Putting the democracy into eDemocracy: An investigation into the arguments for the democratic potential of the Internet

摘要

The Internet has engendered a considerable level of debate in political discourse since its emergenceas a tool in everyday life, and this discourse has grown exponentially as the importance of thismedium has increased. However, despite the transformational nature of the Internet technologically,the issues around the democratic potential of the Internet are not new . .Far from being a break withthe past, the eDemocracy discourse is essentially a continuation of the same theoretical questions thathave faced democracy for centuries. The tension between the redemptive and the pragmatic faces ofdemocracy has existed since the age of Athens and will continue to exist in the age of the Internet.Furthermore the discourse is heavily influenced by the appraisive nature of the concept ofdemocracy. The complexity and the value of democracy, and its constellation of concepts, isleveraged to further arguments about the Internet as a democratic technology. This thesis willinvestigate the political language in the eDemocracy discourse, and argue that the factors that shapeour perceptions of the Internet fall outside the technology itself and are influenced by centuries-oldpolitical paradigms.