Democracy and the internet
He laments the decline of newspapers, magazines, television, and radio which he calls "general-interest intermediaries", and which he says not only exposed readers to diverse topics and points of view, but created "a shared experience, a social glue." In their absence, the current system of self-sorting diminishes the chances of our alerting to "the occasional, maybe infrequent legitimacy of the concerns of our fellow citizens."
Still, Sunstein notes that the "new technologies here are more opportunity than threat, and what is limiting the realization of the opportunity is the absence of relevant ideals in the minds of the people who are using and developing and innovating [these] technologies."
A solution he says lies in the recovery of "our aspirations as citizens and as providers of information." To counteract this we need to create "twenty-first-century equivalent of the kinds of public spaces and institutions where diverse people will congregate."
At NIMD we are committed to using the web to assist emerging democracies in this way. Our aim is to create, with our partners an online resource and knowledge centre where we can share stories, debate ideas and exchange experiences around our work. Our policy is to not only support open source technologies but open content sharing and a creative commons approach.
We believe our shared goal in the digital age - as advocates and supporters of better quality democracy, should be, as Sunstein suggests, to harness the power of the web to widen public debate, better disseminate vital ideas and expand political participation - a more vibrantly democratic world may well depend on it.
NIMD Soapbox (formerly known as 'Observations') is a blog about democracy and democracy assistance work.
