via: Conscientious
txt: Click here to disappear: thoughts on images and democracy
Has democracy increased with the growth of the internet? Obviously not. It has diminished significantly. Why? Because the desire for public, democratic participation has been displaced onto consumer goods and services and dispersed into isolated individual speech. Whatever else it is, the internet is primarily an advertising medium. Access to images and information has certainly increased, but has this led to better informed citizens? No. It has led to more docile citizens, who spend more of their time in the collection and sorting of images and information (and in what Simon Schama has called the computer’s “lazy democracy of significance”) and less time on analysis, critical thinking, or real “socialising”. Perhaps we need to find a word other than “democracy” to describe what’s happening in our communications environment.
txt: Digital Democracy and the New Age of Reason
Franklin Roosevelt said that “Democracy is not a static thing.” He was right. It is constantly changing; reinventing itself; expanding and retracting as the political environment warms and cools to its precepts. Digital democracy will be no different at its core, but it has an opportunity unlike any in the history of the world to bring people and ideas together. If we embrace this exciting digital world, our own democracy will be strengthened and civilization will surely embark on a new Age of Reason and a new era of individual freedom.
video: Simpsons-The real slim shady – EminemGuy47 on youtube.com
