Culture and Politics in the Information Age (review)

Frank Webster has edited a collection of 12 essays, not all in harmony. But the moments when harmony falters reveal some of the most important questions and insights. The authors and their essays cluster under two broad headings: Part I—New Media, Politics and Culture, and Part II—New Social Movements. The first heading focuses on representation, while the second targets mobilization. Initially, the authors attempt to explain how the media represent politics. Later, in part 2, the authors explore social movements.

This essentially British collection attempts to represent the United Kingdom and to reach out to North America, and does so fairly well. Unabashedly, the editor filters his choices through eight themes: Technology, Globalization, Decline in National Sovereignty, End of the Collectivist Experiment, Pervasive Spread of Media, Recomposition of Stratification, Heightened Reflexivity, and Decline of Community. A few biases creep into his introductory remarks. For example, the panacea for global ills is seen as unrestricted capitalism in which competition is assumed. However, the editor does not impose his capitalistic views on the essays he includes. The 12 chapters challenge the careful reader with important questions, some answered and some left suspended.

One author, Howard Tumber, asserts that reduction of political coverage causes the public to be "starved politically of the workings of the democratic system" (18). He further claims "the information revolution is more about speculation and argument than about gathering information" (19). Whether the Fourth Estate can survive reduced objectivity and provide any true "watchdog role" is clearly brought into question. Media ownership potentially restricts openness.

Alan Scott and John Street suggest "that 'cultural turn' in the 'new politics' can easily be exaggerated, and the 'newness' of the 'new politics' needs to be analyzed more carefully" (32). John Tomlinson uses "proximity politics" as "a certain set of new political problems and issues that the globalization process confronts us with" (52). He employs "Charter 99: A Charter for Global Democracy," advanced as "an agenda for democratic governance before the September 2000 United Nations Millennium Assembly Summit," as a mechanism for analyzing the cosmopolitan position—proximity politics. Nick Stevenson asserts, "Current debates in respect of the development of new media technologies have a strong overlap with questions that are currently being asked about the nature of community" (69). While Kate Nash critiques Manual Castell's perspectives on the Information Age, she creates a model incorporating power that takes into account social structures. Sasha Roseneil examines "A moment of moral remaking" in the death of Princess Diana. She looks closely at the social drama that springs forth from the collective response, "a postmodern mixture of the old and the new, high culture and popular culture" (106).

In the second part of the book, the essayists examine social movements. Their analyses grow appropriately from the generative essays that preceded them. Within the framework of computer-mediated communication (CMC), Mario Diani approaches potential questions by focusing on the "communication between individuals and organizations, and on the spread of collective identities" (118). By hiding their personal identities, participants in electronic discussion groups miss some prerequisites of community. While participatory movement organizations provide "virtual extensions," sometimes low mutual trust is altered through the binding of small elites. Neil Washbourne provides a study of organizing Friends of the Earth through information technologies (IT). In doing this, he builds a case for translocation versus network. The expansion of IT use is valued by Friends of the Earth as a means to influence policy and debate and as an excellent fit with the organization's values.

Jenny Pickerill continues the study of computer-mediated communication in environmental groups by looking at three cases. She investigates influences on "the organizations and mobilization of participants, identity formation and changing repertoires of action" (143). As in Washbourne's essay, one of the three cases is Friends of the Earth. Drawing upon movement theories in her study, she ultimately observes that...