Monday, October 09, 2006

Summary: Kahn and Kellner pp.183-185, pp.190-198.

While criticizing unreal optimism, Kahn and Kellner insists that the Internet and new informational technologies have the potential to construct an alternative form of democracy, and thus the Internet has to be reconsidered from this political viewpoint. As we can see from the example of Iraq war, launched by the president Bush, the world has been involved in many conflicts and the tide of globalization. Kahn and Kellner admit that the Internet is actually utilized by such people as reactionaries, capitalists, and terrorists. However they strongly claim that many people have promoted democracy via the Internet as well. Also they regard the recent technological revolution in the Internet like blog and wiki as an important factor for the development of democracy.

1 comment:

Owen James said...

Kota, this is an especially clear summary which reveals strong analysis of the ideas and issues raised in the text. I especially like your term, "an alternative form of democracy". I think it captures the idea that Internet users are reconfiguring the democratic process from the bottom up. Well done.