Topic selection reflects the pressures of commercial and proprietal interests. Audience participation programs on television provide a forum for groups which would otherwise be excluded from public view. But this access does not necessarily mean that power structures in society undergo any significant changes. These programs can be viewed as providing an illusion of participation which encourages citizens to feel as though their democratic rights are being exercised (Dahlgren, 1995:66). Revitalising the public sphere Curran outlines ways in which traditional media could contribute to democratic functions, by acting as an agency of representation. He suggests that it should be organised to allow diverse social groups to express their views. The media should help organisations to attract support (for example, by publicising details of forthcoming protests and causes); help them to operate as representative vehicles of the views of their supporters; help them to protest effectively; and outline various alternative arguments and actions (Curran, 1991: 103). Curran also calls for the media to "assist the realisation of common objectives of society through agreement or compromise between conflicting interests. The media should contribute to this process by facilitating democratic procedures for resolving conflict and defining collectively agreed aims" (Curran, 1991: 103). The Internet currently presents the opportunity to do many of these things; however, the opportunities are not identical with the wishlist Curran describes. The traditional mass media have vast resources in terms of money, research libraries, photographs and expertise; it has established audiences who are often willing (to varying degrees) to give credence to what they publish; and established methods of distribution. The Internet, on the other hand, has established few of these in any significant way. If an organisation were to attempt Curran's suggestions on the Internet, it would meet with a much reduced effect. Unless the organisation were similarly endowed with resources etc, it would find it more difficult to present a well researched, well written, attractively presented case that would find a ready made audience and distribution channel. Communication's role in democracy Habermas emphasises that a person's individual opinion, when solicited (as in a public opinion poll for example) does not constitute the public sphere, because it does not enclose a process of opinion formation. Habermas has recently argued against "Athens-envy". He maintains that if democracy is to be implemented in today's large, complex societies, the ideal of a physical collective of mutually consenting members must be overcome. Instead, he proposes that citizens who are not necessarily physically co-present can develop subjectless forms of communication (Habermas, 1990: 43 in Peters, 1993:564). Habermas notes a deterioration in this public, and lays the blame primarily at the feet of publicists. An important factor in this is that public opinion can only be formed if a public that engages in rational discussion exists: "Publicity was, according to its very idea, a principle of democracy not because anyone could in principle announce, with equal opportunity, his personal inclinations, wishes and convictions - opinions; it could only be realised in the measure that these personal opinions could evolve through the rational-critical debate of a public into public opinion." (Habermas, 1989: 219). By the beginning of the 19th century, the public's opinion (formed by rational-critical debate, at least in theory) became an "officially designated discussion partner" of parliament. Speeches were made in parliament, as they are today, with the public in mind, and gradually their role in political life became more and more influential (Habermas, 1989:66). "Opinion management with its 'promotion' and 'exploitation' goes beyond advertising; it invades the process of 'public opinion' by systematically creating news events or exploiting events that attract attention" (Habermas, 1989:193). Plebiscites, opinion management and public opinion research do not offer potential for democracy, because they do not provide the opportunity for discursive will formation. Communication means not just finding out what individuals have previously decided or learned; it's a process in which opinion is created by the process of debate itself. Manin summarises this idea in the following way: "A legitimate decision does not represent the will of all, but is one that results from the deliberation of all. It is the process by which everyone's will is formed that confers it legitimacy on the outcome, rather than the sum of already formed wills" (Habermas, 1989: 446). Calhoun comments that public opinion research is more like group psychology than a practice of democracy. He sees it as an adjunct to public administration rather than as true public discourse. For Habermas, the struggle to reclaim the public sphere centres on an attempt to make publicity a source of reasoned consensus formation instead of a site for manipulating popular opinion. He makes an important distinction between public opinion as a critical authority balancing political and social power, and public opinion as something than publicity can manipulate to support people, institutions, products or programs (Habermas, 1989:236). Chapter 3 Theoretical approaches In this chapter, I canvass theoretical approaches to the Internet. I begin with a brief discussion of the panopticon school, which is prevalent in much popular discussion in the media. While I do not see this as a major factor affecting democracy, it is an area that attracts much interest - and paranoia. I will discuss the many arenas of exclusion from participation in the Internet, with emphasis on feminist critiques of Habermas' theories. I investigate Habermas' concept of status bracketing, and ask whether status bracketing applies on the Internet. The field of computer mediated communication research has much to contribute to a discussion of the Internet. I focus on Sproull and Keisler's important research on the impact of the medium itself on communication in groups, and ask whether this research has implications for the Internet as a democratic medium. The panopticon Closely tied to ideals of individual freedom I discussed in Chapter 2 is the concern presented by the Internet's potential as a tool for surveillance, control and disinformation. Rheingold points out that as well as bulletin board services and networks of non-profit organisations, there are commercial, advertising driven services such as Prodigy, which apply the broadcasting paradigm to computer mediated communications. He suggests that there are two "chilling aspects" of these services. The first is that Prodigy's software obtains access to the user's computer, which means that it can access information from the user's computer. The second is "the fact that all public postings on Prodigy are censored; there are actually banks of people sitting in front of monitors somewhere, reading postings from Prodigy subscribers, erasing the ones with offensive content" (Rheingold, 1993: 277). Rheingold puts forward the Prodigy situation as a preview of what could happen if a few large companies manage to dominate the Internet (Rheingold, 1993: 278). Anne Branscomb comments that "A recent revolt of Prodigy subscribers protesting censorship of electronic messages indicates that users want more voice in determining the rules under which they will participate." (Branscomb, 1995:160). The medium of digital communications is heir to several traditions of control: the press, the common carrier and the broadcast media" (Kapor, 1995: 174). Mitchell Kapor, of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, argues that the main conflict was that Prodigy saw their service as essentially a newspaper or magazine, "for which a hierarchy of editorial control is appropriate. Some of Prodigy's customers, in contrast, regarded the service as more of a forum or meeting place. ...freedom of speech issues will not disappear simply because a service provider has tried to impose a metaphor on its service" (Kapor, 1995: 174). Interestingly, US Federal judges recently overturned the Communications Decency Act, ruling that "the strength of our liberty depends on the chaos and cacophony of the unfettered speech the First Amendment protects...As the most participatory form of mass speech yet developed, the Internet deserves the highest protection from governmental intrusion" [my emphasis] (Sydney Morning Herald, p9, 13 June 1996). An appeal is currently pending to the Supreme Court. Because the ruling describes the internet as a form of mass speech, it establishes the Internet as a medium based on speech, like the printed word, rather than as a broadcast medium. This has important implications for its future, because the right to free speech is protected by the American constitution. Rheingold suggests that governments or other groups could track information about individuals or companies using the electronic information they create (credit cards, Internet searches, emails, government databases etc) (Rheingold, 1993:106). Paul Wallich comments that the information superhighway is more like a "19th-century railroad that passes through the badlands of the Old West", whose travellers are "easy marks for sharpers". He points out that most things on the Internet are based on trust (Wallich, 1995: 186). For example, emails can be read by others than their intended recipients; email and other communications can be forged tracelessly, so that an impersonator can slander or solicit criminal acts in someone else's name; they can pretend to be a trusted friend to get information; emails can be coded so that the recipient's computer will allow access to its files. Michel Foucault, in Discipline and Punish, said: "Just as the ability to read and write and freely communicate gives power to citizens that protects them from the powers of the state, the ability to surveil, to invade the citizens' privacy, gives the state the power to confuse, coerce and control citizens. Uneducated populations cannot rule themselves, but tyrannies can control even educated populations, given sophisticated means of surveillance" (Foucault, 1979: 290). Rheingold predicts that totalitarian manipulators would begin, not with police kicking in the door, but by using the information a person has given to various companies and outlawing measures for protection against it. They could use computer programs to link bar codes, credit cards, social security numbers and all the other electronic information available. This panopticon concern is in part a realistic one, given the amount of electronic surveillance that is currently in place both in America, Australia and other countries (speed cameras, video surveillance, ATM photographs, bar codes, EFTPOS, and many others). Participation One of the central problems in relation to the ideal of Internet as a force for participatory democracy is that of full participation. Habermas comments that a discourse centred concept of democracy demands that all parties that might be affected must be included; that they can interact in a free, equal and easy manner; that there be no restrictions on topics; and that the outcomes can be revised. In the original Greek model of democracy, however, a condition of participation in the public sphere was to be a male property owner. The citizen would normally be the head of a household which included a wife and slaves who carried on the business of economic production in the household. These exclusion mechanisms certainly applied to the public sphere in the Enlightenment period. A person participating in the public sphere was usually male, educated and propertied, with the means and leisure to take part. Habermas describes a normative model that is associated with a specific set of class and general interests and is inaccessible to most citizens (McLaughlin, 1993: 604). I will now discuss the various aspects of exclusion from participation in the normative ideal of the public sphere, and in the actually existing Internet. Citizens need both internal resources for participation in political discourse and external resources in order to give voice to their opinions. These include: a capacity for rational debate, computer literacy, typing ability, English and linguistic skill; leisure time, gender, wealth, and status. Leisure and wealth The leisure to contribute to debate on matters of concern is a crucial aspect of participation in the public sphere. This has bearing on two important aspects of access to the public sphere via the Internet: wealth, and the potential for leisure that flows from wealth. The division of labour within domestic life is significant here. Habermas recognised that to have the leisure to act in the intense life of the ancient Greek polis a citizen needed private property. Status in the public sphere was based on status as the master of an oikos, or household (Habermas, 1989 in Peters, 1993: 556). Others did the economic and physical labour of the household, while the master could absorb knowledge and discuss political and philosophical issues of interest to him. In 17th and 18th century bourgeois society the situation had differed little from classical antiquity. Patriarchal rule of the household meant that a man of means could have access to ample leisure, while his wife and servants ran the household. A man without private income who was required to earn an income had less leisure, but nevertheless Habermas records that merchants (both wealthy and less wealthy) visited the coffee house several times a day. A man with means and a wife and servants to perform work in the household had leisure, free from time consuming work in the household and in the work- place, and the freedom to allocate his own time without the permission of another. These were indispensable to participation in the rational discourse of the coffee house (Peters, 1993: 553). In addition, there were exclusions based on class in the operation of civil society in the form of the voluntary associations that nourished the public sphere. These were "the training ground, and eventually the power base of a stratum of bourgeois men who were coming to see themselves as a 'universal class' and preparing to assert their fitness to govern" (Fraser in Calhoun, 1993: 114). These were open only to bourgeois men. As Gouldner puts it, "patriarchal subjugation of women and private property, then, were the unmistakable conditions and limits of the post- Enlightenment development of public rationality in bourgeois society" (Gouldner, 1976: 99 in Peters, 1993: 553). On the Internet in the 1990s, a primary requirement for taking part in the Internet's public sphere is to have access to a computer. While some people use a computer provided by their university or workplace, most Internet activity takes place after work hours on private computers. A computer is a relatively expensive item often seen as a luxury. In Australia, a family living on the average weekly wage would probably consider purchasing a computer to be a fairly low priority. Added to the cost of a computer is the cost of connection fees. While to many Internet users this is so low it is often referred to as 'free', for a struggling family $40 per month can be out of reach. Indeed, a recent survey shows that the main users of the Internet are white married males with a household income of US $59,000 (GVU, 1996). In Australia, 87% of users are male, and the household income is above the national average (WWW, 1996). Rheingold suggests that one answer to equity of access is to sell one's privacy. Some people would be able to afford to pay for services, while others would gain access to them in exchange for information about themselves. For answering a few questions and allowing some of your transactions to be monitored, for example, you could be granted a certain number of hours of service, or even be paid for the information and the right to use it. The information poor would become the privacy poor. Bad Subjects points out that cyberspace emulates political communities in physical space (Bad Subjects Production Team, (1995)): "The drawbacks of actually existing democracy as we know it in the United States are prevalent in computer networks: the middle- and upper-classes constitute the largest and most vocal group, promoting their own interests without having to pay attention to the needs and desires of the underclasses and disenfranchised groups." Taking part in a democratic online voting system, rational-critical debate or getting to information that underpins opinion formation would cost people money and time - as it always has. One was obliged to buy coffee in a coffee house, after all. Rationality and gender In the public sphere of the 17th and 18th centuries, the coffee house convention was that all had the right to speak, that all had the responsibility to listen to others, and that people should respond critically to what was said. If participants disagreed, the discussion should continue until the issue was resolved. The idea was that if the debate continued in this manner, prejudices and incorrect information would be unearthed. This would allow the better, more rational argument to emerge victorious. As Wilson puts it (Wilson, 1989a:20): "The kind of social interaction which exemplifies rationality in this sense.. involves the freedom to express one's views, aspirations and way of life to others, and also a kind of critical openness to the views, aspirations and ways of life of others; 'open' in the sense of a readiness to give others a hearing, and 'critical' in that one is prepared to place one's own views in engagement with the views of others." The French republican public sphere was constructed in deliberate opposition to the largely female salon society that the republic branded as artificial, effeminate and aristocratic; its definition rests on the notion of rationality. This meant that rational, objective "manly" styles of speech were judged superior to emotive, personal "effeminate" styles (McLaughlin, 1993: 604). Women were thought to embody uncurbed human passions that worked to subvert the rationality that was natural to men, and that was required for men's participation in the public sphere (Ryan in Calhoun, 1993:266). Accordingly, bourgeois men promoted an austere style of public speech and behaviour as rational, virtuous, and manly. Fraser comments that "in this way masculine gender constructs were built into the very conception of the republican public sphere, as was a logic that led...to the formal exclusion of women from political life" (Fraser, 1993: 115). In 1859, John Stuart Mill explained why freedom of opinion was good for society: "First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility. Secondly, though the silenced opinion be in error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of the truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions that the reminder of the truth has any chance of being supplied. Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds." (Mills in Lewis, 1992: 74). This notion of the marketplace of ideas battling it out to correct errors and biases (which has strong links to the notion of the free market per se) was said to enable people to make rational collective decisions about alternative courses of action, and like the free market, was seen as self correcting. (Kelley and Donway, 1990: 90 in Curran, 1991: 97). Many commentators have noted the limitation of the marketplace of ideas: "I can no longer think of open discussion as operating like an electric mixer... Run it a little while and truth will rise to the top with the dregs of error going down to the bottom" (Curran, 1991: 101). As feminists began to theorise about their secondary status in the 20th century, they argued that women's lack of access to the public sphere was the main factor underpinning it, rather than reproduction or other biological functions (Ryan in Calhoun, 1993: 260). Habermas has been criticised for envisioning a normative ideal of the public sphere based on an ideology of rationality whose maleness he does not acknowledge. (Habermas, 1985: 118 in Peters, 1993: 553). Nancy Fraser summarises: "as long as the citizen role is defined to encompass death-dealing soldiering but not life fostering child rearing, as long as it is tied to male dominated modes of dialogue, then it ...remains incapable of fully including women" (Fraser in Calhoun, 1993: 115). Role of myth and symbolism in the public sphere In the present day public sphere that is so strongly dominated by television, the mythical and symbolic aspects that utilise powerful imagery are particularly obvious. These aspects tap into areas of the human psyche that are not primarily concerned with reason or rationality, but are more to do with primal emotions such as fear, excitement, tribal territorialism, hero worship, and the like. For example, in a discussion about the TV coverage of the Gulf War, Robins discusses the way that television coverage of the conflict distanced viewers to the real human suffering involved in the "Nintendo-style mode of representation". The war was presented more like a computer game than a real war, encouraging excitement and voyeurism but not moral consideration or reason. Robins questions the solely rationalist approach which has informed current ideals of how the public sphere should operate. "The pull toward the mythic is often stronger than the desire for rational knowledge of the real. In short, we have for too long tended to disregard the strong role which fear plays in the psyche" (Dahlgren, 1995: 68). The ideal of the rational is a strong force in everyday interactions, both in private and in the public sphere. As Dahlgren points out, the notion of contestability - of claims, of decisions, even of the 'rules of the game' themselves - is immeasurably valuable. This entails a major shift from the older view that was aligned with a traditional philosophical concept of truth. Meaning is now seen as being constituted by communication, rather than a given (Dahlgren, 1995: 100). But Habermas sidesteps the problem that much of human psyche resists rationality. Unconscious drives, desires, fears and conflicts underlie much public communication, although much of it remains unrecognised and inaccessible to conscious, 'rational' examination (Dahlgren, 1995:107). How rational is much political decision making? In many countries for voters have typically voted for a party based on the party their family and their class voted for. This choice was not made after carefully considering rational arguments for and against each party (Schudson in Calhoun, 1993:155). For example, rational-critical debate did not play much part in politics in the colonial era, when riots were more common than rational discussion of principles (Schudson in Calhoun, 1993:160). The central issues of contention in any particular debate can be so divergent and intense that there cannot be agreement. In addition, there can be such as wide gulf between the parties that consensus can only be achieved by suppressing differences (Wilson, 1989a: 20). If we were to hold a television debate between the various stakeholders in the Irish conflict, for example, however much the participants tried to reach rational consensus, it would be extraordinarily difficult to achieve. The mythic and rhetorical features in television journalism, political talk and ordinary conversation can be seen as part of an unconscious absent from Habermas' rational ideal. Dahlgren sees these forces as a site not only for negative forces like fear and conflict, but also as a means for human creativity (Dahlgren, 1995:112). Much actual communication is distorted, claims Wilson, in that a speaker tries to manipulate others to sway them to a particular point of view. But even distorted communication respects the ideal, by giving the appearance of being valid, sincere and morally appropriate. "Public relations handouts, advertising, political policy speeches and the like, use the language of reason even as they abuse it" (Wilson, 1989a: 19). Emotive, mythic factors should not be excluded from the public sphere and castigated for interfering with its effective functioning. Instead, we should acknowledge their operation, whether overt or hidden, and concede that the human heart does not shut down during political discussions. We can integrate all aspects of our essence as human beings into our political debate. As women are gradually acknowledged to have rational capacity, this does not tend to function as a means of exclusion from the Internet. In the twentieth century, first world women are generally educated to be able to use rationality in debate and to acknowledge it as important. And as men acknowledge their capacity as feeling human beings, they will be able to own these feelings, even to view them as important, as they discuss important issues of the day. Usenet The on-line world does not accord with Habermas' description of the normative ideal, where people can talk as equals, rational argument prevails, the goal is consensus, and the group decides the wisest direction to take. Mark Poster comments that "rational argument rarely prevails on the net, and achieving consensus is widely seen as impossible. These are symptoms of the fundamentally different ways identity is defined in the public sphere and on the Net" (Poster, 1995). Aus.politics newsgroup It is interesting to explore an actually existing newsgroup that rests firmly on the ground of the public sphere model: aus.politics. One would assume that participants are genuinely wanting to engage in rational political debate to exchange views about important issues of the day - in short, an ideal site in cyberspace in which to locate the proper operation of the public sphere. A recent article in Internet Australia magazine reported that in the aus.politics newsgroup, comments on the highly emotive atmosphere. "Any message you send is almost certain to draw fire from around a dozen highly active participants from all manner of political persuasions. A single posting that would normally be little more than a casual remark on other newsgroups could easily ignite a brawling thread that can last for weeks" (Jones, 1996: 24). There was a huge upturn in activity on aus.politics before and immediately after the 1996 Australian election. "You often find the most stinging attacks'", wrote aus.politics regular Michael Lucke in one posting to the group. "Discussion can get quite heated at times with all of the Australian adjectives being used', observed Tony Savage, "and quite a few Greek and Italian ones are thrown in for good measure! Some of the threads lead to Pythonesque ridiculousness which can be quite funny to follow" (Jones, 1996: 24). "Nevertheless, most discussion threads appear to start on a very serious footing. "All parties are quite willing to back up their arguments with facts or rhetoric or outright lies", says Savage. This seems to indicate that a serious attempt to carry on rational-critical debate is being made, but that emotions do come into play. In Habermas' model, this would be viewed as a detraction from the serious purpose of the newsgroup; but in real life politics cannot be devoid of emotion. Politics has never been an area that is free of emotion and violent conflict, and attempts to discuss it rationally frequently end in heated argument. I view this as a more complete model of human communication that accepts our full nature, rather than a departure from the public sphere. Thus in this area, the Internet has proved itself to be more inclusive, more accepting of the human psyche, than either Habermas' historical normative model or Rheingold's interpretation of it. First world bias Claims being made for the Internet as a global force for democracy are ambitious. Al Gore, for example, says (Gore, 1995b): " The President of the United States and I believe that an essential prerequisite to sustainable development, for all members of the human family, is the creation of a Global Information Infrastructure. This GII will circle the globe with information superhighways on which all people can travel. These highways... will allows us to share information, to connect, and to communicate as a global community.... and [gain] a greater sense of shared stewardship of our small planet .... The GII will be the key to economic growth for national and international economies." [My emphases]. Any discussion of this issue must account for the extraordinarily first- world bias of Internet. Since many countries have a phone-ownership level of around 2%, how can Internet contribute to a world-wide democracy? A report in Intermedia shows the number of main telephone lines per 100 inhabitants in the Asia-Pacific region. It lists 24 countries as having 3.7 lines or less per 100 inhabitants in 1991, ranging from Korea (3.7), to China (0.7) and Cambodia (0.1). This compares with the top four countries in the region: Australia on 46.4 (Australians are the third highest users of the Internet in the world); Hong Kong on 45.9; Japan on 45.4 and New Zealand on 44.2 per 100 people (Gore, 1995a: 7). Obviously, without a telephone line a computer does not provide access to the Internet, and there are many homes that have a telephone that do not have a computer. Even in America, only 13% of households have a personal computer and modem: a small proportion of the dominant Internet country in the first world (Druick, 1995). In addition, literacy rates vary widely across the world. In many countries, the literacy rate is as low as it was in Europe in the middle ages. Democracy is often associated with widespread literacy. Carey argues that while literacy can engender democracy, it also makes impossible demands. "Literacy produces instability and inconsistency because the written tradition is participated in so unevenly. ...Rational agreement and democratic coherence become problematic when so little background is shared in common" (Carey, 1989: 164). Education is another factor. Internet discussion presumes that participants have a certain basic knowledge of the world. Many people do not attend school, or attend for just a few years, and do not have a knowledge base that allows discussion. The domination of the Internet by American citizens also means that the agenda is set by American concerns. While country-specific discussion groups exist, the huge number of web sites and newsgroups that are American- centred means that discourse is largely confined to issues of concern to Americans. This means that even if citizens of second world or third world countries had computers and phone lines, their literacy and knowledge base would tend to lock them out of discussion, and it would be harder to make their concerns heard. The arguments I outlined in the section on gender apply to the second and third world as "subordinate groups" in this context. English International communication is only possible if people are able to converse with one another. Millions of people cannot access the net because their languages are not the net's primary operating language. Approximately 80% of the net (both information and messages) is in English, compared to about 10% of the world's population that speaks English as a first or subsequent language (Lockard, 1996). Not only does a net participant require English, they require "Cyber- English", a form of English that Lockard sees as dominating other forms. "A superdominant English specifically intrinsic to a computer-mediated technology base, Cyber-English has rapidly come to serve as a transmission belt for 'free market' ideologies." Cyber-English is the latest stage in a historical procession of geopolitical domination that uses language as a tool of domination, claims Lockard: "Learn it or else. Speak so 'we' understand you, or take a hike and be damned. Meaningful net participation requires both advanced semiotic manipulation and substantial economic wherewithal, joint and mutually reinforcing capacities that delineate and inform the concept of 'language/class." This term specifies the intersection that creates what Edward Kamau Braithwaite calls "nation language"; or the Caribbean and other Englishes that are not standard imported English, but that of the submerged, surrealist sense and sensibility (Lockard, 1996). Non-native English speakers struggle to contribute to discussions. They use short sentences with poor grammar and punctuation. English speakers will insult their English, along with their opinions. They are "permanent clueless newbies, a global class of linguistic peasantry who cannot speak technological Latin" (Lockard, 1996). English-speaking ability distinguishes between classes of users, their acceptance in net groups, and their ability to participate. While the Internet does not have to be global to be a force for democracy in some countries, the claims being made for global effects seem rather naive and premature. In light of the factors I have discussed, it is clear that Internet does not provide a vehicle for global participation in the public sphere or rational-critical debate. These varied arenas of exclusion from participation in the Internet combine to form a component of the public sphere that has little of substance to distinguish it from the Athenian agora. This makes the title of Vice-President Gore's article in Intermedia somewhat ironic: "Forging a new Athenian Age of democracy" (Gore, 1995a). Status bracketing Habermas explains that in the coffee house convention, everyone had an equal right to speak, as if they were equals. In England, the coffee house embraced not only the nobility, but "the wider strata of the middle class, including craftsmen and shopkeepers" (Habermas, 1989: 33). In France, while the aristocracy increased their emphasis on hierarchy in social intercourse, they mingled with the bourgeoisie in the salons: "In the salons of the fashionable ladies, notables as well as bourgeois, sons of princes and counts associated with sons of watchmakers and shopkeepers. ...Opinion becomes emancipated from the bonds of economic dependence" (Habermas, 1989: 33). In Germany, the societies that formed the public sphere were open not only to the nobility. "As it is put in one of their founding documents", reports Habermas, "their intent was 'that in such manner an equality and association among persons of unequal social status might be brought about" (Habermas, 1989: 35). Habermas argues that salons, societies and coffee houses all had certain common features, one of which was to disregard status. The ideal was that attention should be paid to the quality of the argument, not to the status of its proponent. Were status differences really bracketed in the bourgeois public sphere? Even Habermas admits that this was only an unrealisable ideal: "Not that this idea of the public was actually realised in earnest in the coffee houses, the salons and the societies; but as an idea it had become institutionalised and thereby stated as an objective claim" (Habermas, 1989: 35). It is certainly hard to believe that a middle class merchant, however prosperous, would treat an aristocrat as an equal, or vice versa. Centuries of class and gender conditioning produce certain aspects of behaviour that are most difficult to leave at the coffee house door. For example, says Fraser, men interrupt women more than women interrupt men, men speak more than women, and when women do interrupt they are ignored more than men: "Subordinate groups sometimes cannot find the right voice or words to express their thoughts, and when they do, they discover they are not heard. They are silenced, encouraged to keep their wants inchoate, and heard to say "yes" when what they have said is 'no'" (Mansbridge in Fraser, 1993: 119). On the Internet, the absence of gender cues in discussion groups does not eliminate sexism or the usual hierarchies of gender. Dale Spender's book Nattering on the Net sets out in some detail the extent of women's difficulties on the Internet. Men are a dominating presence on the Internet: "Make no mistake about it, the Internet is male territory. Considering its roots are sunk deep in academia and the military industrial complex, that's hardly surprising." (Spender, 1995: 166). In addition to the problems women have getting experience in school using computers, there are difficulties once they are online. Spender comments that "in society in general, and in cyberspace in particular, it is abundantly clear that women's words count for much less than men's." She quotes a study by Wylie: "More often than not...women's ideas are simply met by silence from men and women alike. A female-initiated subject gets roughly less than a third of the replies that a male initiated thread does... And even women-initiated threads that survive are taken over by men... so the eventual fate of the conversation isn't guided by women. What's more, men tend to post longer messages more frequently." Spender argues that because men have developed Netiquette, the discourse is male and the style adversarial: "Despite the enormous potential of the net to be a network", says Spender, "to promote egalitarian, cooperative communication exchanges - the virtual reality is one where aggression, intimidation and plain macho-mode prevail" (Spender, 1995: 198). Status signification People tend to expect some kind of status signification, even if it is just gender. To illustrate this, I will describe my first encounter with a MOO some time ago. I had logged on to LambdaMOO with the guest name "Mattguest". After about an hour of pleasant conversation with the various characters in the MOO, I joked that I had to leave because my chauffeur was waiting outside. Much mirth greeted this statement and there was some good natured ribbing. But when I remarked that the chauffeur was in fact my husband, there was an outpouring of astonishment that veered close to rage. All fifteen or so of those in that particular room were male, and they all expressed their amazement in capital letters and plenty of exclamation marks. YOU'RE FEMALE!!!! WE'VE BEEN TALKING AN HOUR AND YOU DIDN'T MENTION THAT YOU'RE A WOMAN!!!!!! When I answered "You didn't ask me what sex I was. Why does that matter so much to you?" there was a considerable silence, and some mutters along the lines of "I dunno. It just does." Then I asked "I didn't deceive you. You assumed I was a man. Why is that?" And no one answered. I said "I assume then that all of you are men?" At this point, someone began a new conversation with another character and none of my other comments were responded to. I felt distinctly unwelcome after this telling experience. The men online not only expected to speak with other men but preferred it. That they were unable to detect my gender after an hour's conversation indicates that this preference had nothing to do with the manner in which women speak, but with their ideas about who is entitled to take part or speak online. Theoretically there was an even chance that I was a woman, as all those present were experienced players with developed characters, and must have known that "Mattguest", my online name, was a generic name given to guests of either sex. But everyone there assumed I was male until proven otherwise (in line with the well documented phenomenon that the standard person is assumed to be a man). The onus was on me to reveal my gender as "different", not theirs to inquire. The assumptions underlying this exchange are shocking. For example, if I were thinking in the same way, I could be expected to assume that everyone I meet on line is the same sex as I am. In that case, I had just as much right to be surprised that they were all male. In this case, my status was most definitely not bracketed. It was clearly marked as subordinate as soon as my gender was discovered, and the players responded by silencing me. Indicating status On the Internet, the idea of men and women, professors and children acting "as if they were equals" is not only unlikely but the ingrained behaviour of these groups tends to disallow it. These behaviours are so unconscious that people don't even recognise they are doing it. In my participation in listservs and Usenet, I have noticed that in groups where the topic is trivial, such as a favourite television program or hobby interest, status is attributed to those who have the most knowledge and the wittiest turn of phrase in the briefest space. A regular contributor who has shown that they can write tellingly and knowledgably is respected, and their threads are the longest and most avidly read. Status is conferred by the amount of comment a particular posting generates. A person's email address reveals the country and organisation type of the user, so that while a user can transcend or invent their identity, they must reveal something about themselves. A user with an address ending in 'edu', for example, is very likely to be affiliated with a university in some way. Many Internet users will use some kind of signifier to indicate their status. In groups where the topic is more academic, it is usual for participants to signify their status by adding their university, degree and study program. In this way, participants still confer status on others, either by using signifiers external to the Internet (academic standing, published works etc) or by internal signifiers (worth of contributions, style of expression etc). Poster argues that "the salient characteristic of Internet community is the diminution of prevailing hierarchies of race, class, age, status and especially gender" (Poster, (1)). But status bracketing appears to occur only when it must - that is, when participants have no way of telling their relative status. Computer-mediated communication The mere fact that people are communicating via a computer changes many aspects of the mode of communication between them. Poster points to MOOs as places where identities are invented and changeable. But there are still hierarchies that depend on the amount of control you have (site administrators, regular players, guests), and your typing ability, which affects the amount you can contribute (Poster, (1)). Exchanging text online does not substitute for face-to-face meeting, says Poster. It has its own logic, its own ways of forming opinion: These attributes will powerfully affect the politics that emerge in our digital era. To understand how our notion of democracy will change - and I believe it will change radically - we need to understand how the Net differs from historical public spheres" (Poster, (1)). In computer-mediated discussion people who normally have no outlet for their opinions can join a public forum where they can speak, and have others listen and respond. This type of communication is a combination of aspects of one-to-one communication and one-to-many communication. Group communication is a situation where each person can be speaker and listener (Schneider, 1995). Sproull and Kiesler's research While status bracketing is not as significant as one might hope, the Internet does change the nature of human interaction. Research on computer mediated communication shows that people behave differently when they communicate via compute (Sproull and Kiesler, 1995: 62). This research by Sproull and Kiesler shows that people who often dominate conversations face to face are less visible in an online situation, while users who would contribute little in a face to face meeting tend to say more in computer mediated communication (Sproull and Kiesler, 1995: 131). Much of this research has been done on email systems in business organisations. This can be seen as 'democracy working', in that it tends to break down the traditional hierarchical structures of the workplace. It mirrors the way that representative democracy was intended to increase the ability of those of lower status to influence matters of national importance. The authors point out that while most organisations' networked communications are similar, people use them differently depending on the policy choices made by management. In open networked organisations, costs of email are not charged to employees or their departments. "People typically send and receive between 25 and 100 messages a day and belong to between 10 and 50 electronic groups." This amount is consistent independent of job categories, status, age or computer experience (Sproull and Kiesler, 1995: 130). In limited-access organisations, managers have limited access or charged costs directly to users, leading to much lower usage rates. They describe how one organisation changed its email access by allowing some employees to receive email but not to send it, whereas higher status employees could both receive and send. "Clearly, technology by itself does not impel change. management choices and policies are equally influential", say Sproull and Kiesler (Sproull and Kiesler, 1995: 131). Extrapolating this to Internet, politicians' choices and policies are influential - for example, the introduction of censorship, taxation and other regulations can be seen as ways to affect computer-mediated communication on the Internet. Cues Sproull and Kiesler say that electronic decision making is profoundly affected by the lack of contextual and social cues that normally accompany verbal communication. The researchers conducted some experiments in which they compared decision making in small groups using computer conferences, email and physical meetings. They studied 94 groups of subjects in five experiments who were told to reach consensus decisions on several questions. They found that using a network helped people to talk more frankly (including heated argument). Also, instead of one or two people dominating as in physical meetings, people had a more equal share of the conversation. Interestingly, they generated more proposals using email than using face to face meetings. Sproull and Kiesler discovered that electronic communication affects the way participants reacted to the relative status of others in the group, normally a powerful regulator of the way people interact with each other in group situations. In face to face situations, people tend to defer to higher status members; use more formal language; and tend to agree with their decisions. Higher status members tend to talk more and take the lead in discussions, influencing the agenda and the decisions reached. The research confirmed that this situation levelled out using email. Higher status and lower status members had a more equal contribution to make both in terms of the amount of talking they do and their influence on outcomes. They also express more opinions and ideas, and vent more emotion. If the results of this research are combined with the fact that most people on the Internet are not normally aware of each others' status, and that certainly there are no visible reminders (such as colour, sex, dress, height, age etc), it means that Internet discussions could result in communication that is both more democratic and open. There are opposing views, however. Bad Subjects magazine argues that the Internet's radical potential is not inherent to the medium (Bad Subjects Production Team, (1995)). Cyberspace is not itself a community; many types of communities exist on computer networks, most of which are nothing more than an extension of the kinds of routine interactions we expect to encounter in capitalism. On Usenet and the World Wide Web, for example, we encounter thinner and thinner boundaries between personal expression, politics, and advertising. There are newsgroups devoted simply to job listings. On World Wide Web, you might click on a word in the middle of an article about progressive politics in Slovenia and find yourself linked to an infoblurb promoting tourism in Eastern Europe. Thus, the Internet reflects the economic and social conditions that underpin it. In conclusion, the many arenas of exclusion from participation in the Internet combine to form a component of the public sphere that has little to distinguish it from the Athenian agora. This makes the title of Vice-President Gore's article in Intermedia somewhat ironic: "Forging a new Athenian Age of democracy" (Gore, 1995a: 4). While the Internet allows status to diminish as a factor in communication, it does not disappear. In fact, there are attempts to include status signifiers to overcome the lack of overt visual signalling. The medium of Internet itself has a significant impact on communication which tends towards greater equality of discussion, agenda setting and decision making. This has profound implications if the Internet becomes as prevalent as many commentators are predicting. In the next chapter I will discuss participation in actual political democracies. Chapter 4: Social issues In this chapter, I will discuss social issues that bear on Internet and democracy. I will begin by asking whether the ideal of full participation is either ideal or realistic. I will discuss whether the Internet supports dominant forces in society, or whether its anarchic nature creates a more egalitarian situation. I will explore the idea of multiple public spheres and their importance to the voices of subordinate groups. Then I will ask whether democracy can exist where there is no community in which to practice it. And finally, I will briefly outline some practical ways that Internet could contribute to actually existing democracy. Participation The utopian vision of democracy often relies on the direct or participatory model. It is obvious that this vision can only remain an ideal. The number of issues that even a local council must deal with is daunting for even the most committed citizen. In a study of voter turnout in America, Mansbridge found that only 35% of voters in the 1970s came to a town meeting. This compares to 74% of eligible voters in one town in the mid-17th century - but only 60 men in the town were eligible to vote (Schudson in Calhoun, 1993:147). Before there can be full participation in democracy, individual citizens must see themselves as an important part of political life. They must take the concept of participation in government seriously, and believe that they have a contribution to make and a duty to make it. Until a citizen develops a sense of their ability and duty to participate, and an identity as a political voice in a democracy, they do not form part of the pool of people who would consider contributing. As Schneider puts it in the most basic terms, "A necessary condition for the development of a strong and positive democratic political identity is the ability to talk about politics with others" (Schneider, 1995). The rarity of space in which the public sphere can take place is a major problem facing democracy (Schneider, 1995). If new settings for public interaction are developed, it is possible for democracy to be revitalised. Schneider proposes that by shifting the focus from communication (Schneider, 1995): "...based on transactions with large, homogenous, undifferentiated and anonymous audiences to communication based on exchange among small, heterogeneous, distinct and identifiable participants, it might be possible to recapture the skills and reclaim the resources necessary to support opportunities for effective political discussion." One on-line activist group, the Critical Art Ensemble, suggests that this elite stronghold will remain, and that most of the first world population will join the electronic public sphere primarily as passive consumers, rather than as active participants: "They will be playing computer games, watching interactive TV, and shopping in virtual malls. The stratified distribution of education will act as the guardian of the virtual border between the passive and the active user, and prevent those populations participating in multi-directional interactivity from increasing in any significant numbers." This view of the populace at large is somewhat pessimistic, and is perhaps a class-based assumption. However, voting patterns in countries that have optional voting would seem to support the CAE's assertion to some degree. Case study: Public Electronic Network "If electronic democracy is the theory, Santa Monica's Public Electronic network (PEN) is a vivid example of the practice", says Rheingold (Rheingold, 1993: 268). A small scale project in a relatively well to do city, PEN was launched in 1989 by Ken Phillips at Santa Monica's City Hall. Using donated hardware and software, he set up free accounts for city residents who wanted to register, and computers were set up in libraries, schools and city buildings. Their "Swashlock" project is a case that demonstrates the way citizens can use a network to work on a problem and help to get it implemented. Citizens decided to address what they saw as an important problem: homelessness. The action group had face to face meetings as well as online meetings. The proposal was made by Bruria Finkel that homeless people needed showers, washing machines and lockers, so that they could keep belongings and wash, and have access to job listings. The idea was that this could help them to seek work. After considerable online discussions and taking various interests into account, a solution and funds to implement it were found. Pamela Varley wrote a case study of PEN published in 1991, which comments that as well as successes like Swashlock, there were numerous instances of violent disagreements, harassment of women and domination by a small number of users. "PEN's biggest disappointment has been the domination of its conference discussions by a small number of users. More than 3,000 people are signed up for PEN, but only 500 to 600 log on each month, and most never add any comments to the conference discussion. PENners talk about the '50 hard core users' whose names appear again and again in the conference discussions" (Rheingold, 1993: 271). While PEN was an early attempt at implementing electronic democracy, its initial problems point to the need for a careful approach to its structure and use. Online voting Despite all the hopes for the Internet, signs tend to point away from the universality, equality and democracy promised by governments and academics. For example, one claim is that we will have direct democracy with people voting from their homes, both in elections and in plebiscites. A system called "TV Answer" is at the forefront of this hope, but it is expected that it will cost $500 to gain access to this service, as well as potential charges for each vote (Druick, 1995). Votelink is an on-line polling service that conducts referenda on virtually anything and publishes the results of its polls (Votelink). Alexia Parks of Votelink says "A future world in which elections and legislation is conducted on-line, in an electronic democracy, is closer than the future" (Jones, 1996c:27). Votelink believes that enthusiasm for on-line problem solving, decision making and voting would motivate people to take the time to consider these issues. "We could have an electronic republic where those with the most interest in following political events, legislation, citizen initiatives and so forth, would service as 'filters' for others. They would, in essence, serve as information sources for a broader public audience." (Jones, 1996c: 27). The crucial phrase here is "those with the most interest". Naturally those with the most interest will also have leisure, a computer, a modem, English skills and all the rest, a fact consistently overlooked in much commentary. Government reluctance One factor that would work against the introduction of these services is that governments are historically reluctant to involve citizens in decision making, or even to provide information about their operation to the public. In both the English and American parliaments, parliaments conducted much of their business without making it public. In America, it was usually difficult to find out what the parliament was doing, or how one's representative had voted on any issue (Schudson in Calhoun, 1993:154). In England, parliament had published reports on some deliberations, but these were skimpy, infrequent, and not publicly accessible. In 1738 it prevented publication of its debates between sessions (Habermas, 1989: 61). Michael Lucke, an aus.politics regular, comments (Jones, 1996b: 24): "Politicians in Government fear the need to ask the people for their approval when making major decisions - it deprives them of absolute power in between elections. It would be real democracy in the old Greek sense of the word, and neither political party would run the risk of that!". While some features of political life have been transformed, governments are still reluctant to have their innermost workings exposed to public light. They are often reluctant to let the public have a real, direct impact on individual policies other than through opinion polls and other market research. Decline in quality as participation increases Rheingold argues that on-line communities have so far been dominated by "the kind of people that Robert Reich, in The Work of Nations, called 'symbolic analysts': computer programmers, writers, journalists, freelance artistes, editors, etc." He says that other groups, "people who paint houses or build boats or work in an office" are coming online, but that most members of Virtual Communities are workers whose professional standing is based on what they know. This does not indicate a level of participation that could accurately be called grass roots. Habermas argues that as the public sphere gradually expanded to include more participants, there was a corresponding decline in the quality of discourse (Calhoun, 1993: 3). Sproull and Kiesler, in the context of their research into businesses, also question whether the increased contribution that lower status individuals have is a good thing. "When higher-status members have less expertise, more democracy could improve decision making. If higher status members truly are better qualified to make decisions, however, the results of consensus decisions may be less good" (Sproull and Kiesler, 1995: 132). This argument has been put forward by many in relation to the ability of various groups to make reasoned decisions, such as women, lower classes, etc. The assumption that higher-status members are better qualified to make decisions is one rooted in centuries of similar attitudes. These often worked to exclude lower status members of society, such as working class people, women, slaves and non-Caucasians, from taking part. In a truly circular argument, first certain groups are classified as lower status, then they are assigned a lack of intelligence or ability to contribute, and finally this is used to justify their lower status. This argument resonates strongly with arguments about women's lack of rationality and their resultant disqualification from participation. Public sphere as dominating force I will now explore whether the public sphere, and the Internet in particular, supports dominant forces in society or provides an avenue for societal and political change. One unappealing but widely held view of the public sphere contends that it has become suffused by power plays. In this view, competing forces fight for influence and control over communication flows that change behaviour, using both topic selection and actual contributions as weapons (Habermas in Calhoun, 1993: 437). As I have already discussed, the claims for rational discourse by the 18th century bourgeoisie, using class and gender as exclusion mechanisms, can be seen as a blatant grab for power and influence (McLaughlin, 1993: 606). While the public sphere defended civil society against excesses of the state, it also helped to maintain a system of domination, by using it to promulgate the views of the dominant classes (male property owners) (Calhoun, 1993: 39). This view of the public sphere minimises the alternative public spheres created by and vigorously supported by other groups in society, such as a working class public sphere. Negt and Kluge posited a working class public sphere to provide a counter- public realm, which would allow working class people to develop awareness and to have a voice, "to avoid being reduced simply to the status of object in the production process". Trade unions were one of the most important aspects of this counter public sphere (Downing, 1988: 166). In fact, many of the features Habermas considered vital to the formation of the bourgeois public sphere, such as freedom of the press, were brought about largely by activities in the "plebeian" public sphere (Calhoun, 1993: 39). Negt and Kluge hoped that the working class public sphere would be expanded to become part of, or even overtake, the mainstream bourgeois public sphere. But it is clear that while trade unions and the working class counter public sphere have taken power and influence for themselves, for the most part their views or vehicles have not been integrated into the dominant public sphere (Downing, 1988: 166). If one views the struggle for publicity as being equivalent to a struggle for justice, as Benhabib does (Calhoun, 1993: 79), then the question of who has control of the public sphere becomes vitally important. How many public spheres? In Habermas's conception of the public sphere, it is operating in favour of 'the common good'. This assumes that there is one undifferentiated public for whom a common good is possible; that here is only one public arena that works for everyone; and that this is a desirable state of affairs. Fraser posits the idea that there are many public spheres, all competing for attention and the right to define what is talked about. Topics that are considered to be of common concern only become so by the process of debate itself, so nothing should be excluded from consideration. A democratic public sphere means that there must be opportunities for subordinate groups to convince dominant groups that their concerns are legitimate and worthy of debate (Fraser in Calhoun, 1993: 129). An example of this is the issue of sexual harassment, which was once considered only of interest to women, but is now firmly in the mainstream public sphere and considered of importance to all. In a society where there are different subgroups with different status, participatory equality is achieved more effectively through numerous public spheres. Decision making in dominant public spheres tend to advantage the dominant groups, by defining what is important and by setting the expressive norms and mode of discourse. Subordinate groups must assume the discourse of the dominant group before they can participate in the debate, and this may include disregarding what to them are crucial issues. This is amplified if there is one comprehensive public sphere In Mansbridge's words, it means "absorbing the less powerful into a false 'we' that reflects the more powerful" (Fraser in Calhoun, 1993: 123). A socially egalitarian society requires a public sphere that encompasses many different publics, including at least one common public in which participants can negotiate differences about policy that concerns them all (Fraser in Calhoun, 1993: 127). Dahlgren comments that mainstream television has not fulfilled its potential for diversity: "The points of view available, the topics and perspectives presented, and the modes of cultural expression given voice, seem for the most part no less suppressed than they were before the post-modern celebration. Television has yet to realise its democratic promise" (Dahlgren, 1995:37). The Internet presents an opportunity to expand the points of view available, the topics presented and modes of expression - but a dominant group has already emerged. Internet users are predominantly male, white, English speaking, American, well-off in their 30s. They are mostly "symbolic analysts" (to use Reich's phrase), working mainly in computing, education, professions and management (GVU, 1996). While the range of topics available is apparently wide, there is still a dominance of topics of interest to this group (computers, primarily); and as discussed in "Access" above, the modes of expression are established through the use of "Netiquette". Anyone who breaches this code receives "flames", a barrage of abuse via email. The Internet appears to be replacing one set of dominant voices for another - whose concerns are not especially different in relation to subordinate groups in society from those of mainstream traditional media. The dominant voice on the Internet is primarily a more educated, higher-income, more male-centred subgroup of the dominant voice in traditional media. The Internet holds the promise of a vehicle for dissenting voices, but it is just as difficult to be heard there and to effect significant change on views and actions as it is in traditional media. This only underscores that the Internet does not operate in a sociological vacuum. In the next section, I will discuss whether the democratic characteristics inherent in the medium of computer-mediated-communication on the Internet actually constitute democracy. Physical location I will now discuss the impact of physical location as a factor affecting the formation of community; the question of whether a community is required before democracy can take place; and whether online communities constitute communities to whom democratic processes make a difference. Do the democratic characteristics inherent in the medium of computer- mediated-communication on the Internet actually constitute democracy? Distance Democracy is dependent on citizens' ability to act on the results of their debates and the information they gather. One problem is that geographic distance means that information is only as useful as the physical location of the participants. The physical environment shapes the events that have taken place in cyberspace. For example, a participant who lives in a dictatorship where political dissent is met with execution, torture or imprisonment is much less likely to be successful in implementing the result of a debate about changes to government than someone in a free democracy. In addition, the information he or she gathers is less useful (Critical Art Ensemble, 1996). What is a community? A community in which the democratic processes, or the outcomes of the democratic process as decisions are important is a prerequisite for democracy to occur. There must be a community in which the democratic notions can be effected. For example, if five strangers meet by chance on a street corner and have a conversation, never to meet again, it does not matter much whether their interaction was conducted democratically. Community has traditionally been seen as a collective of kinship, labour and friendship networks which share a common geographic territory, a common history, and a shared value system. Communities have tended to be homogenous, and rely on the mythic, non-rational aspects of life to constitute their operation. Rheingold believes that virtual communities on the Internet are real communities: "People in virtual communities do just about everything people do in real life, but we leave our bodies behind. You can't kiss anybody and nobody can punch you in the nose, but a lot can happen within those boundaries. To the millions who have been drawn into it, the richness and vitality of computer-linked cultures is attractive, even addictive" (Rheingold, 1993: 9). One of the main benefits of the Internet is the ability to find others with similar interests. Rheingold comments that while you can't simply pick up a phone and ask to be connected with someone who wants to talk about Islamic art or Californian wine, you can join a newsgroup on any of those topics, and then converse with the people there, either privately or publicly on the newsgroup" (Rheingold, 1993: 7). This is probably the most powerful feature of Internet from a social point of view, even more powerful than the ability to have access to information. In Rheingold's view, the interests that you have in common with others on the Islamic art discussion group can help you to form a virtual community. In my experience, I find that it is much easier on the net to strike up conversations of any length or depth with people who live geographically close to me. It seems that place and culture still affect our sense of who is part of our community. Until very recently, the net was populated by the few people who had access to a computer and a modem and could work in the complex way the pre-world wide web environment demanded. Rheingold comments: "The kind of people that Robert Reich, in The Work of Nations, called "symbolic analysts", are natural matches for online communities: computer programmers, writers and journalists, freelance artists and designers, independent radio and television producers, editors, researchers, librarians. ...Increasingly, many people who paint houses or build boats or work in an office or hospital or sell real estate, but who are curious about new cultural phenomena and not afraid of using a computer keyboard to express themselves, are mixing it up with the knowledge workers" (Rheingold, 1993: 56). While the virtual community Rheingold is a part of, The Well, is not a kinship-based community, he is open about the fact that its success lies largely with its roots as a labour-based community. That is, its members have something in common - they are symbolic analysts. Many of them are also American, and many even live in the San Francisco area, so they have a culture in common as well. Rheingold's extrapolation from this experience to the whole Internet is not necessarily valid. Until recently the narrow social makeup of Internet users and the fact that they were all technically competent encouraged a feeling of community (Stallabrass, 1995: 12). Increasingly, this makeup of the Internet community is much diluted. The diffusion of kinship and other social networks in physical society has contributed to the current sense of disintegration of community. As many commentators have pointed out, traditional associations are dissolving: political parties, nuclear family, mainstream religion, neighbourhood and social class groups. There are now many diverse sub-cultures that may be physically located in widely divergent locations. In addition, differing values contribute to a society that is less homogenous in its values and morals. Does a "virtual community" warrant the term community? Rheingold comments that his online world became more important as he began to meet members of his virtual community: "...Not only do I inhabit my virtual communities; to the degree that I carry around their conversations in my head and begin to mix it up with them in real life, my virtual communities also inhabit my life. I've been colonised; my sense of family at the most fundamental level has been virtualised" (Rheingold, 1993: 10). When a community makes a decision or has a conversation, the type of interaction it has will only matter if the interaction has a resultant effect in real life. This is true even if the effect is as apparently small as a feeling in a person's heart. The outcome of the process and decisions must matter to a particular group of people, or it is meaningless. A democratic public sphere, and a democratic system, cannot exist on the Internet alone. There must be physical interaction as well, and shared material interests that can be acted on collaboratively. On the Internet, space is separated from place when people form relationships or communities with people who are physically distant. This means that a physical place can be shaped by influences that originate in distant locations (Dahlgren, 1995:82). Are communities or debates that are primarily mediated by the Internet equivalent to those that take place in physical space? Giddens argues that "globalisation stretches the relationships between local settings and distant events and processes. The disembedding of social relations means that they can be established at a distance, separate from physical co-presence" (Giddens, 1991 in Dahlgren, 1995: 89). Community can be seen as a phenomenon that has a strong link to place; in this light, community is weaker because of the weakening of people's ties to place and the institutions of society (Giddens, 1991 in Dahlgren, 1995:187). Global community weaker than local For the present, though, a global community (whether through the traditional media or the Internet) is less influential than most people's experience of physical, local community. As Tomlinson points out, the global is dispersed, and tends to have few effective political, economic, institutional or linguistic factors holding it together (Dahlgren, 1995:89). However, Bad Subjects magazine, whose readers are from all around the world, see their varied membership as proof that a radical cyberspace community wants to affect more than simply their own cultural group or national region (Bad Subjects Production Team, (1995)). Change The public sphere can function in politics only if citizens can accommodate or generalise their interests together, and to assert these so that "state power is transformed into a fluid medium of society's self-organisation" (Habermas, 1993 in Calhoun, 1993: 431). In other words, there must be a concrete result in society, or the public sphere cannot be counted as a force for democratic action. This requires that everyone who might be affected takes part in the discussion, and that all have equal, free interaction on any topic, and that the outcomes can be negotiated (Habermas, 1993 in Calhoun, 1993: 449). Clearly, traditional mass media like television and newspapers fail to meet these requirements. It is also clear that the Internet will similarly fail. First, everyone who might be affected by a decision does not have access to the Internet, either on a local scale or a national one. At the least they have differing levels of access (a private connection on a home computer versus a one-hour session on a library connection). Second, they do not have equal, free interaction on any topic. The issues discussed in the chapter on access above bear on this: language, expressive ability, typing speed, prior knowledge of the topic, gender, research skills and status issues all affect interaction on a particular topic. Bad Subjects comments on this aspect (Bad Subjects Production Team, (1995)): "While discussions on the Bad Subjects mailing list may suggest a kind of collective politics, there is need to distinguish between the feeling of political community that a list can generate, and the ability to make productive use of that community to enact material changes in the world. As with any support group, there is, moreover, a need to leave the group behind and use the techniques and knowledge gained from the list in our lives outside of cyberspace. Indeed, there are many social and political changes that the list makes possible. The exchange of ideas can, and often does, promote a shift in consciousness that contains within itself real material effects. Many people on the list are students, professors, or writers, who use ideas and resources from the list, for example, to change the ways in which they teach and learn in their respective professions. " In its limited fashion, the Internet does allow people who are taking part to share a basis of understanding as common ground from which to mediate consensus. The Internet allows people to contribute to modifying systems (in the Habermasian sense), using communicative action (Lambert, 1995). Habermas' theory ties the emergence of the public sphere in bourgeois society to the emergence of the political and economic bourgeois class, leading to the operation of the public sphere as protection of its interests. In line with this, a major change in the democratic effects of the public sphere may not be possible unless bourgeois power were displaced with a change in power relations of a similar magnitude. Practical effects In an ideal public sphere, citizens must have access to information about the issues before they can contribute to debate. Rheingold points out that "more and more public and government databases are going online at local and national levels. The coexistence of very large and up to date collections of factual information in conjunction with a medium that is also a forum for discussion and debate has important implications for the public sphere" (Rheingold, 1993: 91). He describes how in June 1993, the White House in the USA began to place policies, speeches, transcripts of conversations from dozens of departments within the Clinton administration onto the Internet. In the past, only reporters and lobbyists had access to this material. He argues that citizens debating political issues benefit from instant access to facts that can support or refute assertions made in those debates. It is interesting to note in this context that at the time of writing, less than 1% of mankind's documented knowledge has been captured in digital form (Druick, 1995). Rheingold claims that this kind of discussion, backed up by available facts, could "grow into the real basis for a possible electronic democracy of the future" (Rheingold, 1993: 91). However, is this connected with the medium? It's reported that the White House responds much faster to emails than to letters, but is this because of a preference for a particular medium or an intrinsic quality of the medium itself? Activist groups There are many groups on the internet who are actively promoting democracy. These include groups who: 1. provide resources (such as Democracy Resource Center); 2. discuss particular issues of concern (such as PEN in Santa Monica); 3. discuss democracy in general, provide information on human rights and democracy and update information about current events worldwide (such as The Global Democracy Network); 4. find information about issues, allow you to discuss the issues with your representatives and present your views before the vote to your representative, such as Making Government Work; 5. explore possibilities of internet to further civic involvement (such as Democracy and Internet Workgroup and The People's Network); or 6. promote government policies in relation to the internet itself (such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy and Technology). These types of activities use the capabilities of the internet to promote democracy in various ways. There is capacity for much more activity of this kind, but much of it is provided by publicly funded groups or volunteers. This means that their capacity to provide service is limited. For this kind of activity to produce real, lasting effects it requires funding and involvement on a much larger scale. Response to electorate In the same way that journalism may be open to greater influence and questioning from its audience, so politics has the potential to be more accountable to its public. It is conceivable that a member of parliament could pose the question "do you want me to vote in favour of the new gun control bill or not? Please provide your reasons". This would allow an MP to represent their constituents in a much more real sense than is realistic in the current system. In the Greek agora, it was possible for every citizen to take part in a dialogue about every issue being debated in parliament. It would be unwieldy to expect every Australian citizen to have this opportunity. The number of issues and the size of the population makes this impractical. Representation seems a practical response to the growth of population and the expansion of the franchise. A dialogue between representatives and citizens would make politicians far more accountable and responsive, which may mean that such a system would be looked on unfavourably. On the other hand, the politician would gain a greater knowledge of his or her electorate's wishes, and thus be able to retain a greater proportion of votes by acting in accordance with them. However, only constituents with computers, modems, language skills, English speaking skills, Internet connections, leisure etc would be able to contribute to the discussion. Even if connections were made available in shopping centres and libraries, it would not even up the power relations between those with and those without these attributes. Would this more direct representation mean that excluded groups' influence actually diminish? If politicians had access to so much direct opinion, would they come to believe it actually represented all their constituents' views? On the other hand, perhaps this is preferable to the current situation where almost no one has direct influence over their representative's views or policy positions. This transition would not be made easily, since the dominative attitude to communication is still prevalent. (Williams, 1967: 315). For example, while international management trends in business have been moving towards participative, consultative styles for over a decade, many leaders are afraid of trusting the consensus processes of majority discussion and decision. It is obvious that this leads to a reduction of direct power and influence for the leader, who must find new ways to value their worth. Perhaps it could occur by one or two relatively open politicians beginning the process. Once other politicians see that it can benefit them by providing much more accurate electoral information than opinion polling, others would follow suit. Care would need to be taken that the process remained participative and responsive. Chapter 5 Political economy In this chapter, I discuss political economy approaches to mass media theory, and ask how they apply to the Internet as a significant new mass medium. I ask whether the Internet is already a commodity, and whether its role as a commodity will expand to affect its impact on democracy and a revitalised public sphere. Media concentration is a real issue in traditional mass media; will international conglomerates gain power over the Internet? I will use Curran's comments on forces that have undermined the media's role in democracy to highlight some important challenges the Internet will face in the next decade. Finally, I ask whether there are any inherent structural aspects of Internet that may contribute to its potential for democracy. Commodification Rheingold argues that when people spread the idea that electronic networks are inherently democratic without specifying the hard work that must be done to harvest that democratising power, they can become unwitting agents of commodification. Habermas makes a distinction between the critical functions of communicative processes and functions that aim to influence the decision of consumers, voters and clients. The critical functions are self regulated and inclusive, while those aiming to influence are implemented by organisations which aim to promote purchasing power, loyalty or conformist behaviour. These two functions compete with each other. The principle of publicity turns "against itself and thereby reduces its critical efficacy" (Habermas in Calhoun, 1993: 437). He sees the public sphere as a commodity that is sold to consumers, using manipulative techniques and imagery to seduce them. Television in particular has introduced flashy, phoney, often violent imagery to replace reading, writing, and rational discourse. The electronic media has already substituted public discussion for various commodities, which are sold to us for our entertainment. The public sphere used to belong to citizens in a democracy, but now has been lost to commercial interests. Advertising and PR have undermined the public sphere by supplanting genuine discourse with fake discourse, leading to a radical deterioration of the public sphere (Rheingold, 1993: 285). Politicians are now sold as commodities, citizens are consumers, and issues are decided with staged events and quotes pre-worded by publicity specialists. But the public sphere is also an important mechanism for producing and disseminating culture, which gives meaning to our identities. Dahlgren asks, "How do the identities thus fostered relate to the vision of democracy?" (Dahlgren, 1995:23). Dahlgren argues that the discourses of advertising in the public sphere encourage consumption and promote "a consumerist subject position, which certainly manifests itself in a general way in social subjectivity. ...The commodification of everyday practices and social relations is beyond dispute" (Dahlgren, 1995:22). The consumer identity has become the accepted model for political decision making. Discourse has degenerated into publicity, which harnesses the power of electronic media's seductive imagery to affect society's ideas and beliefs. Media concentration leads to commodification Habermas argues that under the liberal model of the public sphere, institutions of public rational-critical debate were protected from interference by public authorities because they were in the hands of private people. During the last century, they have become commercialised and concentrated economically, technologically and organisationally - gradually becoming sites of power. So while publicist institutions remain in private hands their critical functions are threatened (Habermas, 1989: 188). A public sphere dominated by the commercial media does not allow access by everyone, nor does it allow rational-critical debate. Instead, it acts as a focus for competing claims to power over market share, political loyalty, votes etc (Peters, 1993: 560). While the Internet remains in a large number of private hands, its effects on democracy are more likely to remain positive. But Rheingold comments that "the odds are always good that big power and big money will find a way to control access to Virtual Communities; big power and big money always found ways to control new communications media when they emerged in the past." He argues that people can still make sure this new sphere of human discourse remains open "before the political and economic big boys seize it, censor it, meter it, and sell it back to us" (Rheingold, 1993: 4). The need for common technical and other standards means that large companies have the advantage (Stallabrass, 1995: 20). Commercial journalism that dominates general public discourse seeks a market, not a community (Schudson in Calhoun, 1993:153). Habermas shows that the traffic in news developed with the expansion of trade, and served the purposes of merchants who developed a need for better information about world events. This traffic in news itself became a commodity, and was subject to the laws of the marketplace (Habermas, 1989: 21). With the current explosion of numbers using Internet, pay-per-use is likely to be introduced to generate capital for services in high demand (Druick, 1995). Advertising Women and servants often took a primary role in the literary public sphere of the 17th and 18th centuries, but not in the political public sphere. But in the educated classes men viewed the political and literary spheres as identical with one another. "In the self-understanding of public opinion", by which I assume Habermas meant the educated men of the political public sphere, "the public appeared as one and indivisible. ...The fully developed bourgeois public sphere was based on the fictitious identity of the two roles assumed by the privatised individuals who came together to form a public: the role of property owners and the role of human beings pure and simple" (Habermas, 1989: 56). Habermas comments that this blurring of the category "human being" and "property owner" was easier to make because most of the members of the public sphere were both property owners and educated. This was because a person's education was a consequence of social status - which was determined by the extent of his property holdings. This allowed the freedom of the individual to converge with the interests of property owners. This bears significant resemblance to today's media, due to the concentration of media ownership and the pressures of providing editorial content suited to the higher socio-economic groups advertisers favour (Habermas, 19889: 56). I will discuss this further later in this chapter. Internet as a product The Internet can be seen as bringing people together in alienation rather than solidarity. Individual users do not see that the internet is produced by people in a political and economic structure. From this viewpoint, the Internet is seen as a commodity produced by programmers, paid system operators, and volunteers (Bad Subjects Production Team, (1995)). McChesney comments that the USA's Communications Act 1995 ensures that the market, rather than public policy, will direct the course of the Internet (McChesney): "It is, in effect, a pre-emptive strike by corporate America to assure that there will be little public intervention in the communication system in coming years, and that government will exclusively serve the needs of the private sector. To answer the question of whither the Internet, one need only determine where the greatest profits are to be found. Indeed the commercialisation of the Internet is growing at an exponential rate. More venture capital was invested in Internet companies in the first quarter of 1995 than in all of 1994." In the rush to commercialise, the Internet has created an investor frenzy. Forrester Research reports that total annual Internet-related revenues will increase from $300 million in 1994 to $10 billion by 1999. The profits will come from software, access fees and on-line services, hardware sales, consulting, market research, direct selling and advertising (McChesney). The Internet also provides an ideal forum for public relations. Many thousands of companies have already provided web sites that are not intended to generate profit, but are intended to generate brand loyalty, positive image and to collect demographic and other information about the customer. As the user gathers information about the product, the company can gather data about its customers, greatly enhancing its ability to create public acceptance and to influence buying behaviour (Stallabrass, 1995: 20). The cooperative ideology of the Internet's originators is clashing with capitalism. The Internet is complex and large, so users will be keen to find guidance (such as search engines, fast, reliable connections and research tools). Large companies have the opportunity to fill this need and the potential for large profits. The Internet has the potential to challenge the existing media monopoly and combat commodification's effects, but there are several powerful factors opposing this potential. This question is an important one for a mass medium in its infancy. Chatper 6: Public sphere potential In this chapter, I will discuss some issues that could work to restrict the internet's potential to revitalise the public sphere, and some issues that tend to support this. Supporting factors There are two important factors applicable to the Internet that do not overlap with traditional mass media, and which bear on the Internet's potential for democracy: 1. the anarchic nature of the Internet; and 2. interactive features which allow direct feedback to individual articles and opinions. Anarchy The structural features of traditional mass media that allowed media concentration to occur are not present on the Internet. For example, to be a television broadcaster one requires a television station and transmitter. There are a finite number of these, and as starting one is extremely expensive it is difficult for an individual or small group to own the means of production. To be a newspaper publisher one must have, or be able to pay for, the means of printing, bulk quantities of paper, and distribution mechanisms. The Internet, on the other hand, is not a physical structure. It is spread across an enormous number of computers across the world. I suppose it would be possible for a conglomerate to take control of these. However, the deliberately anarchic physical structure of the Internet (as is well known, built to withstand a nuclear attack) mitigates against this. It would be very difficult to identify every participating computer and to take control of it. It is conceivable that one or two large companies could buy up every Internet service provider, and control the means of distribution that way. There are a limited number of these in each location, and it is entirely possible for this amalgamation to occur. It will be interesting to watch the development of service providers in this light - will this limit the use of internet for democratic activism? If the Internet remains free of monopolistic control, McChesney questions whether in this case, the Internet will fulfil its potential and suggests it may remain on the margins of the media culture. However, while smaller media companies have less buying power and less influence in the market, this argument assumes that only large conglomerates can create worthwhile media, and that individuals and small publishers have nothing worthwhile to contribute. Perhaps the very conception of "mass media" may have to be revised, from that of communications by large companies to large groups of viewers, to smaller niche companies publishing for niche markets of specialty interests. It is far too early to predict which way this will go, but certainly the Internet has the potential to provide avenues for both large companies and small niche publishing. The Internet is unlike television, which has a finite number of licences to go around, and unlike newspaper or magazine publishing, where the cost of entry is prohibitive (McChesney). Interactivity One of the most distinctive features of the Internet as a medium is its interactivity. A journalist or television producer who writes an article or produces a TV show has only one main way to assess the impact and popularity of the item: numbers who buy the service as a whole. For example, an individual story on a news bulletin or current affairs show must rely on ratings figures to see if anyone is watching. This figure does not impart any evaluative information such as whether the viewer enjoyed the show, had any opinions on the content, disputed any of the facts presented, or had a different point of view to put forward. The Internet can provide that in relation to each item published, if the publisher so desires. It would be interesting to see the impact of "individual article" ratings on a newspaper. For example, an editor would be sure to look askance at a columnist whose individual ratings were poor, whose readers constantly questioned the facts presented, or whose opinions were seen as irrelevant or distasteful. On the Internet, all this is possible. This has significant implications for journalism and other writing on the Internet. Journalists will have to be far more responsive to their readers, and they will be forced to be more in touch with their needs and requirements. Lively discussions could ensue about particular issues; letters pages could become forums, where many more issues could be canvassed than is possible, for example, in one page of print. When a politician is quoted in a news item, the news service could include a "what did you think" interactive opinion page. This would lead to a forum for opinions, where each citizen could see the remarks of others, and contribute to an ongoing debate, between other citizens and between citizens and their political representatives. Complex arguments could be put forward, and responded to by the politician the following day. This could be much more sophisticated than the 'ring and tell us if you agree or disagree' system that some TV news bulletins provide. These are no more than the public opinion polls Habermas criticises for their lack of rational debate. All of these features are likely to contribute to a more responsive medium than current journalism is structured to be. This is likely to become a significant positive force for the formation of a collective political will and debate in the public sphere. Opposing factors A common view is that the free market tends to result in media which responds to and expresses the views of the people. However, there are some important reasons why this is misleading. Curran outlines various forces that tend to undermine the traditional mass media's ability to respond to and air the views of the people (Curran, 1991: 92). I will now discuss some of these in the light of the emerging mass medium of the Internet: restrictions on market entry; media concentration; advertising pressures; individual owners; unequal division of power and resources; and professional routines and values. The Internet is likely to face some of these problems in the next five to ten years. Market entry costs There are currently no restrictions on market entry other than rising financial ones for anything more than a basic web site. This situation may alter, for example, if Internet publishing companies were to gradually join forces as newspapers have, leaving very few people in control of web publishing. In this case, their relatively large financial resources would make it difficult for smaller publishers, community groups and individuals to compete for audiences, as small print magazine publishers do now. Concentration Recognising the impact of this new medium, large media companies, telecommunications and computing companies are acting to gain the most influence and control over the Internet as possible. This is likely to mean market dominance will become an increasingly powerful influencing factor on the Internet as a mass medium. This may follow the pattern that magazines, newspapers and other publications have in print media: an ever decreasing number of proprietors, leading to more media concentration. Rheingold argues that concentration of media owners poses a threat to democracy: "Which scenario seems more conducive to democracy, which to totalitarian rule: a world in which a few people control communications technology that can be used to manipulate the beliefs of billions, or a world in which every citizen can broadcast to every other citizen?" (Rheingold, 1993: 14). Advertising pressures In traditional media such as television and newspapers, the audience has become a product delivered to advertisers, and the programming a means to hold the right audiences' attention in order to deliver them. The number and type of people in the audience is paramount rather than the quality of the discourse created in the public sphere. The Habermasian public sphere ideal has never applied to anyone other than the relatively leisured, educated class. Significantly, the people who are using Internet belong mainly to the same group. These are the people who became computer-mediated communication users years ago and developed the social mores of the virtual communities Rheingold is so anxious to protect. Demographically, they also represent the lowest consumption of commercial mass media. A recent survey of Internet usage in Australia shows that when people use the Internet they reduce their usage of other media such as television and radio (WWW, 1996). This makes the Internet a plump target for advertisers who find it difficult to reach this group via established media. Advertisers are already beginning to use the medium. As web sites grow more graphically and technologically complex they require a heavier investment of capital to set up and maintain, making advertising support very attractive to web publishers. Already, large sums are changing hands for advertising on popular web sites. This may mean that net publishers will feel pressured to provide mass market appeal, leading to more conservative editorial choices. As sites begin to fund themselves by advertising support, their control over content must increase. These pressures will differ little from those applying to free to air television, which supports itself primarily through advertising. Even if the demographic makeup of Internet changes significantly, the imperative to gain large numbers of users would ensure that sites cater to majority mainstream tastes. However, if users are prepared to pay for use, this factor may be decreased. A recent survey in Australia showed that more than half of Internet users are prepared to pay for access to sites in some way (WWW, 1996). This may produce an interesting effect counter to the trends in other mass media. While the traditional mass media cater for a higher socio-economic group than the average, they are not as skewed to the high end as Internet citizens. It will be interesting to see how the editorial choices develop, and whether the constraints media like television face due to catering for a mass market will apply. Certainly the market will be much more segmented, due to the Internet's size. Individual owners In traditional media, powerful individual owners of large conglomerates mean that a few people can influence media output significantly, promoting their own interests and those of big business generally (Curran, 1991: 95). Since many of these conglomerates are already making inroads into Internet publishing, this is extremely likely to apply to their influence on the Internet. Unequal power and resources While entry to the Internet is certainly much cheaper than entry to any other mass medium, the costs are still high enough so that there is a class filter. There is already an unequal relationship between web publishers, for example those with the backing of large companies (like CNN) or universities, as against individuals or small community groups with limited funds. This is likely to become more marked as large companies begin to spend big sums on web publishing. The dimensions of social influence may be wider than in traditional mass media, but this does not necessarily alter the relative balance of power. As Langdon Winner puts it, "using a personal computer makes one no more powerful vis-a-vis, say, the National Security Agency than flying a hang glider establishes a person as a match for the US Air Force" (Winner in Rheingold, 1993: 288). However, an Internet user is not necessarily acting as an individual, but as part of a virtual community. This group action or discussion could allow an individual to exert more influence than they could alone. Traditional media structures audiences as a series of individuals or very small groups, whereas the Internet's potential for power is based on its ability to form larger groups who can organise politically. Professional routines Pressures arising from news values and professional routines are also likely to transfer to the Internet. As journalists working on print and television news services begin to transfer to working on Internet news services, their routines will change, but there is little reason to suppose they will change significantly. However, there are other professions entering the Internet arena besides journalists. Mitchell Kapor, designer of Lotus 1-2-3 and founding member of Electronic Frontier Foundation, comments that the main conflict for the Prodigy service in America (discussed in Chapter 3) was a conflict of metaphor. Prodigy saw their service as essentially a newspaper or magazine, which requires editorial control, while some of their customers saw it as a meeting place. Kapor comments, "Freedom of speech issues will not disappear simply because a service provider has tried to impose a metaphor on its service" (Kapor in Rheingold, 1993: 174). Kapor argues that we must decide what values we want to protect in the electronic society and decide how to protect the civil liberties that are central to it: "The late Ithiel de Sola Pool argued in his influential book Technologies of Freedom that the medium of digital communications is heir to several traditions of control: the press, the common carrier and the broadcast media" (Kapor in Rheingold, 1993: 174). Existing organisations are the most likely to publish on a large scale on the Internet, particularly as bandwidth increases and multimedia capabilities become a reality. The Internet already hosts broadcasting organisations (such as CNN in America and the ABC in Australia), publishing companies (such as News Ltd, Fairfax), telecommunications organisations (such as Optus and Telstra), and traditional magazine and book publishing companies (such as Butterworths and major booksellers). New organisations are springing up combining people from desktop publishing, advertising, graphic arts and print publishing of various kinds. Staff of these companies will combine as they move across Internet publishing ventures to create a new, combined professional ethic. It is far too soon to comment how these new work routines and professional norms will evolve. It is fair to say they will be different from existing ones, and that they will affect the content of the Internet as profoundly as professional routines have affected traditional media. But if the Internet remains as accessible to individual publishing as it is now, this will not be as dominant a force. Chatper 7: Conclusion As I have discussed, the Internet certainly has the capacity to expand participative democracy in a revitalised public sphere. While I have discussed some of the factors that will affect this capacity in Chapter 6, I will now draw together some of the points I have made throughout this thesis. Structure The Internet's structure means that it will be difficult for conglomerate telecommunications or media organisations to gain the type of control currently exercised over traditional media, even if they take control of Internet service providers. Compared to the traditional media, many more people have access to debate and opportunities for the formation of political will. They also have access to information that is hard to obtain from traditional news media. This will expand the public sphere and create opportunities for direct feedback with political representatives. Communities Audiences of traditional media act and debate individually or in small groups, while the Internet allows groups with particular interests to form, which expands the individual's area of influence. People with similar interests can find each other more easily, creating 'special interest' communities that are independent of physical location. Some areas of the Internet create a 'virtual community', such as Rheingold's community The Well, and Bad Subjects. Some newsgroups, MOOs and other Internet areas have strong, committed followings that can be considered virtual communities. It is possible that a reasoned political consensus can be formed in these communities on an international (but not global) level. In the long term, these groups could affect political debate in actually existing nationally- based democracies to some extent. The Internet can allow diverse social groups to get various kinds of support more easily than they can through other media. Advertising For the most part, the Internet is currently free of advertising pressures, so there is room for people to have in depth debate about matters of public concern. These can take place in a multiplicity of public spheres that overlap and intersect. This is not commercially possible in traditional media. Status The inherent characteristics of the Internet medium reduces status signification (but does not eliminate it), and encourages an equality of participation and decision making. This is one of the most significant factors that will affect communication on the Internet, and creates important potential for a real change in human communication. All of these factors support Rheingold's predictions of the Internet's enormous democratic potential. Frontier It is important to note that much of Rheingold's work is based on strong themes running through American communications thinking. The conjunction of highway metaphors and communications leading to economic and political dominance leads many enthusiasts to ascribe an exaggerated power to the Internet. The various metaphors for the Internet include "electronic frontier", "electronic agora", and "electronic marketplace". This shows that people pin widely disparate hopes on the Internet that can be described as misplaced technological utopianism. True meaning of "agora" I will now highlight some factors that reduce the Internet's potential to revitalise the public sphere. The Internet is dominated by white, well off, English speaking, educated males, most of whom are USA citizens. This is the same group that dominates most of the First World society. If their ability to form political will, debate issues and influence society is expanded by the Internet, this is no way resembles a truly participative discourse of democracy. This would demand that all parties that might be affect are included in the debate. While there is opportunity for subordinated groups to create communities and conduct debate, the topics raised for discussion in most areas of the Internet reflect the concerns of the dominant group, so that subordinate groups' concerns are not even debated. If the struggle for publicity is equivalent to the struggle for justice, then the internet puts most subordinated groups at a disadvantage. The dominance of one group has meant that a mode of discourse is already established (called "Netiquette"), which actively discourages other modes. This extends to the language spoken, the way a person expresses thoughts and the amount their ideas are responded to. Distance Communities based on mutual interests can form political will, but the changes they agree to are harder to implement in physical reality when members are physically distant, or the member's physically local community has disparate values. Commodification It is inevitable that the Internet will become commodified; the process has already begun. The original internet community had a custom of sharing information freely, a custom that is persisting today. However, as big business moves on to the Internet, this culture is diminishing somewhat. Many users will reframe their identities from citizens (or Internet users) to consumers. Publicity will become more prevalent as a mode of discourse. "Public' tends more and more to slide into 'publicity' and 'character' is replaced by 'image'" (Poster, (1)). Entry costs Entry costs for an attractive web site have already risen dramatically. Technology is improving, and large publishing businesses are creating sites full of imagery and a pleasing aesthetic. This means that individual's and small groups' web sites must compete with the professional know-how of commercially produced sites, raising the costs. Concentration As large media companies concentrate the number of publishers on the Internet, the number of voices will not necessarily diminish. This will tend not to exclude individual sites, but will mean that they are less visited, reducing their impact. The need to attract revenue to offset publication costs may encourage Internet publishers to cater to majority tastes, also reducing the possibility of access to useful information. Conclusion In conclusion, the explosion of direct participatory democracy Rheingold predicts is highly unlikely to eventuate. The Internet provides opportunities for limited revitalisation of the public sphere. These new opportunities are limited to privileged groups, but it is at least an increase in the activities of the public sphere, however modest. When new technology is first introduced, it is often limited to restricted "innovator" and "early adopter" groups (Windahl and Signitzer, 1992: 62). 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