Tecnologías de la Información, ¿motor de participación o de dominación?

Abstract

In recent years, discourses about the democratising potential of the Internet and social networks have proliferated. The theoretical spectrum in which these discourses are located range from the consideration of the Internet and social networks as a complement to the procedures and techniques used by representative democracy (as a "digital democracy"), to their potential to generate new forms of citizenship as part of a move towards a new direct and participatory democracy of a horizontal nature. The analysis described here explores the extent to which the Internet and social networks are changing the relationship between governments and citizens, and whether they do in fact constitute another means of constructing citizenship and democratic political participation, through social mobilisation, moving towards a sense of strong, direct democracy and even the possibility of participatory self-government.