Sept 22 Democratizing Democracy

Professor Galleys, reading Democratizing Democracy : Strong democracy, US Political Campaigns and the Internet, outlines the feature characteristics of the Internet which aid in political campaining. Cost, volume, directionality, speed, targeting, and convergence, are the six characteristics that directly contribute to democratizing throught the World Wide Web. The cheap cost of internet campaigning favors the candidates, creating an equal opportunity for both parties to offer quality websites and news sites to get information to the voters. The net does away with distance issues that have or could arise among coordinating campaign offices. The net convergences the forums of TV, Radio, and Print, to get the nessacary info to the voters at a rapid speed at a limitless volume. This means candidates can get there messages to the public in a timeless manner with no limit to how much can be expressed. That is a freedom for the campaigner which cannot be granted through the forums of tv, radio, or print alone.

So why does the Internet aid in the political democratic process? Its simple. Convenience. Besides those who act as political elites and are directly interested in searching the internet for political gargin, naturally the net increases the amouint of people who will be intrugied by political issues. Professor Galley states on the first page of this reading that the average person does not behave politically in daily life, but rather only when moves to do so for self-interest. To me that means that political campaigning forces politics to become self-interests when done so on the internet. You become part of the process when the process is brought to your self interest of browsing the web. The issues of politics of very much forced upon the cyber community. However, as stated in the reasing, “Community grows out of participation and at the same time makes paticipation possible.”(37). As long as the process of political campaigning on the net is equally favorable to both candidates, as well as the voters, then it surely holds the essence of democracy. Only time will tell if internet campaining will prove to show netusers resolving political conflict, and transending the idea of ‘Stong Democracy’.