Balkinization  

Wednesday, March 10, 2004

JB

More Reasons to Think That The Internet Is Helping Public Deliberation

Readers of this blog know that I have criticized Cass Sunstein's argument in Republic.Com (both here and here) that the Internet, more than traditional mass media, is likely to lead to ideological polarization and balkanization of public discourse. (Note that I have no problems with balkinization, by the way). Daily Kos offers yet another reason to think that Sunstein's fears are overstated: the ability of political opponents to fact check each other's work and report it to the Internet for consumption by the public and by reporters, who, in turn can distribute it in the traditional mass media. In order for this to occur people must be reading, linking to, and discussing statements by their political opponents, precisely what Sunstein is worried will not happen on the Internet. This fact checking is counteracting some of the "echo chamber" effect that Sunstein worries will improverish public discourse.

In fairness to Sunstein, he wrote his book before the advent of blogs, and thus based his analysis on traditional mass media models, which, I have argued, are inapposite. I continue to believe that we have to rethink how the public sphere is reconstituted by the Internet. That reconstitution may not be always to the good, but it is much much healthier than many of the Internet's critics have feared.



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