1st Edition

Internet and Democracy in the Network Society

226 Pages 16 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

226 Pages 16 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

226 Pages 16 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

A seminal shift has taken place in the relationship between Internet usage and politics. At the turn of the century, it was presumed that digital communication would produce many positive political effects like improvements to political information retrieval, support for public debate and community formation or even enhancements in citizen participation in political decision-making. While there... Read more

Series Editor’s Foreword

Preface

  1. Introduction
  2. Network Properties and Democracy
  3. Political Participation and Inclusion
  4. The Reconstruction of Public Space in Democracy
  5. Digital Media and Networking Opportunities for Depolarizing Political Discourse
  6. Co-authored by Ben Mollov, Bar-Ilan University, Israel

  7. From Arab Spring to Winter
  8. Making Sense of China and Digital Democracy
  9. E-Government and Democracy
  10. Conclusions

Biography

Jan A.G.M. van Dijk is an internationally recognized expert in the field of communication, his specific interest being new media studies. Van Dijk is the author of among The Network Society (1999, 2006,2012), The Deepening Divide (2005) and Digital Skills (2014). As a professor of Communication Science at Twente University, van Dijk teaches and develops the sociology of the information society, in particular the social-cultural, political, and organizational aspects. 

Kenneth L. Hacker is Professor and Department Head of Communication Studies at New Mexico State University. His does communication science research in the areas of a) political communication, b)new communication technologies, c) communication and national security, and d) military family interactions. He edited two books on presidential campaign communication and one (with Jan van Dijk) on digital democracy. 

'Two leading thinkers who produced seminal texts on digital democracy and the network society when these were nebulous possibilities for most of us  have teamed up. The result is a prescient and engaging book that invites all to rethink the future of networked media and democracy.' - Zizi Papacharissi, Professor and Head of Communication, Professor of Political Science, University of Illinois

'This book is a timely, thoughtful and thought-provoking volume on the state of politics and democracy in an increasingly networked society, dealing with a plethora of hot-button issues such as filter bubbles and fake news. The fact that this book bears almost no resemblance to Digital Democracy (2000) makes one realize the seismic shift in internet-based politics just in the last 18 years, and how profoundly it has affected democracies as well as autocracies.' - S. Shyam Sundar, Distinguished Professor, The Pennsylvania State University