Ethics in the Information Age                      Discussion Project: Democracy and the Internet

Discuss and try to agree on answers to the following (Draw on the reading and on your own thoughts and ideas)

1.  What reasons can be given for thinking that the Internet will be good for democracy? 

2.  What reasons can be given for thinking that the Internet will be bad for democracy?

3.  How does Benkler try to show that the ‘networked public sphere’ can avoid the problems raised by its critics (Sunstein, et al.)?  Be as specific as you can about the mechanisms he describes.

4.  How successful do you think Benkler is in showing that the Internet can enable us to create a public sphere superior to that created by the ‘industrial mass media’?

Note (possibly relevant and credible; possibly not):

In Chapter 6, Benkler lists four ‘desiderata’ for a democratic public sphere:

1.  Universal intake—(Everybody can participate, at east to the extent of contributing opinions/observations).
2.  Filtering for Political Relevance -- (There needs to be some mechanism for weeding out the inputs that are politically irrelevant, not appropriate for public concern, not part of the proper scope of politics.)
3.  Filtering for Accreditation –(There needs to be some mechanism for sorting the inputs in terms of their reliability, weeding out the nutcases, etc.)
4. Independence from Government Control