The Civic Networking Movement: The Internet as a New Democratic Public Space?

Abstract

Abstract For many, the commercial media are to blame for the current crisis of active citizenship. There is a convergence of opinion that newspapers, radio, and especially television, distort and trivialize deliberation and representation in the public space (Habermas 1989 [1962]; Fishkin 1991, 1995; Garnham 1986; Barber 1984). Others have made the small step from this prognosis to the assertion that new media of communication—the Internet, multimedia, and computer mediated communication (CMC)—can be used to encourage active political citizenship.