Pippa Norris: Theories of Digital Democracy- The Internet and Democracy (1)
Pippa Norris is a political scientist and a public speaker at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
In her book Digital Divide, Pippa Norris is presenting the theories of Digital Democracy (chapter 5 of the book). In fact, she followed the development of technologies, and studied the impact of the digital divide on environment, becoming a technological environment (Norris, 2000, p1).
Moreover, since technology has been spread and used in all domains, she focused on the virtual political system emerging, and more specifically on the way governments and civic societies are approaching the process of adaptation to information technologies (Norris, 2000, p1). Civic societies are important; these institutions are political parties, interest groups, news social movements, and news media. They are playing a role of mediator between the public (the citizens), and the government, since they present their demand (demand of the population) to the parliament and to executive cabinets, and at the same time, bring information about governments to the public (Norris, 2000, p1).
The actual problem that is facing more democratic states is that the pubic is no longer satisfied of the way civic societies are playing their roles and defending the rights of citizens. The social engagement is in crisis, as well as the essence of democracy (Norris, 2000, p2). Citizens and the population need to have more “power” in the nation state, they need to participate in the political life of their countries, since political parties and other institutions representing the population are no longer trusted (Norris, 2000, p2). Citizens need more direct decision making, and more referendum; ways to make people more part of the political life and more implicated.
The solution to this “crisis of democracy”, to the view of cyber optimists, could be the digital technologies (Norris, 2000, p2).
In fact, since more and more people tend to pick information from the Internet, and develop their political knowledge from the Internet, they tend to become more motivated and interested to the political life of their countries (Norris, 2000, p2).
People create discussion room online, chat room, e-mailing information, and make more people aware of the public affairs. The Internet is a two-ways communication channel. It allows an interaction and a rich connection between the institutions of the civic society and publics with the government, being local, regional or national representatives (Norris, 2000, p2).
The digital technologies also allows the involvement of the publics into the public life, and it destroys the barriers present between the government and the marginalize population, not implicated into the public life (Norris, 2000, p2). It allows the mobilization of population, the ability to develop campaign issues, and to target new public sphere (Norris, 2000, p2). The Internet is capable of promoting democracy, by the development of electronic voting for referenda and elections, and at the same time, it reconnects the citizens with the political development of their countries (Norris, 2000, p3).
In her book Digital Divide, Pippa Norris is presenting the theories of Digital Democracy (chapter 5 of the book). In fact, she followed the development of technologies, and studied the impact of the digital divide on environment, becoming a technological environment (Norris, 2000, p1).
Moreover, since technology has been spread and used in all domains, she focused on the virtual political system emerging, and more specifically on the way governments and civic societies are approaching the process of adaptation to information technologies (Norris, 2000, p1). Civic societies are important; these institutions are political parties, interest groups, news social movements, and news media. They are playing a role of mediator between the public (the citizens), and the government, since they present their demand (demand of the population) to the parliament and to executive cabinets, and at the same time, bring information about governments to the public (Norris, 2000, p1).
The actual problem that is facing more democratic states is that the pubic is no longer satisfied of the way civic societies are playing their roles and defending the rights of citizens. The social engagement is in crisis, as well as the essence of democracy (Norris, 2000, p2). Citizens and the population need to have more “power” in the nation state, they need to participate in the political life of their countries, since political parties and other institutions representing the population are no longer trusted (Norris, 2000, p2). Citizens need more direct decision making, and more referendum; ways to make people more part of the political life and more implicated.
The solution to this “crisis of democracy”, to the view of cyber optimists, could be the digital technologies (Norris, 2000, p2).
In fact, since more and more people tend to pick information from the Internet, and develop their political knowledge from the Internet, they tend to become more motivated and interested to the political life of their countries (Norris, 2000, p2).
People create discussion room online, chat room, e-mailing information, and make more people aware of the public affairs. The Internet is a two-ways communication channel. It allows an interaction and a rich connection between the institutions of the civic society and publics with the government, being local, regional or national representatives (Norris, 2000, p2).
The digital technologies also allows the involvement of the publics into the public life, and it destroys the barriers present between the government and the marginalize population, not implicated into the public life (Norris, 2000, p2). It allows the mobilization of population, the ability to develop campaign issues, and to target new public sphere (Norris, 2000, p2). The Internet is capable of promoting democracy, by the development of electronic voting for referenda and elections, and at the same time, it reconnects the citizens with the political development of their countries (Norris, 2000, p3).
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