Democracy
& News
In most theories of participatory, liberal democracy, news and journalism are of critical importance as the tellers of factual stories from which citizens’ informed decision-making is made.
Over the last decade, there has been much analysis and debate surrounding civic news and journalism in the context of Internet-era technologies:
- Utopian: participatory circumvention of mass media & govt.
- Historical Moment: govt / market could end utopia
- 1 Step Ahead: "liberation technology" or "Extreme Democracy" outfox the dark side (think open source)
- "Monitorial citizenship"
- Self-reinforcing echo chamber of MSM
- New research: net users exposed to more & differing viewpoints
- Net displacement of TV and MSM
What is certain now is that the Internet is an unavoidably and increasingly
significant component of the U.S. political communications system.