Ted Becker

Democracy beyond the information age: 21st century political communication

This article asserts that modern representative democracy was never intended nor designed to function as a democracy and that progress in the past two hundred years has come from the persistence of citizens operating outside established hierarchical power structures. A transformation of modern representative democracy is underway and information and communication technology (ICT) is a key component in the evolution of more participatory democratic governments. The failings of modern representative democracy are highlighted by the decline in voting turnout rates and a high level of dissatisfaction with and distrust of elected political leaders. While advances in technology and the expansion and availability of information can hinder and harm efforts to advance democracy, this article seeks to balance the discourse by emphasizing the potentials and benefits and by seeking solutions to problems in the representative systems. This is approached through the examination of four areas of enormous innovation and experimentation in utilizing ICT to develop new forms of greater citizen participation within representative democracy and for creating more effective direct democracy: voting from home, scientific deliberative polling, electronic town meetings and direct democracy activities. The main conclusion is that ICT has aided forces that favour a stronger infuence by citizens in representative government which is already in the process of being transformed as nations move towards the global economy and citizens insist on more self‐governance.

HEY, THE FUTURE IS BRAVE NEW WORLD + 1984: Two impressive but depressing books about the twenty-first-century global communications plutocracy

What is it about Academe these days? I can remember the halcyon times between 1965 and 1975 when college students challenged hierarchical values and many professors not only agreed with the theory and practices of the critique, but tried mightily to imagine new democratic ways of doing things. Sit-ins led to new courses, new methods of grading, and experimental infra-colleges that levelled the discourse between students, professors, administrators and various and sundry corporate and governmental visitors to campuses from Honolulu, to Berkeley, to New York City, to Paris, to Tokyo. Being a professor then was an engrossing and exciting experience. Imagination, innovation and optimism about the future were the order of the day. If one visits similar campuses today, there is such a vastly different atmosphere that it not only seems like a different eon, but a different planet. Aside from a few activistic dissidents and longhairs among the students, the vast bulk of them are careerist – at best. Many have one-nanosecond attention spans or are battle fatigued from working full time. Worse yet, there is the faculty, now divided between those who are active researchers (most of which is funded by corporate, foundation or governmental interests and which often have invisible strings attached) and those who are primarily teaching drones (three or four courses a semester with lots of non-tenured adjuncts doing a lion’s share of the classroom instruction).