The argument in favor

The Question

"Resolved: The Internet enables citizens to have a greater voice in politics and is, on balance, already a tremendous force for strengthening participatory democracies around the world." The students on both sides of this debate should use one or more explicit examples of the use of Internet in a campaign (issue or candidacy) to buttress their argument.

the argument against

Tentative Arguments:

A well-functioning democracy needs:

• A Strong, Unbiased, Informed Media
  • By aggregating potentially inflammatory/interesting stories, Global Voices raises the likelihood that one of those stories will become viral on the internet, or make the mainstream media. Therefore, GV gives a lone blogger the power to start the momentum that could solve the problem she writes about.
    • The faster a story becomes salient, the sooner those who might be interested in stopping it can act. It's easier to stop human rights abuses when they're still small.
  • In countries without a fair media, bloggers can fill the gap.
• Fair and Balanced Elections
  • It becomes possible for an outsider candidate without an established political machine to spread his message. (e.g. Yunus)
  • Internet is a low-cost media which can be used in promoting political campaign. This, thus, assists candidates that do not have much fund to be able to promote their campaign and other activities to the vast majority of people in just a click.
• Engaged Citizenry
  • Democracy needs an engaged citizenry. Citizens become engaged when they come to believe there is a serious problem that needs addressing. Seeing is believing. The internet enables single witnesses to 'show' everybody else the truth using firsthand accounts, YouTube videos etc. Liars/bullies/tyrants lose plausible deniability. The citizenry mobilizes against what they now believe is a violation of rights.
  • In general, the internet enables far-flung individuals to combine on big projects (Wikipedia). Could happen in the political sphere too.
    • One of the most important of the Wiki-liked features that can foster the participation of individual is that it can be easily updated by anyone from anywhere with access to the Internet, it is based on group collective knowledge. Even non-elite citizen can participate in this kind of forum.
  • The internet greases the wheels of political activity by otherwise un-engaged citizens. There might be voters who are unwilling to walk door to door to campaign, but are happy to send emails to their friends. Or they might be unwilling to go to the effort to stamp an envelope to send a donation, but will click on paypal. Once they're involved, they'll be on email lists, and Sunstein's idea of accidental exposure to other issues might motivate them to get further involved.
  • Internet can give some incentive to citizen to engage more in political activities since it is easy to access and convenient for people to find information online - tremendous information can be obtained in just one second. For example, if voting can be done through internet, the number of voting people will increase greatly since people tend not to go to cast their vote at the designated poll if it costs inconveniences for them to travel there (Geneva eVoting Project[1]). From the Pew survey, it seems that people is relying more on the internet for being their sources of political information [2]
• Educated Citizenry
  • Citizens have to know what they're missing and what they want in order to demand it of their governments. Individuals can educate each other faster and more thoroughly using the internet than they could without it. Though the structure of the internet enables government censorship, individuals can circumvent those controls, enabling other citizens to be educated about things the incumbent government doesn't want them to know. It's a tit-for-tat that would have never been possible before the internet. The secret police had only to destroy the printing press, and that was the end of it. This gives new power to individuals.
  • As we talked about on 2.13.07, perhaps the most effective way to campaign is by word of mouth. Individuals with Live Journals are able to "speak to" and perhaps convince grandma all the way across the country. That kind of discourse is important for a democracy. We may never know whether or how it changes votes, but it's good that people are discussing political issues.
    • Even if votes aren't changed right away, developing this way of discussing politics helps lay a foundation for a time when it will matter more. For example, if a big event happens, there will be a network of inter-connected bloggers and their readers to get the "real" story out, mouth to mouth, in a way that people trust. And it will be a tool for mobilizing people who already care.
  • The country/world gets smaller. Before you might have cared that control of the government came down to one close senate race in Virginia, but you might not have KNOWN about it, and even if you did there was nothing you could do about it. Now, people can educate others about things that matter to them that they otherwise wouldn't have been exposed to. And in return, those people can become involved by sending money, VOIPing people in that area etc.
• Transparency/Accountability
  • Any individual who happens to know can break a story. The major networks can no longer act as bottlenecks to stop important stories from getting out there (if they're in bed with the interested parties)
  • The internet enables extensive and fast fact checking. A person at a town hall with a candidate could have her laptop open and check voting records as the candidate answered a question, and expose the lie right away. Even if this doesn't happen often, candidates will know it can, and will be scared into more honesty, transparency.
  • Flip-flopping will be exposed. Romney and McCain can't get away with their recent pandering to the right because we have

Examples to Discuss

• Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus is running for office, and trying to use the internet to harness the grass roots. Click here for more. See his open letter here.
• In England, British citizens can petition the Prime Minister directly online. This system allows millions of British people to say what they want directly to the government. Right now, it is claimed that there are more than 1.4 million signatures (E-Petitions)