Digital Communication- A New Form Of Democratic Participation

    I believe that Lincoln Dahlberg’s argument that digital networked platforms can enable new forms of democratic participation is more convincing and logical than Robert Putnam’s pessimistic view of digital communication as a force for disconnection and disengagement. Lincoln Dahlberg’s argument is more logical, because he has more evidence to support his claim. This evidence is presented in the form of a few different positions on democratic participation, which include the liberal-individualist, deliberative, counter-publics, and autonomist Marxist aspects.

    The liberal-individualist position can be defined as digital communication that transmits information between individuals. It can be used for decision making and requires an audience that already knows what they believe in. An example of this would be the online activist group: GetUP!, which advocates for environmental sustainability in Australia.

    The deliberative position can be described by considering the internet as a public form, which then forms a public opinion, builds a consensus, and offers a public chat room. This position is used while developing a decision, or debating a controversial issue. A current example of this would be gay marriage and national health care. Both issues have people who are uncertain about their beliefs and are willing to discuss the issues with others in order to change their opinion. This is a developmental process rather than a preconceived process.

   

    The counter-publics position considers the internet to be a place for activism and contestation. To re-state this in other words, not only can online forms offer new ways to make decisions, but online democratic participation can also be presented in forms of protest such as electronic civil disobedience and culture jamming. Electronic civil disobedience finds it’s inspiration from older forms of protests such as sit-ins, however they have been converted into a more modern form online. These modern adaptation can be seen in the forms of website crashing and overloading by the masses. Another form of protest is culture jamming, which is defined as viral messages that use appropriation, parody, and irony in order to make a point. Many of these examples are highly exaggerated, such as a viral bicycle lane protest video from New York stating that cyclists should not receive a ticket when leaving the bike lane if there are obstructions in the bike lane that prevent them from passing through safely. This form of protest takes the views of the dominant group, and challenges them in a way that could be accepted by the opposition (through satire, irony, parody, etc.).

 

    And finally, the autonomist Marxist position can be defined as digital communication that enables self-organizing, inclusion, and direct participation. This form of digital communication usually works outside of government and economic institutions. Information is freely shared and open to anyone in this form of communication, and an example of this would be the Occupy Movement, which falls under many of the requirements needed for this position. However, both a benefit and disadvantage to this form of communication is that it relies on a “community of singularities”, which claims that all people can learn to be democratic and that no leader is necessary because the masses can bond and work together towards a common goal. Many times, this may be effective, but other times, such as with the Invisible Children campaign, when there is no leader present the masses may be averted to the cause rather than empowered.

    Clearly, Lincoln Dahlberg’s argument is much more convincing due to the abundance of evidence that he uses to support his claim that digital networked platforms can enable new forms of democratic participation. Protest data collected by GDELT shows that civic engagement rates today are much higher than they used to be in the past. (Video can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN6B_myJW48 ) This could be  due to many factors, but I personally believe that the protest rate has increased due to how easy it is to find information and communicate ideas and opinions via online forms.