"The internet is only doing to politics what it has done to other industries: it disaggregates elements and then enables these free atoms to reaggregate into new molecules" claims Jeff Jarvis (New media: Why the internet will revolutionise politics, April 24, 2006).
Why today is the Internet (or whatever technology) always cast as the active agent in social, business and political change? Although the Internet may not have been invented with its contemporary uses in mind, has it never occurred to our technology-lead commentators that its development and success may actually be a _reflection_ of social, business and political trends as much as their driver?
Contemporary Western politics had disaggregated well before the popularisation of the the Web, Weblogging, or mobile phones, and the cleaving of the population to these media is as much anything a reflection of the disaggregated character of these technologies.
Of course, while we shape technologies they go on to shape us. But event if the Internet "lowers the barrier to entry... in politics" it cannot create engaging and compelling ideas -- and these will be key to creating any political worldview worth having.
Published as a letter in Media Guardian, May 1, 2006. Politics is about ideas, not the internet [free sub may be required required]
Update: Jarvis chose to quote my letter on BuzzMachine. I also heard him speak at BBC Broadcast Centre on 8 May and asked him a similar question: if we had had the Internet 50 years ago, would it have had the same effect? He argued in response that there used to be a greater proliferation of voices historically with more, smaller newspapers. However, this doesn't seem to be the same phenomenon as many individual voices that don't represent larger political narratives. I will return to this theme of techno-determinism, as it keeps cropping up in debate.
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