Transforming Democracy: The Politics of Cyberpolitics

Book Reviews Review Essay Transforming Democracy: The Politics of Cyberpolitics Davis W. Houck Cyberpolitics: Citizen Activism in the Age of the Internet. By Kevin A. Hill and John E. Hughes. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998; pp. 207. $49.00 cloth; $18.95 paper. Politics on the Nets: Wiring the Political Process. By Wayne Rash, Jr. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1997; pp. xii + 206. $22.95. Television and New Media Audiences. By Ellen Seiter. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998; pp. 154. $65.00 cloth; $19.95 paper. The Web of Politics: The Internet's Impact on the American Political System. By Richard Davis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999; pp. xvii + 225. $39.95 cloth; $18.95 paper. For the past three months, I've lived on a cul-de-sac in Tallahassee, Florida. There are eight other houses on the street. To date, I've met one neighbor and briefly seen two others. They seem always to be in a hurry. Garage doors and front doors are almost always closed tight. Window blinds are rarely up or open. It is very quiet here. My neighbors don't rake their own leaves or cut their own grass. These jobs are hired out. Neither do they wash their own new cars. I changed the oil in my car recently. A woman walking a dog gave me a long, troubled stare. I also get long stares when people drive past as I jog through the neighborhood. Occasionally, I'll see a van featuring a logo advertising plumbing, appliances, electrical or cable repair services driving around the cul-de-sac. I can't say that I'm terribly troubled by any of this; it seems to be the logical manifestation of some very important changes. The changes include longer hours at work, fewer stay-at-home parents, and a host of gadgets that seem to conspire to Davis W. Houck is assistant professor of communication at Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida. © Rhetoric & Public Affairs Vol. 3, No. 3, 2000, pp. 471-503 ISSN 1094-8392 472 Rhetoric & Public Affairs keep us indoors, safely sequestered from the neighbors. The most conspicuous of these gadgets, of course, is the personal computer. There are not many things that one can't do online. We can get the day's news from anywhere in the world; we can buy nearly any product—from a new car to discounted deodorant; we can research projects from myriad databases and archives; we can keep in "touch" with friends, family, and colleagues through e-mail; and we can watch real-time sex shows from Thailand to Topeka. And if we can't find community next door, we can certainly find it on the Bruce Springsteen Luckytown listserve or the Michelle Kwan Fan Forum. Generally speaking, if you haven't found it online, you're not looking hard enough. Who needs neighbors when the world is but a mouse click or a download away? The disembodied ethos of the Internet also pervades the world of online politics, the focus of this review. In many respects, the Internet is a natural "place" for political activity and discussion. As Thomas W. Benson notes, "Even during a political campaign, most Americans do not have a 'space' in which to discuss major issues of the day in a public and explicitly political context."1 Perhaps in the halcyon, prehyperlinked days of yore, politics was "done" over a picket-fenced suburbia or in a union-friendly tavern. These days, the appropriate space for politics is increasingly in AOL chat rooms, Usenet newsgroups, or a Web site's guestbook. But what are the implications of a disembodied phosphorescent politics? Who is occupying these spaces? How is the relatively new technology of the Internet being used to "do" politics ? How might we study Internet users, given the relative anonymity of cyberspace ? These are just some of the questions that scholars of politics and the Internet are attempting to answer. Unfortunately, so much of the conversation surrounding the Internet and politics is circumscribed by a Manichean concern with effects: the Internet will either usher in a new democratic utopia or it will foment a fragmented, postmodern dystopia...