Internet: 1, Democracy: 0

W hether I like it or not, the new dominatrix in my life is a computer screen. Admit it, yours is too.

[Erin]

While many people appear to be visiting their own "echo chambers" on the internet, when one reviews the web's newspapers' discussion pages, many people write comments debating columnists and other commenters. These people have to read the articles and the comments in order to debate them. As such, the internet has created the opportunity for meaningful issue discussions. Letters to the Editor often go unpublished, so internet discussion pages provide a niche that did not exist before.
Also, the internet provides the opportunity for the "little guy" to research, confirm, and contradict journalists from "authoritative" papers.
Hooray for the internet.

www.polijam.com
Your Guide to News Around the Web

[Michael]

Right on Erin, I think it can not be put better.

[John Powers]

Sunstein has very little that is meaningful to say about a range of issues, the internet in particular.

The thought that somehow the internet restricts the viability of multiple views on a subject is completely ridiculous. One only has to use the "search" button on any number of services (Google for instance) to find contradictory data to Sunstein (absurd) hypothesis.

As an example...as I type this...the Tribune and Sun Times have neglected to report a story concerning Lisa Madigan suing Rod Blagojevich in Cook County court (perhaps to print more details about a tiger on a rampage the worlds oldest orangutan-who knows), yet at least 20 news sites and blogs out there have more than enough details to actually gain some understanding of the democratic process, regardless of any major media blackout of the basics of our multi-branch system.

One of the plaintiffs, Richard Caro, even publishes a daily summary of this historic case,(while the Trib publishes a profile of Playboy's Hugh Hefner).

The web is certainly enabling democracy in this and countless other cases. Can the incumbent media players say the same?

JBP

[Rob Dunbar]

I wonder if there's really a new trend in all this, or if the net-surfing of the average American simply reflects what we've done through our history. We've been doing this with books, newspapers, and magazines for decades. Those who want to learn other viewpoints will always do so, and those who do not wish to never have done so. Few liberals I know have ever really thought through the consequences of big government and few conservatives have ever questioned the consequences of big-business capitalism. In my lifetime, at least, it has always been thus (I'm 47); what I've read of American history leads me to believe it was so long before I was born.