Diana Saco: Cybering Democracy: Public Space and the Internet (2002)

The Internet has been billed by some proponents as an “electronic agora” ushering in a “new Athenian age of democracy.” That assertion assumes that cyberspace’s virtual environment is compatible with democratic practice. But the anonymous sociality that is intrinsic to the Internet seems at odds with theories of democracy that presuppose the possibility, at least, of face-to-face meetings among citizens. The Internet, then, raises provocative questions about democratic participation: Must the public sphere exist as a physical space? Does citizenship require a bodily presence?

In Cybering Democracy, Diana Saco boldly reconceptualizes the relationship between democratic participation and spatial realities both actual and virtual. She argues that cyberspace must be viewed as a produced social space, one that fruitfully confounds the ordering conventions of our physical spaces. Within this innovative framework, Saco investigates recent and ongoing debates over cryptography, hacking, privacy, national security, information control, and Internet culture, focusing on how different online practices have shaped this particular social space. In the process, she highlights fundamental issues about the significance of corporeality in the development of civic-mindedness, the exercise of citizenship, and the politics of collective action.

cyberspace, heterotopia, encryption, computer networking, Clipper chip, cyberpunk, ARPAnet, Foucault, personal computers, panopticon, ENIAC, mass media, Information Superhighway, Hacker Ethic, John Perry Barlow, newsgroups, Visible Human Project, Cypherpunks, participatory democracy, Neuromancer

Published by U of Minnesota Press, 2002
ISBN 0816635412, 9780816635412
296 pages
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The Internet in China: Cyberspace and Civil Society

The Internet in China examines the cultural and political ramifications of the Internet for Chinese society. The rapid growth of the Internet has been enthusiastically embraced by the Chinese government, but the government has also rushed to seize control of the virtual environment. Individuals have responded with impassioned campaigns against official control of information. The emergence of a civil society via cyberspace has had profound effects upon China–for example, in 2003, based on an Internet campaign, the Chinese Supreme People’s Court overturned the ruling of a local court for the first time since the Communist Party came to power in 1949.
The important question this book asks is not whether the Internet will democratize China, but rather in what ways the Internet is democratizing communication in China. How is the Internet empowering individuals by fostering new types of social spaces and redefining existing social relations?

The Internet in China: Cyberspace and Civil Society
By Zixue Tai
Edition: illustrated
Published by CRC Press, 2006
ISBN 0415976553, 9780415976558
365 pages
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Open Source Democracy: How Online Communication is Changing Offline Politics

The ‘open source’ movement in computer software is self-organising and decentralised; it also values participation over power. Douglas Rushkoff, the leading US commentator on digital culture, argues that democratic politics should work in the same way.

Open Source Democracy: How Online Communication is Changing Offline Politics
By Douglas Rushkoff
Published by Demos, 2003
ISBN 1841801135, 9781841801131
66 pages
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