Page 217 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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until the end of the ’80s, after which it fell. On the whole, such activi-
ties certainly did not receive any major boost from the new information
environment. No consequential gains in overall citizen knowledge oc-
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curred during the 1960s and ’70s, either. Like the second information
regime, the third was a time of political disengagement by citizens from
the voting booths, while fundamental changes in the nature of political
intermediation were under way.
The first information revolution, on the other hand, was different in
thisregard.Theriseofthenewspaperandthecreationofanationalsystem
of political communication in the 1820s and ’30s was clearly a factor in
soaring political participation rates. The sweep of citizens into the voting
booths was faster and more abrupt than either of the great withdrawals
would be in later periods. In this one case at least, a dramatic change in
communication and information contributed both to a transformation
in the nature of political intermediation and an impetus for citizens to
become better engaged in democracy.
None of these prior information revolutions provides a particularly
strong case for what might happen in the contemporary period. There
are precedents in the prior developments for information expanding,
growing more complex and more widely distributed, but none where
information and communication also became less costly and so very
widely accessible and controllable by citizens. The kind of information
abundance evolving now is new, and history does not provide clear
precedents where questions about individual behavior and engagement
are concerned.

THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS
The classical approach to framing theoretical expectations about
information and individual levels of engagement might be called
“instrumental.” This approach is dominated by rational choice theory,
but not limited to it. In this tradition, changes in the cost and variety of
sources of information directly affect levels of political participation. As in-
formation grows less costly and is provided by a greater variety of sources
over which individuals have control, more citizens are likely to become

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Steven J. Rosenstone and John Mark Hansen, Mobilization, Participation, and Democ-
racy in America (New York: Macmillan, 1993); Stanley and Niemi, Vital Statistics on
American Politics.
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Michael X. Delli Carpini and Scott Keeter, What Americans Know about Politics and
Why It Matters (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).

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