I Hear America Tweeting and Other Themes for a Virtual Polis: Rethinking Democracy in the Global InfoTech Age

Abstract

Are information technologies good for democracy? Could cyberspace be a more democratic “place” in the world? To explore these questions, this article juxtaposes the supposedly democratizing effects of information technologies against Walt Whitman's and John Dewey's idealized “aesthetic democracy,” a passionate relationship that embodies a public spirit toward oneself and one's fellow citizens. Although information technologies are often understood as a means to increase or deepen democracy, such claims equate democracy with a set of practices or forms, but the forms themselves are not inherently democratic. Aesthetic democracy, I argue, sheds light on the democratic pitfalls and possibilities of information technologies and cyberspace. This article provides a theory of aesthetic democracy for the cyber-environment by first exploring the difference between effects on democratic governance versus effects on democracy and then developing the concept of aesthetic democracy. The next section applies aesthetic democracy as a critique of information technologies and cyberspace. The final section suggests a way to reconstruct an aesthetic democracy that transcends borders and could thereby open up the possibility of a global, democratic, unbordered cyberpolis.

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