Cyberpolitics citizen activism in the age of the Internet

• Main Author: Hill, Kevin A 1966- (Author)
• Other Authors: Hughes, John E 1968-
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Lanham, Md Rowman & Littlefield 1998
• Series: People, passions, and power
• Subjects: Internet > Computer network resources > United States; Political participation > Computer network resources > United States; Political planning > Computer network resources > United States; Lobbying > Computer network resources > United States; United States > Computer network resources. > Politics and government
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.

 Is the Internet poised to replace television as the central means of political communication? Will the advent of computer communication create a new era of citizen activism? Will the Internet ultimately lend itself more to political accountability and access or to exclusion and extremism? Is cyberspace truly the domain of the ideological right? In answering these questions, Cyberpolitics goes beyond the hype to analyze the content of political discussion on the Internet and to see how the Internet is being used politically. Empirical research translated into dozens of graphically compelling figures and tables illuminates for the first time Internet characteristics heretofore only speculated about: Who are the 'cybercitizens' using the Internet, how do they participate in the political process, and who uses the Internet most effectively to accomplish political ends? The bottom line the authors reach should be reassuring to Internet utopians and dystopians alike: As the Internet grows, it will change the nature of political action, discourse, and effect less than it will itself be changed by politics. Along the way, we learn a lot about politics on the Internet and off_in the U.S. and around the world; left, right, and center.