Abstract
Does an increasingly interconnected world provide new opportunities for civil society to enhance democratic practice — or are human relationships diminished and emptied of their vitality as carefully constructed online profiles proliferate? Debates have emerged about the efficacy of adigital democracy and its ramifications for public politics.This paper follows the specific argument concerning some of the claims from online proponents of the potential of the Internet to create a more informed and accountabledemocratic culture. It is concerned with questions of the transmission of values and some of the cognitive aspects of this technology.5ome techno-futurists are in no doubt concerning the political implications of a more interconnectedage; others are more sanguine about the intrusiveness ofthis new technology. For example, there are numerousclaims concerning the potential for Internet-based forums to enrich democratic practice, of breaking-down sovereign borders and establishing a pluralistic transnational globalpublic sphere.On the other hand, political realists are skepti-cal of new communications technology and its potential totransform democratic life, which is still essentially embed-ded in the polity of nation states. This paper does not add tothis burgeoning literature, but rather focuses on “democratic values” by posing questions about “digital democracy” and whether or not this new technology is leading to greaterlevels of public participation, social inclusion and empathy. The article concludes with questions and considerationsabout language, thought and judgment, and whether ornot this latest transformation of the publicsphere and newexperimentation with novel forms of communicative action,fundamentally alter our traditional conceptions of the inter-subjective basis of political reasoning.
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