Page 256 - Comparing Political Communication Theories, Cases, and Challenge

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

Thomas Zittel

These considerations emphasize the fact that electronic democracy is
amultidimensional discourse. Each of the dimensions involved repre-
sents the basis of a distinct model of electronic democracy. Apart from
this, Figure 10.1 stresses that we need to distinguish three different lev-
els of political analysis that apply to each of the dimensions sketched:
the constitutional (macro), the institutional (meso), and the behavioral
(micro) level. The debate on electronic democracy has not been explicit
enough regarding these multiple levels of analysis. At the macrolevel of
political analysis some attention has been devoted to the constitutional
implications of electronic voting and electronic referenda (Buchstein
2001; Mutter 2002). This research discusses the relationship between
constitutional norms such as the authenticity of a vote and the techni-
cal and procedural assumptions for electronic democracy, which derive
from this legal basis.
Comparativists as well as students of political communication have
focused on the institutional level of electronic democracy. This perspec-
tive stresses the use of the Internet by political elites to increase op-
portunities for vertical and horizontal communication and to allow for
more political participation. Virtual party conventions, citizen consul-
tations on the Internet, and ways to use the Internet to organize debates
prior to direct decision making have been subject to empirical research
on electronic democracy at the institutional level (Fishkin 1995, 1998;
Coleman 1999; Marschall 2001). Each of these three examples can be re-
lated to one of the normative models of electronic democracy sketched
previously.
Students of political participation focus on the microlevel of politi-
cal analysis in their research on electronic democracy. This perspective
focuses on individual use of the Internet for the purpose of political com-
3
munication and political participation. It asks whether the Internet will
be able to increase the quantity and quality of political communication
and political participation and whether this medium is able to draw into
the process groups that have not communicated and participated before
(Bimber 1998; Wilhelm 2000; Norris 2001).
These areas of research are integrated by an ethos of cyber-optimism,
which assumes that the various scenarios of democratic change will be
of significance for the future development of democracy. This ethos has
3 Theliteratureonelectronicdemocracyhasbeenmoreorlessvagueaboutthedefinition
of each of these two concepts and about the problems of making a distinction. We will
not elaborate on this problem in the context of this paper. Our conceptual map simply
emphasizes that it is important to make a distinction.

236