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The Internet and Democratic Citizenship

Theory, Practice and Policy.

A new book by Professor Stephen Coleman and Professor Jay Blumler

Relations between the public and holders of political authority are in a
period of transformative flux. On the one side, new expectations and
meanings of citizenship are being entertained and occasionally acted
upon. On the other, an inexorable impoverishment of mainstream political
communication is taking place. The Internet has the potential to improve
public communications and enrich democracy, a project that requires
imaginative policy-making. This argument is developed through three
stages: first exploring the theoretical foundations for renewing
democratic citizenship, then examining practical case studies of
e-democracy, and finally, reviewing the limitations of recent policies
designed to promote e-democracy and setting out a radical, but practical
proposal for an online civic commons: a trusted public space where the
dispersed energies, self-articulations and aspirations of citizens can
be rehearsed, in public, within a process of ongoing feedback to the
various levels and centers of governance: local, national and transnational.

. Includes several case studies of e-democracy projects . Refers to
previous unpublished survey data on public attitudes to e-democracy .
Research is used to develop and refine an original and important policy
proposal

*Contents*
1. Democracy's deliberative deficit; 2. A crisis of public
communication; 3. From indirect to direct representation; 4. E-democracy
from above; 5. E-democracy from below; 6. Shaping e-democracy.


Publisher: Cambridge University Press, March 2009

<http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521817523>

ISBN: 0521520789

ISBN Hardback: 978-0521520782