Mark Poster "Cyberdemocracy"

 

 

Group members

 

• Ann-Kathrin Blaser
• Marc Müller
• Alexander Beck

 

Ok, we finished our groupwork and you can find the results below:

 

 

 

 

The stakes of the Question:

 

Encryption:

 

• USA secure the Internet from terrorists, thus the terrorists can’t abuse it
• “What is secure for the nation-state is taken to mean true security for everyone” (p.202)

 

Commodification:

 

•  The Internet is used for commercial uses
• “The Internet is being understood as an extension of or substitution for existing institutions” (p.202)
   
   
   
• Politics on the Internet and the hence resulting new social functions and “new types of participation” (p.202) require new theoretical approaches
• Internet offers democratic possibilities according to Laclau: “new positions of speech, empowering previously excluded groups and enabling new aspects of social life to become part of the political process” (p. 204)

 

Decentralized Technology:

•  The Internet is a decentralized communication system because it is a “network of networks” (p.204)
• “The Internet is more like a social space than a thing” (p. 205)

 

The Internet as a Public Sphere?

•  Public Spheres “serve as organizing centers for political discussion and action”; compared to historical institutions, public spheres would be the angora or the town hall
• John Hartley: Media are the public sphere
• “The age of the public sphere as face-to-face talk is clearly over” (p.209)

 

 

A Postmodern Technology?

 

• Internet as a mere extension of existing technologies
• Unlike reading a novel or watching TV, communication through the Internet has more to do with self-positioning in the topic
• Internet as “active” speech (responding to others); is not limited by gender or ethnic race like face-to-face talk

 

Gender and Virtual Communities

• Women are underrepresented
• The case “Alex/Joan”
• Break with gender roles in the Internet
• “New relation to one’s body” --> Cyborg experience?
• New hierarchies (e.g. admin) determined by typing skills and eloquence not by gender or social status

 

Cyborg Politics

 

• Influence on face-to-face relations through Internet relations?
• Political authority, built-up by the aura of a politician, is difficult to sustain in the Internet thus a political speech on the internet isn’t as persuasive as a spoken one

 

 

Critique:

• His intention/opinion isn’t obvious to the reader
• The train of thoughts is hard to follow, sometimes not understandable at all
• Sometimes his statements, e.g. 30 million people using the internet, are outdated

 

 

 

Questions:

 

1. “But the dangers to the population are and have always been far greater from this state apparatus than from so-called terrorists.” (p.202)

What reasons does Poster give to back this statement up?

2. In what ways does the Internet help to produce “new types of participation in government” (p. 202)?

3. Poster (1997): “The Internet is often accused of elitism” (p. 204).

What are the differences between the Internet ten years ago and the Internet today? Is the text outdated?

4. What is a “Public Sphere”? Is the Internet a public sphere?

5. Why is the “age of the public sphere as face-to-face talk” (p. 209) clearly over according to Poster?

6. Poster: “What are the conditions of democratic speech in the mode of information? What kind of ‘subject’ speaks or writes or communicates in these conditions?” (p. 209)

7. How is the “construction of identity” on the Internet described by Poster?