International Journal of Communications Law & Policy

THE DEMOCRATIC POTENTIALS OF INTERACTIVE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES UNDER DISCUSSION - PROBLEMS, VIEWPOINTS AND PERSPECTIVES

By Olaf Winkel

Download the Paper in PDF Format: IJCLP Web-Doc 7-6-2001

Abstract

In more and more areas of society, communication and cooperation procedures are being carried out by IT-networks. Even politics have not been spared by this development, although it's in the beginnings here. This work wants to illuminate the perspectives of modern democracy under information-technical change with reference to appropriate empirical and theoretical knowledge. Apart from the introduction and the conclusion, it consists of three parts. In the first step, the main arguments of the controvert discussion, which had taken place in the last years concerning the democratic potential of interactive information technology, will be traced. The following thoughts represent an attempt to identify a mediate position between the different sides, which may develop into a new paradigm based more on pragmatic calculation than on theoretical approach. The third step brings up the question whether the existing practice of examining the developmental potential of democracy in the electronic age mainly in the triangle formed by politics, media public, and population, is still up-to-date under socio-technical circumstances of a digital information society. This publication was promoted by the Ministerium für Schule, Wissenschaft und Forschung des Landes NRW.

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