
his is one of the most effective uses of
the Internet - building community. Exciting global
connections will do more for international
understanding and intergenerational respect than any
tool since the printing press. - Tobey Dichter,
Generations Online, a non-profit internet literacy
project for seniors
hat's interesting about civic
involvement is that it doesn't have to link to any
particular real-space sovereign. I can imagine leagues
and guilds emerging very soon in which we'll be
closely involved. Virtual worlds are already pointing
in this direction. So our understanding of
"civic" will be much more interesting and
diverse than it is now. - Susan Crawford, policy
analyst, Center for Democracy & Technology and a
fellow with the Yale Law School Information Society
Project
he Internet is a great political
organizing tool and we will see the interactive, town
hall meetings online along with a networked electronic,
paperless, voting system, locally and nationally. We
will see a return to civic activism. Neighbors will be
in a much stronger position to leverage their
collective political power quickly and efficiently to
make their positions known. Edmund Burke would have a
tough time in the digital age. - Bradford C. Brown,
National Center for Technology and Law
ithout a doubt the ease to which people
can connect to groups online and participate will
increase civic involvement ... My concern is if it will
be primarily for the betterment of the world or simply
to assist people's more selfish personal and
professional interests. I'm afraid the latter at
least in this country where entertaining ourselves
seems to be the primary focus. - Jonathan Peizer,
Open Society Institute
t's true that civic involvement has
increased due to the Internet, but there's still a
huge number of people who can't afford access in
poorer countries. While that might shift somewhat,
it's hard to believe that the vast majority of the
globe's inhabitants will have Net access or even a
computer. - Mark Glaser, Online Journalism
Review/Online Publishers Association
ccording to Peter Drucker, volunteerism
has been on the rise for many years (predating
Internet) and is an important factor in our society.
The Internet facilitates volunteerism but the urge to
do it does not rely on the Internet. - Peter
Denning, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey,
Calif.
see civic involvement going down as
people have more things to do and less time to do it
in. A smaller, more radical group of people will
dominate civic life. - Simson Garfinkel, Sandstorm
Enterprises/Technology Review
es, but their ability to influence
public and civic affairs may be counteracted by
increasingly "conservative" legislation.
- Douglas Rushkoff, author
ncreasing civic involvement is not in
the interest of traditional sources of political power
in the U.S., so the existing power networks are going
to put up roadblocks to delay developments along these
lines until they put mechanisms into place that will
preserve their power. The grouping of "civic
involvement" with membership in ALL kinds of
groups is so conceptually broad as to be conceptually
worthless. I would separate civic involvement from
membership in ANY kind of group. Those are different
issues. - Robert Lunn, FocalPoint Analytics/USC
Digital Future Project
he internet will give people a greater
ability to participate - but our limited amount of time
(and limited interest) will continue to be barriers to
further participation. There are still only 24 hours in
the day - and many, many other demands on our time.
- Ken Jarboe, Athena Alliance
ertainly e-rulemaking is a bright spot.
NGOs will work to make their, and their members',
contributions more useful also. - Timothy L.
Hansen, MoveOn.org
agree that civic involvement will
increase, but not in the way that we traditional
measure it - through voting or organizational
memberships. I think the Net will create entirely new
forms of civic participation, much of it using new
media tools. Consider the creation of political
advertisements, movies, and web sites in the current
presidential campaign - mostly done by individual.
These are new routes to civic engagement. - Jan
Schaffer, J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive
Journalism
ur definition of civic involvement will
also evolve - we will worry less about bowling alone
and more about playing video games alone.- Douglas
Levin, policy analyst, Cable in the
Classroom
agree with this and see lots of
evidence of this already occurring. The Internet is
growing rapidly as a powerful social network for
connecting with others over space and time. I think one
of the greatest benefits of the Internet is as a social
network for interacting with many others and this net
attribute will surely continue to grow as more people
gain access and grow more comfortable with electronic
communication. - Gary Kreps, George Mason
University/National Cancer Institute
eople will certainly be introduced to
more possibilities through the internet. But whether
that actually translates into more civic involvement is
not automatic; it depends on the forces that drive how
this process works. There needs to be a real desire to
promote social capital that informs the development of
these services, and the people running organizations
need to understand better how to leverage them. -
Gordon Strause, Judy?s Book
eople have a limited amount of time,
they cannot keep increasing their involvement in
everything. Where is this time to come from? For now,
data seem to suggest that those who are already engaged
in lots of activities are more likely to then get
engaged in more. - Eszter Hargittai, Northwestern
University
expect many more of our scheduling,
occasional access and connectivity activities will pass
through the Net ... e.g. signing up for political
campaign activities, taking part in online video town
meetings (political or social), electronic voting. But
such activities may be replacements for current mail,
phone/voice or sign-up sheets. The eventual nature of
the network, the price and the user-friendliness will
affect how deeply casual users will plunge into civic
applications in ongoing patterns. - Gary Arlen,
Arlen Communications
nvolvement won't necessarily
increase in numbers, but it will in depth and richness
of experience. As more groups discover ways to use the
Internet to connect, disseminate and influence, a new
element will be added to group interaction. We'll
also see those traditionally excluded from
participation, including the physically disabled and
elderly, being brought on board. - Rose Vines,
freelance tech writer for Australian PC User and Sydney
Morning Herald
aybe. But the memberships may be loose
and ephemeral, coming together around an issue or a
need at one moment, then dissolving and reforming
elsewhere the next. Case in point - the Dean Campaign.
- Mark Rovner, CTSG/Kintera
'm not so sure about the bowling
leagues, since I think much of the civic engagement
will be virtual. What we now see in the blogosphere
will engage more people of different ages, backgrounds,
and interests. - Lois C. Ambash, Metaforix
Inc.
do believe that civic involvement will
increase substantially, and I think the internet may
enable this. Much of the change, however, is highly
contingent on economic and political drivers. - A.
Halavais, State University of New York -
Buffalo
he Internet will strengthen social and
political groups by increasing intragroup
communication. - Stanley Chodorow, University of
California, San Diego/Council on Library and
Information Resources
eople are seeking more ways to connect
with, share, and take action with like minds. The
internet makes this easier than ever and will
accelerate civic engagement in all of its forms. -
Christine Geith, Michigan State University
a! So much of online group
"involvement" is passive. Look at things like
listservs. Such a small proportion of members do
anything. That is not involvement. Will we be members
of more groups? Sure, but that is not social
involvement. - David Tewksbury, University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
embership in disciplined, rule-based
organizations will probably continue to fall.
Membership in face-to-face organizations may also
weaken. Counting mailing lists as
"associations" can be a mistake. - Peter
Levine, University of Maryland
believe that the ability to register to
vote online has already demonstrated the mediums
ability to motivate those who can't be prompted to
get off the couch. Now they don't have to in order
to participate in public discourse. - Michelle
Manafy, editor Information Today Inc.
rowing use of the Internet does not
necessarily mean that people will devote their time in
civic involvement. The Internet may provide an
opportunity for people to participate online, but it
does not "make" people participate. -
Joo-Young Jung, the University of Tokyo
ivic involvement will see the formation
of new kinds of groups, particularly interest groups
that cross geographic boundaries. People will have the
ability to band in multiple groups based on specific
niche issues. Party loyalty will erode as politicians
develop platforms made up of these niches and steps
toward a coalition style of government will be
realized. - Scott Moore, Charles and Helen Schwab
Foundation
inding people and groups that directly
align with your interest will become more easy as more
people come online, although I am a true believer that
the internet adds and does not replace everything in
the physical world. One only has to look to meetup.com
to see how the website has organized people with
similar interests with real-world gatherings. -
Tiffany Shlain, Founder, The Webby Awards
his is likely, but even virtual civic
involvement will be "messy" (loud, sometimes
ugly, occasionally enlightening, potentially useful for
hearing from a wide range of people) as it is in the
mechanisms we have now, such as public hearings. I hope
that over the next 10 years effective online tools will
be developed that can enable more people to be heard,
creating a richer dialog. Or will the growing rudeness
and ''me-first'' attitudes that we see
now - or worse behaviour - be what we see in 10 years
online? - Barbara Smith, technology officer,
Institute of Museum and Library Services (federal
government)
o we'll be ''bowling
alone'' on the internet? We'll use the
internet to support our activities, and technology will
facilitate new communications processes not possible in
the real world, but the fundamental urge toward civic
involvement won't be stimulated by the technology -
it has to come from within each individual. Technology
might make it easier to register to vote, but you still
have to figure out who to vote for, and why. - Meg
Houston Maker, user-experience designer
olitical scientists and sociologists,
while recognizing the high importance of civic activity
have, to date, been unable to
''dissect'' the mechanisms of civic
involvement. Indeed, since the 70s researchers,
politicians, and pundits have hailed the role that
technology will have in increasing civic engagement,
yet this has not happened on a wide scale. Some
research even points towards a decrease in civic
engagement and a fragmentation of the public that does
not contribute to the whole. I find this statement a
bit utopic/deterministic in any case - civic
involvement is affected by people, not technology - the
technology merely mediates. - Michael Dahan, Ben
Gurion University of the Negev, Department of
Comparative Media, Israel
raditional civic involvement leans too
heavily on a ''guilt'' model of
coercing participation in face-to-face modes, like
getting people to bring something for a bake sale.
People will do it, and even enjoy doing it, but the
participation level is unsustainable. The effect of
online communities and connections on civic involvement
ought to send us all to Hannah Arendt, on the
spontaneous eruptions of civil societies and common
feeling, outside modes of power, coercion, and guilt.
Online communities and cultures self-select, and
because of the more tenuous nature of the connections,
are less affected by guilt. Those who would be more
susceptible to be guilted into bringing brownies to the
bake sale can drift off more easily online and duck out
on obligations. So how does anything get done in civic
groups based in online communities and connections?
That is the fascinating part, and something I've
studied in my online ethnography. Things happen because
the motivation factor is very high. Xena fans hold
conventions, plan parties, raise money for breast
cancer. They get things done, and very few participants
lack motivation to sustain the participation. However,
when they do, the activity simply doesn't happen.
The righteous guilt and obligatory nudging just
isn't persuasive in online communities. If someone
doesn't want to be someplace, she just bugs out.
The group reaches the end of its life cycle and
participants self-select the next thing that captures
their attention honestly, instead of out of guilt.
- Christine Boese, cyberculture researcher, CNN
Headline News
ivic engagement has not been increasing.
College students who are certainly heavily involved in
the Internet are not generally interested in civic
engagement. The American Democracy Project, in place in
nearly 200 higher education institutions throughout the
nation, is designed to bring civic engagement to the
front burner and produce scholars who also understand
the need to give back to their community. If we have to
create a structure to promote civic engagement to this
strong Internet target audience, then I don't know
how the Internet can be responsible for a substantial
increase in civic engagement in the future. -
Stephen Schur, Ramapo College of New Jersey
nfortunately, one of the internet's
greatest strengths - creating and bolstering affinity
groups - poses a real danger. The sheer volume of
information and potential relationships allows for and
even necessitates individuals' filtering their
content and social contacts. On the contrary, as Robert
Putnam detailed in Bowling Alone, our society is
shifting away from communal activities. The greater the
dependence on information technology, the more rapid
will be our exodus from community. By its nature, the
Internet breeds a certain self-absorbtion. I think
civic malaise will be higher than ever before ten years
from now. - Daniel Weiss, Focus on the Family
(Christian ministry)
ather than broadening people's world
view, the internet easily permits left-handed,
D&D-playing, Rush Limbaugh fans to interact only
with others who share their world view. The risk is
that civic involvement will decline, as people retreat
to the comfort zone of the like-minded. The days of the
bowling league where you might meet a smart, committed
family man whose politics differ from one's own are
waning, and the loss of mutual understanding is
genuine. - Perry Hewitt, marketing
consultant
ishful thinking. My research shows that
most people are lurkers both online and FtF. And the
few who are really active online are also really active
FtF. It's the TV that's the problem, folks.
Once people get off the TV, then they may become more
actively engaged in both FtF and online. - Anita
Blanchard, UNC Charlotte
he Internet is a tool for social use,
not a determinant of social behaviour. It does not
necessarily follow that making something easier will
make it happen. There will have to be significant
social changes for this prediction to be true, people
will have to have the inclination to use the Internet
for this purpose. We have to be careful not to be
technologically deterministic - society will determine
how the technology is used. - Susan Kenyon,
University of the West of England, UK.
he nets are likely to increase
fragmentation rather than an appreciation of collective
understanding. So far the hope that the internet would
remain an aspect of the commons has not proven to be
true, despite the best efforts of early adopters.
Instead, it has become increasingly proprietary and
fragmenting. While we might hold out hope that the
decentering impact of the nets may leave individuals
and groups feeling more empowered, it strikes me as
pretty unlikley. However, my main challenge to this
prediction is that the internet is not likely to be a
key factor in determining civic involvement. Growing
cynicism on the part of the intelligencia, increasing
privatization on the part of the economic elites and
rapidly expanding anti-intellectualism, anti-technology
sentiment and fundamentalist fervor on the part of
those who feel excluded by the nets are likely to be
far more significant factors. - Alec MacLeod,
California Institute of Integral Studies,
AoIR
would say instead: Social Capital will
increase substantially in the next 10 years, thanks to
the ever growing use of the Internet. It will grow
through informal online social, business, politicial
and cause related networking with the occasional
face-to-face meetups. - Leonard Witt,
PJNet.org
ivic involvement will expand, but not
primarily because of the internet. Having the ability
to communicate and get involved does not impact the
desire to get involved. And, while it makes it easier
to get involved initially, the internet does not really
dramatically decrease the time needed to be truly
involved in an organization.Civic involvement will go
up because the Millenial Generation is inclined to be
more socially involved. As this generation moves into
the workplace, they will take that urge to make a
difference and integrate it into their approach to
everyday life. That will also motivate those around
them to get more involved. So will involvement
increase? Yes. Will the internet play a role? Yes. But
does the internet cause that involvement? No. -
Mike Witherspoon, Connexxia
his election is like no other. I
remember sitting in a conference in Syracuse, NY, when
they discussed Meet ups. The houseparties and the
meetings are the social networks that enable, the
communities to meet up. At the conference there was
little evidence of minority involvement in the
movements, but it took a little time. There was a
meetup at Ben's Chili Bowl in Washington. That is
in the heart of a black part of the city. The book
clubs on Oprah. The synergistic listservs, the media
groups working worldwide are just a small part of the
ways in which citizens meet. I like being asked to be
involved in the political process. I have given money,
participated and followed actions that I might not have
thought of. - Bonnie Bracey, George Lucas
Educational Foundation
f this happen it won't be because of
the Internet (like any other social change considered
in this study) but because the citizens will have found
the need, will, and readiness for it. And then yes the
Internet among other things will possibly help. -
M.J. Menou, AmICTad
he increase in civic involvement will
come through the weak ties that are the Internet's
strengths. This will not necessarily mean greater
involvement in local organizations. The pace and
complexity of people's everyday lives limits their
involvement in groups and that won't change. They
can only deal with a limited number of strong personal
ties. The weak ties of the Internet, however, are
available on an "as-needed" basis. Therefore,
the nature of people's civic engagement will change
with the Internet and be different than in the past.
- Kim Keith, About.com/Southern Arkansas
University
ivic involvement will increase but also
the very definition of what constitutes
''civic'' will change as well, away
from the Putnam-style definition this question uses.
Read Schudson for more details, especially his idea of
''monitorial citizen.'' - Travers
Scott, 9099 Media/University of Washington
he Internet as a communications medium
has clearly made it easier to contact people and
organize events, meetings, even recreation. These
aspects are valuable to all users of whatever
background, and they will continue to be very valuable
and lucrative areas for development. - Mike
Weisman, Reclaim the Media
he only way that civic involvement will
increase will be as a backlash against the Internet and
technology, not because of it; I suspect that time will
come, but not in the next decade. For the next ten
years, like the last five, we'll be enraptured with
and distracted by the new technology. We'll sit in
our homes and offices, staring at the screen, and not
realize how empty our lives have become. It will take a
much bigger social disruption than 9/11 to shake us up,
and then some folks will opt out, or greatly scale
back. But if you follow the technological innovation
from telegraph to radio to TV to the Internet, it's
hard to believe that folks will choose demanding forms
of social interaction when the Internet as
entertainment-delivery service is right there in their
houses, throwing big screen images of fun on their
walls without ever having to leave the house. -
Peter Eckart, director of management information
systems, Hull House Association
here will be some increase, and more
social mobilization, but institutional power will
remain resistant to change. - Barry Wellman,
University of Toronto
And the following are from predictors who
chose to remain anonymous: [Workplaces of respondents
whose reactions are listed below include Microsoft,
FCC, Centre for Cultural Research, IBM, RAND, The Aspen
Institute, U.S. Department of Commerce, University of
Michigan, Internet2, The Institute for the Future, the
University of North Carolina, Media General, University
of Illinois, the Knight Foundation, University of Texas
at Austin, Canada Institute for Information Technology,
Carnegie Mellon, University of Washington, U.S. Census
Bureau, Marmoset Media, Penn State University, Tampa
Bay Online, University of Pennsylvania,
Marketingdriven.com, University of British Columbia,
Monster.com, American University, Umbria
Communications, Nanyang Technological University and
others.]
Certainly the Internet is being used more and more for
organizing, including the civic organizations
mentioned. I just don't want to over-estimate this,
as more information has not made the U.S. more involved
in politics in the past 20 years. Still the Meet-up
type activity will increase substantially.
I had a conversation with ("Bowling Alone"
author) Robert Putnam about this exact proposition. The
City of Seattle's civic involvement initiative,
known as the Democracy Portal, is based to some degree
on this premise; we do agree that community health is
related to participation, but believe that we can use
the internet to help promote it. Although I checked
agree, this is a really hard one to make happen and
I'm certainly not sure it will. But we are
trying.
I don't anticipate a big uptick in such activity,
nor do I expect a big change in the incidence of
bowling alone in America.
The Internet will enable more participation of a
less-committed variety, but it may not have the same
desirable consequences of participation when
participation was harder.
Too many factors affect civic involvement for the
Internet to be perceived as the prime mover. Yes,
information-intensive activities, such as elections,
may reach more people via the Internet, but will it
make non-voters go out and vote? I doubt it.
Civic participation will grow but not because of the
Internet. The Internet will help facilitate such groups
and perhaps attract some people to them, but it will
not be the "prime mover" of increasing civic
participation.
It seems to me that there is less civic involvement of
a substantive nature as people become dissociated with
their local communities and shift their attentions to
virtual communities that come and go, often at the whim
of the larger media conglomerates.
The Internet will not be magic pixie dust that causes
everyone to reach out into their community. I believe
it is more likely that the involved will become more
so. Soccer people will become more knowledgeable and
networked through the Internet. I don't believe the
Internet will awaken social and civic consciousness in
the masses.
Technology is a tool. A book can connect us to the
world, or help us escape it. Same with the Internet.
There are no guarantees. People do not obey Moore's
Law.
The surveys and trial projects on this are very
positive, but the actual results are pretty negative.
Everyone says that they will participate, but few do -
except in small, closed user groups such as law
faculties.
Young people in particular are making enormous use of
tools like Friendster to expand social networks.
Even when some activity belongs to just 1 in a million
persons, it means there are 6,000 of those people in
the world. The internet allows those 6,000 people to
find one another more quickly and easily.
People who do it off line will do it online; people
who don't join groups just don't, no matter
which environment we're talking about; the new
generation of internet users - today's college kids
and high school kids - feel differently about online
community than earlier generations, maybe because it
has always been around and they have been cautioned
about the "internet stranger" from a young
age on. Most do not even believe that one can form
close relationships online.
Virtual interact will replace physical interaction.
Since the former creates less close ties than the
latter, the overall sense ofr connectedness will
actually decrease.
Civic involvement does not need the internet, it needs
a lack of apathy. Sitting in front of a computer
surfing the web is likely only to disengage individuals
from their more proximate surroundings, not engage
them.
I believe the Internet will be useful merely as a tool
to support social networks.
Civic engagement is a function of time and attention.
Neither are replicable resources and there is nothing
in the internet that provides more of either.
Human ability to interact and find time is limited;
electronic communities amplify this ability but not by
an enormous factor.
People only have so much time. There are many
opportunities for involvement now. More opportunities
won't increase civic involvement, although it may
alter it somewhat.
I do see this happening, e.g., use of e-mail lists by
homeowner associations, but I don't see it leading
to substantial civic involvement. Civic involvement
implies engaging in a dialog about ideas. Much of the
use of the internet seems to be between like-minded
individuals reinforcing shared views. Where's the
dialog?
America has always been a pluralistic society. The
Internet merely provides a vehicle for those inclined
to accelerate that pluralism. However, civic
involvement will not increase as a percentage of the
population.
The trend continues to be that groups are adopting the
Internet to help them organize as soon as a critical
mass of their members have the capability to
participate.
Civic involvement means deliberative discourse, human
engagement, understanding all of which requires being
informed and engaged. The Internet is a tool, not a
replacement for life. The same predictions were made
about radio and television when first introduced, and
those latter-day prophets have been forgotten, as have
the historical memories of their similar
predictions.
Involvement in on-line groups may in fact erode
traditional civic participation.
Yes - but as campaign 2004 is suggesting, this kind of
civic involvement has both positive and negative
aspects. In the first half of this year, the positive
aspects were clear as groups like movon.org were
getting people more engaged with the political process,
increasing voter registration, etc. But as we've
lived through the various blogger wars surrounding this
campaign, not to mention the various Truth campaigns
(Texans, Swift Boat Captains), it is less and less
clear to me that the effects are purely positive. The
negative campaign tactics are being played out on the
grassroots level and they are resulting in more
antagonism and divisiveness than I would have imagined
possible. We will have lots of work to do to repair the
damage to civic life at the end of this process.
Today special-interest groups have become much more
effective in applying pressure and raising funds due to
the Internet. This has even more deeply woven together
money and politics, making it even more difficult to
make progress on campaign finance reform. The result
will be increasing cynicism and decreased civic
involvement long term.
I think it will decrease. However, contributions to
organizations probably will increase as internet
solicitation and the ability to transact easily
intersects with ubiquity and awareness to create a
less-intrusive/anonymous way to offer one's own
support with time/money w/o getting involved.
It depends on how you define civic engagement,
including the definitions of membership, but I suspect
distraction and withdrawal from meaningful links in
favor of thinner ties is likely.
This will happen if people are motivated - if they are
"mad as hell and not going to take it
anymore." The network enables greater civic
involvement, but does not spawn it: a desire for change
does.
Internet will have negligible affect on total civic
involvement, though it will alter means.
Initial studies have shown that despite the
Internet's claim to be connective and community
building, that the Internet can leave individuals
feeling isolated. Like television, the act of staring
at a computer screen will not increase civic
involvement unless there are personal incentives that
encourage it.
People's capacity of social interaction is
saturated even without the Internet. The limit on the
number of social groups one can be a part of is not the
size of one's mailbox, as it were, but the time it
takes to communicate with each group. Last I checked,
there were still 24 hours in a day.
Already we see dart leagues, kids soccer and other
not-for-profits organizing on the net. what groups
don't? Traditional men's dinner clubs like
Rotary. They are already in a coma and will go the way
of felt hats.
Will more people be connecting with one another and
joining online communities? Yes. Is this traditional
civil society? Not sure. Many of the groups are
nichecould create honeycomb structure of walled-off
little communities that don't meet in any kind of
civic public space, virtual or physical.
I think this prediction under-estimates the basic
human wish for human company. Time and again, people -
including experienced Internet users - articulate the
notion that while Internet communications offers all
kinds of useful networking possibilities, they still
choose real-time face-to-face interaction, group
activity and communication to fulfill basic human
social needs.
Depends of curse on how you define civic involvement.
The current presidential campaign has increaed
involvement. Will this last? Will this be truly good
for society, or is this just a case of divergent groups
becoming more well-defined, more isolated, and shouting
at each other. Will it have the mpact of league
bowling? I fear not.
It's not obvious how the Internet will increase
face-to-face social interaction. So many other
variables are at work in determining how much time we
spend in non-work related activities, including (a) how
many people need to work overtime, two jobs, or all the
time, (b) the independent religious beliefs of the
populations (some groups attend church more than
others), and (c)the growth of cell phones as an
alternative to computer-based use of the
Internet.
I think that in the next 10 years, we will need to
think more about what it means to participate in all
areas of our life. What does it mean to participate in
a virtual protest for example? Does this constitute
civic engagement. Perhaps, our definitions of civic
engagement are changing to take into account new
digital forms of participation. We need to think about
and study the implications of these shifts.
Pew studies found that in comparing net users and non
users, net users do more sports and recreation. Why? My
theory is become organization and administration of
sports clubs and teams is generally administratively
difficult, and the Internet has FANTASTICALLY
facilitated small community organization. People can
spend more time playing and less time on the phone,
organizing playtime. There is less of a barrier to play
time. I also think that features like RSS will improve
frequency to noise ratios - people will be able to
narrow in or their interests and be empowered, instead
of suffering from information overload.
It would be great if this would happen, but all
indications I can see point towards more
privatisation/individualisation rather than
collectivisation. Civic involvement at the level of
'citizenship', or involvement in governance, is
hampered by a growing sense of alienation from
political processes and cynicism about what difference
an ordinary person can make. Modes of membership in
social and leisure groups will be affected by internet
use, and it's likely that people will be more
easily able to find like-minded people who share their
interests.
While the Internet facilitates the growth of vast
interest-based networks, it unfortunately accelerates
the decline of genuine civic involvement. Local life is
being eclipsed by virtual life. Local identity is being
eclipsed by identification with groups that have
nothing to do with geography. Civic life begins at
home, but the concept of home is being
undermined.
Heavy Internet users are way too distracted and
multi-tasked to make commitments to groups like this
for a long period of time. Most Americans are too
selfish and self-involved to commit to anything more
that gets in the way of their convenience-driven
lifestyles, unless they're already passionate about
a cause (like a religion, a sports team or a political
candidate) and can be whipped into a frenzy by
marketers and demagogues.
It's happening now, from neighborhood kids'
soccer clubs having websites to nearly any type of
organization. It's the way of the world. Everyone
has something to say and to share. That's human
nature and the Internet has allowed us to have the
widest possible audience. Yes, there will be even more
than we can currently fathom.
The internet certainly does foster civic/group
involvement. It is easier to be part of an community
that includes contact via the web. For one thing - you
can check into or sign up for things going on while at
work. A second thing is: you can schedule group events
easily (emailing bunches of people at once). Third:
I've been able to download all kinds of paperwork
connected to civic and group involvement, like
newsletters from churches and neighborhood groups,
voting registration forms, etc. Finally, it is much
easier to investigate or find out about groups in the
first place via the internet also. The internet allows
one to travel far and wide while sitting at a desk. BUT
the internet won't replace face-to-face group
activities.
People's willingness to use information merely to
confirm their beliefs, irrespective of the relevance of
the information in question, will win out in the
majority of cases over the ability of the Internet to
expose people to unprecedented amounts of information
and breadth of perspective. I believe the main effect
the Internet will have in these areas is to increase
the convenience, or perception of same, of business as
usual. Eg, it is not an ''increase in civic
involvement'' when 100,000 get the
letter-to-the-editor boilerplate astroturf text online
and email it to their local papers; it's just a
technological enhancement of the marketing of ideas.
Also, a ''substantial'' increase
occludes the notion of the digital divide, which is
still alive and well. By and large, Internet resources
increase the convenience and sometimes power of
endeavors that were already within reach for the
individuals in question.
At the end of the day, involvement is limited by time.
And civic involvement must have some intangible
payoffs. That payoff comes with investment in time. So
I see selective involvement still, with greater
involvement being channeled into areas where there is
greater payoff. You could say that involvement will
become deeper instead of broader. This could mean that
strong civic groups become stronger while already
marginal ones shrink and die.
|