[p2p-research] Is Web 2.0 Really Democratic?

[Kevin Carson]

On 10/10/08, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Robin Good launches a debate on this important topic, see
> http://www.masternewmedia.org/is_web_20_really_democratic/


>  * Is this participation really democratic?
>
>  * Or is this a democracy paradox, where everyone can interact but the
> decision making places are all outside the net?
>
>  * Is the horizontal leveling of internet communications really an
> instrument of democracy?

At the very least, it has greatly undermined the authority of
hierarchical institutions in the corporate and government world, in
the ways Benkler described.

It's a vast improvement over the days when, if you wanted an
alternative to Big Three network news and the Associated Press, you
subscribed to The Nation (or if you were really out there, some badly
photocopied anarchist 'zine).

Stories Benkler recounted, like the Sinclair Media boycott and the
exposure of Diebold's internal communications, would never have
appeared on the radar before.

And all kinds of networked resistance against big business and big
government are far more feasible (e.g. the Seattle movement); a good
example is large-scale open-mouth sabotage against corporations, like
Wake Up Wal-Mart and the Wal-Mart Workrs' Association, and campaigns
by the Imolakee Workers.

-- 
Kevin Carson
Mutualist Blog:  Free Market Anti-Capitalism
http://mutualist.blogspot.com
Studies in Mutualist Political Economy
http://www.mutualist.org/id47.html
Anarchist Organization Theory Project
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/2005/12/studies-in-anarchist-theory-of.html