No abstract

There is currently a diversity of understandings of digital democracy being deployed within popular commentary, research, policy making, and practical initiative. However, there is a lack of resources clearly outlining this diversity; this article undertakes such an outline. It provides a reconstruction of four digital democracy positions. These four positions are referred to here as liberal-individualist, deliberative, counter-publics, and autonomist Marxist. The delineation of each position draws from critical-interpretative research and has been developed with respect to three elements: the democratic subject assumed, the related conception of democracy promoted, and the associated democratic affordances of digital media technology. The aim is to draw attention to different understandings of what extending democracy through digital media means, and to provide a framework for further examination and evaluation of digital democracy rhetoric and practice.

In recent times much has been said about the possibility that the two‐way, decentralized communications of cyberspace can provide sites of rational‐critical discourse autonomous from state and economic interests and thus extending the public sphere at large. In this paper the extent to which the Internet does in fact enhance the public sphere is evaluated. Online deliberative practices are compared with a normative model of the public sphere developed from the work of Jürgen Habermas. The evaluation proceeds at a general level, drawing upon more specific Internet research to provide a broad understanding of the democratic possibilities and limitations of the present Internet. The analysis shows that vibrant exchange of positions and rational critique does take place within many online fora. However, there are a number of factors limiting the expansion of the public sphere online. These factors include the increasing colonization of cyberspace by state and corporate interests, a deficit of reflexivity, a lack of respectful listening to others, the difficulty of verifying identity claims and information put forward, the exclusion of many from online political fora, and the domination of discourse by certain individuals and groups. The article concludes by calling for more focused Internet‐democracy research to address these problems further, research for which the present paper provides a starting point.

Recently there has been some debate between deliberative democrats about whether the internet is leading to the fragmentation of communication into `like-minded' groups.This article is concerned with what is held in common by both sides of the debate: a public sphere model that aims for all-inclusive, consensus seeking rational deliberation that eliminates inter-group `polarizing' politics. It argues that this understanding of deliberative democracy fails to adequately consider the asymmetries of power through which deliberation and consensus are achieved, the inter-subjective basis of meaning, the centrality of respect for difference in democracy, and the democratic role of `like-minded' deliberative groups.The deliberative public sphere must be rethought to account more fully for these four aspects. The article draws on post-Marxist discourse theory and reconceptualizes the public sphere as a space constituted through discursive contestation.Taking this radicalized norm, it considers what research is needed to understand the democratic implications of the formation of `like-minded' groups online.

The public sphere conception continues to hold center stage in debates and visions of radical democratic society, and Jürgen Habermas' work continues to be the most popular starting point for developing this conception. However, the Habermasian public sphere has also come under powerful and sustained criticism from many quarters. Here I concentrate upon the critiques of a group of theorists to whom I refer as difference democrats. I examine the three key arguments of these critics: that the public sphere conception involves the exclusion of aesthetic-affective modes of communication and hence the voices of certain groups; that it assumes that power can be separated from public discourse, which masks exclusion and domination; and that it promotes consensus as the purpose of deliberation, which marginalizes voices that do not readily agree. Against these claims I show that the Habermasian public sphere can be read as maximizing the inclusion of difference in deliberative exchange. I demonstrate how the conception extensively accommodates aesthetic-affective modes of discourse, how it accounts for both negative and positive forms of power in discourse, and how it promotes the process over the end-point of rational discourse in public opinion formation.