Mobile Democracy

Mobile Democracy
Author: János Kristóf Nyíri
Publisher:
Total Pages: 456
Release: 2003
Genre: Cell phones
ISBN:

The Myth of Digital Democracy

The Myth of Digital Democracy
Author: Matthew Hindman
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2009
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 0691138680

Matthew Hindman reveals here that, contrary to popular belief, the Internet has done little to broaden political discourse in the United States, but rather that it empowers a small set of elites - some new, but most familiar.

From Machinery to Mobility

From Machinery to Mobility
Author: Jeffrey Roy
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 138
Release: 2013-06-01
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1461472210

The Westminster-stylized model of Parliamentary democratic governance is out of step with today’s digitally and socially networked world. The resulting context for public sector governance brings both promise and peril – with profound consequences for public servants, elected officials, and citizens alike. This book presents a timely and thorough examination of the main sources of tension between the political and administrative foundations of the traditional state apparatus, commonly referred to as ‘machinery’, and newly emerging alternative governance mindsets and mechanisms driven by the advent of ‘mobility’. Consistent with the emergence of Government 2.0, some of the critical technological and organizational dimensions of mobility include openness, cloud computing, privacy and security, and social media. Furthermore, a more informed, educated, and connected citizenry creates new pressures and opportunities for public engagement, particularly online. Blending conceptual and empirical perspectives from Canada and many other jurisdictions around the world, this book aims to provide scholars, students, and practitioners of democratic and public sector governance with fresh insight into both the prospects for reform and the critical choices that lie ahead for governments and citizens in an increasingly mobile and participative age.

Selfie Democracy

Selfie Democracy
Author: Elizabeth Losh
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2022-09-06
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0262370514

How politicians’ digital strategies appeal to the same fantasies of digital connection, access, and participation peddled by Silicon Valley. Smartphones and other digital devices seem to give us a direct line to politicians. But is interacting with presidential tweets really a manifestation of digital democracy? In Selfie Democracy, Elizabeth Losh examines the unintended consequences of politicians’ digital strategies, from the Obama campaign’s pioneering construction of an online community to Trump’s Twitter dominance. She finds that politicians who use digital media appeal to the same fantasies of digital connection, access, and participation peddled by Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, smartphones and social media don’t enable participatory democracy so much as they incentivize citizens to perform attention-getting acts of political expression. Losh explores presidential rhetoric casting digital media as tools of democracy, describes the conflation of gender and technology that contributed to Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016, chronicles the Biden campaign’s early digital stumbles in 2020, and recounts the TikTok campaign that may have spoiled a Trump rally. She shows that although Obama and Trump may seem diametrically opposed in both style and substance, they both used mobile digital media in ways that reshaped the presidency and promised a new kind of digital democracy. Obama used data and digital media to connect to citizens without intermediaries; Trump followed this strategy to its most extreme conclusion. What were the January 6 insurrectionists doing, as they livestreamed themselves and their cohorts attacking the Capitol, but practicing their own brand of selfie democracy?

Guerrilla Democracy

Guerrilla Democracy
Author: Bloom, Peter
Publisher: Policy Press
Total Pages: 292
Release: 2021-07-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1529205662

The liberating promise of big data and social media to create more responsive democracies and workplaces is overshadowed by a nightmare of election meddling, privacy invasion, fake news and an exploitative gig economy. Yet, while regressive forces spread disinformation and hate, 'guerrilla democrats' continue to foster hope and connection through digital technologies. This book offers an in-depth analysis of platform-based radical movements, from the online coalitions of voters and activists to the Deliveroo and Uber strikes. Combining cutting edge theories with empirical research, it makes an invaluable contribution to the emerging literature on the relationship between technology and society.

Digital Disconnect

Digital Disconnect
Author: Robert W. McChesney
Publisher: New Press, The
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2013-03-05
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 1595588914

Celebrants and skeptics alike have produced valuable analyses of the Internet's effect on us and our world, oscillating between utopian bliss and dystopian hell. But according to Robert W. McChesney, arguments on both sides fail to address the relationship between economic power and the digital world. McChesney's award-winning Rich Media, Poor Democracy skewered the assumption that a society drenched in commercial information is a democratic one. In Digital Disconnect McChesney returns to this provocative thesis in light of the advances of the digital age, incorporating capitalism into the heart of his analysis. He argues that the sharp decline in the enforcement of antitrust violations, the increase in patents on digital technology and proprietary systems, and other policies and massive indirect subsidies have made the Internet a place of numbing commercialism. A small handful of monopolies now dominate the political economy, from Google, which garners an astonishing 97 percent share of the mobile search market, to Microsoft, whose operating system is used by over 90 percent of the world's computers. This capitalistic colonization of the Internet has spurred the collapse of credible journalism, and made the Internet an unparalleled apparatus for government and corporate surveillance, and a disturbingly anti-democratic force. In Digital Disconnect Robert McChesney offers a groundbreaking analysis and critique of the Internet, urging us to reclaim the democratizing potential of the digital revolution while we still can.

India Connected

India Connected
Author: Ravi Agrawal
Publisher:
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2018
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0190858656

With the rise of low-cost smartphones and cheap data plans, millions of Indians are now discovering the internet for the first time, and the implications are as vast as the country itself.

Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics

Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics
Author: Nanjala Nyabola
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 291
Release: 2018-11-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 178699433X

From the upheavals of recent national elections to the success of the #MyDressMyChoice feminist movement, digital platforms have already had a dramatic impact on political life in Kenya – one of the most electronically advanced countries in Africa. While the impact of the Digital Age on Western politics has been extensively debated, there is still little appreciation of how it has been felt in developing countries such as Kenya, where Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and other online platforms are increasingly a part of everyday life. Written by a respected Kenyan activist and researcher at the forefront of political online struggles, this book presents a unique contribution to the debate on digital democracy. For traditionally marginalised groups, particularly women and people with disabilities, digital spaces have allowed Kenyans to build new communities which transcend old ethnic and gender divisions. But the picture is far from wholly positive. Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics explores the drastic efforts being made by elites to contain online activism, as well as how 'fake news', a failed digital vote-counting system and the incumbent president's recruitment of Cambridge Analytica contributed to tensions around the 2017 elections. Reframing digital democracy from the African perspective, Nyabola's ground-breaking work opens up new ways of understanding our current global online era.

Measuring Democracy

Measuring Democracy
Author: Gerardo L. Munck
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 202
Release: 2009-04-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0801890934

Drawing on years of academic research on democracy and measurement and practical experience evaluating democratic practices for the United Nations and the Organization of American States, the author presents constructive assessment of the methods used to measure democracies that promises to bring order to the debate in academia and in practice. He makes the case for reassessing how democracy is measured and encourages fundamental changes in methodology. He has developed two instruments for quantifying and qualifying democracy: the UN Development Programme's Electoral Democracy Index and a case-by-case election monitoring tool used by the OAS.

Liberation Technology

Liberation Technology
Author: Larry Diamond
Publisher: JHU Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2012-07-30
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1421406985

The revolutions sweeping the Middle East provide dramatic evidence of the role that technology plays in mobilizing citizen protest and upending seemingly invulnerable authoritarian regimes. A grainy cell phone video of a Tunisian street vendor’s self-immolation helped spark the massive protests that toppled longtime ruler Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, and Egypt’s “Facebook revolution” forced the ruling regime out of power and into exile. While such “liberation technology” has been instrumental in freeing Egypt and Tunisia, other cases—such as China and Iran—demonstrate that it can be deployed just as effectively by authoritarian regimes seeking to control the Internet, stifle protest, and target dissenters. This two-sided dynamic has set off an intense technological race between “netizens” demanding freedom and authoritarians determined to retain their grip on power. Liberation Technology brings together cutting-edge scholarship from scholars and practitioners at the forefront of this burgeoning field of study. An introductory section defines the debate with a foundational piece on liberation technology and is then followed by essays discussing the popular dichotomy of “liberation” versus “control” with regard to the Internet and the sociopolitical dimensions of such controls. Additional chapters delve into the cases of individual countries: China, Egypt, Iran, and Tunisia. This book also includes in-depth analysis of specific technologies such as Ushahidi—a platform developed to document human-rights abuses in the wake of Kenya’s 2007 elections—and alkasir—a tool that has been used widely throughout the Middle East to circumvent cyber-censorship. Liberation Technology will prove an essential resource for all students seeking to understand the intersection of information and communications technology and the global struggle for democracy. Contributors: Walid Al-Saqaf, Daniel Calingaert, Ronald Deibert, Larry Diamond, Elham Gheytanchi, Philip N. Howard, Muzammil M. Hussain, Rebecca MacKinnon, Patrick Meier, Evgeny Morozov, Xiao Qiang, Rafal Rohozinski, Mehdi Yahyanejad