Page 30 - Information and American Democracy Technology in the Evolution of Political Power

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Overview of the Theory 17:40
and in most settings asymmetrically distributed. French social theorist
Pierre Levy refers to these properties as a “communications ecology,”
the basic features of information and communication to which human
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institutions and organizations are adapted. Vertically integrated firms,
retail stores, administrative organizations, and even universities are in
part adaptations to a communications ecology in which information is
costly and asymmetric.
From this perspective, the contemporary information revolution in-
volves deep changes in the communications ecology, with potential
consequences for institutions and processes whose structures are in
substantial ways adapted to older communications arrangements. This
revolutionisnotsimplyanincreaseinthevolumeofinformation,orwhat
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philosopher Albert Borgmann calls “the roar of information.” It is also
qualitative,asinformationofallkindsbecomescheaper,itsstructureever
more complex and nonlinear, and its distribution far more symmetric
than at any time in the past.
In principle, such developments could have structural consequences
that are far-reaching. Indeed, it is already apparent that economic struc-
ture is sensitive to such changes, as economic transactions are trans-
formed on a large scale, new methods of retailing visibly overtake the
commercial world, and old business relationships and structures give
way to new, information-intensive arrangements. Perhaps less abruptly
but no less profoundly, other institutions sensitive to features of informa-
tion and communication may change as well. Education may be altered
for better or worse (or both) as printed matter grows less central to
the transmission of knowledge, meaningful engagement with others at
a distance becomes more readily possible, and the kinds of skills rele-
vant to economic and personal well-being change. The fabrics of social
association, cultures, even private lives may be rewoven, insofar as these
depend upon the nature and accessibility of information. And so it may
be for democracy, to the extent that its structures represent adaptations
to particular informational circumstances.
I argue that this perspective can illuminate contemporary political
developments as well as some critical moments of historical change in
the United States. Reexamining founding-era debates, the early history
of parties, and the industrial revolution in the United States suggests that
an informational perspective can shed new light on important junctions
22 Pierre Levy, Collective Intelligence: Mankind’s Emerging World in Cyberspace
(Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 1997).
23 Borgman, Holding on to Reality,p.3.

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