Modern democracy, scarcely 200 years old, attempts to perform a grand juggling act between the interests of the governed and the governing, between the powerful and the powerless. Initiated long before the world was "wired" and before the existence of today's multi-national corporations, democracy as a means of managing society's affairs, may not be evolving adequately to maintain its relevance in today's dynamic world. Far from being obsolete, democracy might even be more necessary than ever. To help achieve the vitality and effectiveness that society requires we will need to pay much more attention to democracy now than ever before.
The use of the Internet, as everybody knows, is growing worldwide at a staggering rate. Most indicators including number of users, transactions, web sites and total traffic are doubling once, twice, or more every year, and new applications are being introduced almost daily. At the same time, media "convergence" is blurring the old lines that separated traditional media. Clearly the Internet and its future incarnations are the scaffolding of an immense new technological edifice of information and communication that has been heretofore virtually unimaginable. As Nathan Mitchell, a student of mine, remarked, the information infrastructure that could actually allow a relatively small number of institutions (be they government, corporate, or what-have-you) to "rule the world" is now basically in place. On the other hand many writers suggest that a new world of extremely decentralized communication awaits us, where neither governments nor corporations can wield their power effectively.
Irrespective of such conflicting forecasts, the point remains that larger, more powerful, and resource-rich institutions are more favorably positioned for deploying new information technology to further their agenda than those who are less organized and have fewer resources (Innis, 1991). Moreover, the capitalist ideology (or "non-ideology") provides an organizing principle of such magnitude that any resistance to it may be futile. While there is no shortage of optimistic sentiments on the democratizing potential of the new medium, an astonishingly small amount of effort has been expended to understand or realize that potential.
One of the most important and timely of the critical issues introduced by media convergence and globalization is ensuring that the new systems are democratic and they are at least partially governed through democratic practices. Unfortunately there is ample evidence that, without citizen and government influence and, possibly, intervention, these systems will come to resemble American commercial television, a broadcast medium which exhibits some characteristics of a democratic medium but cannot by any reasonable argument be considered democratic.
The practice of democracy, if it is taken seriously at all by a society, requires investment, conceptually, institutionally, and materially. Conceptually, a society needs to cherish the notion of democracy and to consider it as an everyday responsibility. One aspect of this conceptualization is the existence of foundational ideas and verbiage that can motivate and organize. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights in the United States help serve this purpose. (By way of contrast, a corporation whose sole aim is returning the highest profit to investors, would not be expected to promote democracy if that reduced profits in any way.) Institutionally, a society needs processes and agencies that promote democracy and are sustainable and capable of evolving to meet changing circumstances. Materially, a society needs to support those institutions with reliable funding that can be used for personnel, books, printing, computers, buildings, or scores of other needed goods and services. And as society changes, the nature of the investment will change, but not the goal: a healthy democracy.
Some of the investments we will need to make are based on the reasonable assumption that present trends will continue. If, for example, government continues to make information and services available electronically, then people who have access already (and who generally have more income already) will see their advantage increase. Thus putting more information and services on-line without improving access to people in rural areas and to people with fewer resources exacerbates the crisis in democracy still further. Also, if at some point in the future the Internet does in fact become the primary way through which people engage in democratic work, then those without access are further hindered from engaging in this type of work. If democracy is deemed important, then those two scenarios signal a clear need for universal access and for a corresponding non-trivial investment to secure that end.
The Internet, as it currently exists, does in fact have several attributes that encourage thinking about it as a democratic medium. Part of this can be traced to the design principles that were established early in its evolution. The lack of centralized control (and the ability of data packets to find alternative routes to their destination if the need arises) suggests to many people that censorship or other attempts at control will be thwarted. Other attributes are a result of social design in the early days; the strongly libertarian support for free speech, the sharing culture that permeated nearly all aspects of Internet use, and the outright prohibition on commercial use by the (U.S.) National Science Foundation, for example. The Internet's most significant contribution was the idea of unmediated many-to-many communication on a large scale, through newsgroups, IRC, MUDs, and numerous other modes. This new species of communication ignored the boundaries established with broadcast media (such as newspapers or radio) and with one-to-one media (such as letter writing or telephony). Finally, the reality of the Internet as a massive digital network with open standards suggested that universal and inexpensive access to a wide variety of communication media and models could actually be attained.
It would be a mistake to discount the role of perception in the evolution of a new communication technology like the Internet. Nobody, for example, expects commercial television in the US to be democratic. This observation suggests that the battle for democratic television (if there ever was such a battle) is more or less over; the private sector won, the public lost. Thus, how people (and institutions, companies, and governments) perceive the Internet may be the strongest influence on what shapes it assumes. If the Internet is seen only as a new way to sell products, then it is likely to assume that role. With commercial television as a role model, the idea of democracy on the Internet may become yesterday's quaint vision.
Effective Participation. The criterion of effective participation suggests that all citizens that are eligible to participate in the democratic process can do so on an equal footing. This simple criterion has many important and far-reaching implications, not the least of which is society's obligation to address poverty, arguably the most formidable barrier to effective participation. If the Internet is to become a platform for democratic work then we must consider the location, method, and timing through which political participation occurs. Also, as I have pointed out elsewhere (Schuler, 1998), few, if any, procedures currently exist on the Internet for deliberation and decision-making. In the non- virtual world these functions are addressed by Robert's Rules of Order (1971), legislative processes, and a host of other procedures.
Voting Equality at Decision Stage. This criterion is often mistaken for the democratic process as a whole. Voting is a necessary, but far from sufficient, aspect of a democratic society. Nevertheless, as it is probably unnecessary to point out, there is no voting on the Internet in government elections. Interestingly, the incorporation of voting, although critical to the democratic process as a whole, in the absence of the other criteria, would not be democratic. For one thing, it would further tilt the (im)balance of power, already in a state of crisis, further in the direction of the already powerful by making their participation easier still. For another thing, it would raise the specter of governing by public opinion through instant plebiscites molded by hysteria and reaction, actually preventing the "due deliberation" that democracies rely upon.
Enlightened Understanding. Although Dahl's third criterion (which is "rich in meaning and correspondingly ambiguous") implies that citizens who are aware of the facts, players, precedents, related situations, history, and any other relevant information of a given political matter are in a better position to contribute to democratic deliberation and decision-making. Supporting this criterion throughout society would require a major, multi-pronged attack. For citizens in a society to be able to deliberate with "enlightened understanding" on an important topic like "electronic democracy," for example, the existence of high-quality public education system, widespread Internet training, and numerous public forums (both face-to-face and virtual) would be necessary.
Control of the Agenda. Citizens, according to Dahl, must have the opportunity to decide what and how matters are to be placed on the public agenda. As with the others, this criterion has been woefully neglected. The major lapse in relation to the Internet has been the lack of public discussion on the Internet itself. The idea, for example, that the Internet could be "owned" by the public in some way has never surfaced in the traditional media organs for public discourse in spite of the fact that the Internet's development was underwritten by the American taxpayer. Although substantial evidence exists that the public is interested in democratic uses of the Internet (Piller, 1994), these issues, again, rarely surface. Meanwhile there is considerable evidence that these public issues are being ignored by corporations and governments. The Los Angeles Times, for example, revealed that the Microsoft Corporation was planning a phony "grass-roots" campaign in which it would pay people to write op-eds, contact their elected officials, and otherwise influence public opinion while hiding the fact that the entire campaign was orchestrated by the corporation (April 10, 1998). Recently (May 9, 1998) at a conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on "Democracy and Electronic Media" Ira Magaziner, the leading Internet policy person in the Clinton administration spoke for nearly an hour extolling the virtues of the Internet as an economic engine. Although his session was nominally devoted to "first principles of democracy" his presentation did not contain the word "democracy."
Inclusiveness. This criterion states that "all adult members of the association except transients and those mentally deficient must have all the rights of citizenship." In this regard, the Internet falls dismally short. In the US, for example, Internet penetration is barely over 20% and the percentage falls precipitously when looking at Internet use in lower income populations (Novak and Hoffman, 1998). This, again, demonstrates the profound barrier that economic inequality erects for participation. Any serious discussion about democracy on the Internet, therefore, needs to begin with a discussion of inclusiveness.
When the idea of government support in the U.S. is brought up, a common retort is that "things are moving too fast" for government to play an effective role. While we do know that things are moving very quickly (the web is scarcely 7 year old!) the conclusion that the government should step aside does not follow logically as a consequence. Following that advice the government should not get involved until things are moving at the exactly the right speed -- whatever that speed might be. We need to remember, moreover, that some things are not changing -- or at least shouldn't be changing -- and these are our democratic ideals and principles; ideals and principles that do not become obsolete with new web browsers or faster CPUs; ideals and principles that become more important, perhaps, when things are actually moving "too fast."
The rapid change in technology is, however, not without important implications for those projects that seek to institutionalize democracy. One is, for example, that we cannot become wedded to one technology; New technologies have notoriously brief life spans. Because of the interactive possibilities raised by the technology, another important implication is that we don't know how various technological approaches will serve needs of various user populations. Many assumptions, historically, about building groupware applications, for example, turned out to be wrong or misleading (Grudin, 1994). When we enter a technological environment with new bells, whistles, and untested hypotheses appearing daily, it's unreasonable to assume that we know how things will work out. The models, therefore, that we advance must of necessity be tentative, experimental, flexible, and capable of evolving.
The Seattle Community Network (http://www.scn.org), operating since January 1994 is one of hundreds of such systems. SCN, unlike many community networks has an explicit set of principles that contain "commitments" to access, service, democracy, the world community, and to the future. SCN has over 13,000 registered users and provides a home for scores of community home pages. SCN unlike many other community networks is run entirely by volunteers. In some ways this is a benefit; for one thing it makes SCN unbeholden to other interests. Unfortunately, SCN's total reliance on volunteers helps make service uneven and makes its long-term sustainability questionable. Finally, community networks help support democratic participation (along with other community "core values" [Schuler, 1996]: (1) conviviality and culture; (2) education; (3) strong democracy; (4) heath and well-being; (5) economic equity, opportunity, and sustainability; and (6) information and communication) in a variety of ways (Schuler, 1998) including:
Part of the answer, I believe, lies in the development of models that incorporate both paid professional and unpaid volunteer labor. If this model is well-designed and implemented two purposes are served: the state is expending its resources responsibly and the volunteers are getting the benefits of an ongoing civic education. The second point shouldn't be overlooked; over reliance on the state for "democratic work" is a contradiction in terms : democracy is work for all citizens. This can benefits for those who yearn for smaller governments. The more work that citizens perform in this area, the less work, in theory, that the state would need to perform, and the farther the state's finite resources can be stretched. But weakening the state is not an objective in itself; promoting and preserving democratic institutions and practices in a changing world is arguably the most important responsibility of democratic governments.
The case can be made that a democratic society is a profitable one for corporations. Certainly if democracy helps produce a good crop of consumers, workers, and a good, safe setting for the corporation (thus preventing or lowering other expenses) then democracy can be said to "pay for itself" and can be thought of as a good investment and a recurring, justifiable cost of doing business. In most cases, however, corporations both in individual instances and as aggregates will not be willing to pay costs beyond their perceived value: this outlay of funds, however good for society, would be bad from a business point of view.
While it's clear that taxes can be too high on corporations (preventing, for example, reinvestment in the company), a reasonable one, equitably levied, is not inappropriate especially when it leads to increased well-being of society through democratic participation. Unfortunately, in the United States corporations may not even want to pay a fair share, and corporate lobbyists are highly skilled, influential and ubiquitous. One of their basic duties has been to reduce their tax burden and they have been spectacularly successful in the past few decades (Phillips, 1990). Nor is this impulse confined to the U.S. Companies all over the world are flexing their muscles as well. The Financial Times (March 27, 1998) for example reported that Erickson, the large Swedish firm, has threatened to move out of its home country if their taxes are not lowered.
Unfortunately most corporations are unlikely to support any taxation that was used to develop and maintain democratic institutions on the Internet without a prolonged struggle. Some corporations, moreover, are likely to oppose substantial democratization of the Internet as this could possibly result in less profit, and, possibly, threats to their own increasing hegemony. On this score, however, I believe, perhaps naively, that this distaste for democracy proceeds less from their thirst for unlimited power, and more from their systemic need to maximize profits over all other possible ends.
Government has unique societal obligations that must be applied in the realm of new electronic media. Some of these obligations include universal access so that poor and other groups are not excluded; protection of personal privacy; free access to clear and well-organized government information; and, in general, the creation and nurturing of new, non-commercial public space on the Internet where the information and communication needs of democratic communities can continue to be addressed even as the world in which we all live is changing daily. Community networks, I believe, represent an important early step in the development of the new public spaces. Finally, harkening back to Dahl's criteria, "enlightened understanding", however subject to variable interpretations, is key to democracy. With attention shifting to high technology and globalism, it's important not to forget that high-quality public education and public libraries are fundamental cornerstones to democracy.
Since "democracy" is not a commodity (especially not a profitable one) companies are unlikely to demonstrate the necessary resolve to help ensure democracy on the Internet and in other new communication technologies. As a consequence the only conceivable avenue for forward direction in this area is from citizens and their democratic governments, which, after all, are intended to work "by the people, for the people, and of the people." Unfortunately I am not confident of success in this endeavor. I suspect quite strongly that business will resist to the best of their ability any action that would reduce their influence or ability to make money, even if they believed that society as a whole would benefit. Unfortunately that reluctance bodes ill for any movement to institutionalize democracy on the Internet and beyond.