Page 251 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

P1: JZZ/KAB P2: JZZ
0521828317c10.xml CY425/Esser 0521828317 May 26, 2004 15:5

TEN

Political Communication and
Electronic Democracy

American Exceptionalism or Global Trend?

Thomas Zittel

1
The concept of electronic democracy has experienced a remarkable ca-
reer in the social sciences during the past decade. It is not a new concept,
despite the most recent outburst of publications and conferences on the
topic. It can be traced back to the early 1970s when normative theo-
rists of democracy perceived new digital media such as telephone and
computer networks as tools for democratic reform (cf. Krauch 1972;
Etzioni et al. 1975; Becker 1981; Barber 1984). However, it has changed
in character since those days. Today, electronic democracy is being used
as an empirical-analytical concept that carries the assumption that new
digital media in general and computer networks in particular are in the
process of changing the nature of political communication and demo-
cratic government (Rheingold 1993; Grossman 1995; Browning 1996;
Rash 1997).
This so-called cyber-optimism is driven by the far-reaching diffu-
sion of computer networks as a means of communication during the
late 1990s. Few people knew about this medium before. It was primar-
ily used by researchers around the globe to communicate and to share
their research. This changed significantly during the past decade. The
number of those with access to the Internet increased from 26 million
in 1996 to 407 million in 2000 worldwide (NUA 2001). Among estab-
lished democracies significant minorities of one quarter up to one third
of the population were online by the end of the year 2000. In the United
1 This chapter is part of a larger study on democracy in the networked society. I am
grateful to the Fritz-Thyssen-Stiftung which supported parts of this research. I am
also grateful to many staffers and members of parliament in the Swedish Riksdag, the
German Bundestag, and the U.S. House of Representatives who gave large amounts of
their time to assist me with my inquiries. I thank Fiona C. Barker who edited this text
and the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University that
provided a hospitable research environment when I was preparing this paper.

231