The Cultural Consequences of the Information Superhighway

Building the NII, we create a vast and productive niche for the enlargement of [Manuel] de Landa’s “machinic phylum,” worlds in which machines can grow and evolve, and this eventually may have profound implications for human consciousness. Even in the relatively primitive forms it takes today, information technology seems to encourage a fixation on virtual rather than real experience – on technologically mediated perception, not direct apprehension. It can also saturate us in a hypnotic image-repertoire that works to render us passive and dream-struck no matter who, if anyone, controls it.

The Cultural Consequences of the Information Superhighway

We have a national standard of infantilized media, which allow necessary human chaos only as it sneaks through in the form of eroticized violence and violent eroticism, both typically subtextual, subliminal, and dishonest. If we wish the NII to escape such a malign fate, we should work toward an opaque and open NII, one that, for instance, allows universal and near-anonymous access, guarantees the individual the right (which the government does not currently do) and means to encrypt information, and provides individual control over content, both outgoing and incoming. Taken together, these technical attributes would combine to create an NII that might actually serve us without entangling us even more in the embrace of commercial and governmental forces.

The Cultural Consequences of the Information Superhighway

The pitchman’s hyperbole and the government’s bland assurances alike should tell us that we are being hustled, worked – like a crowd standing in front of the ring-toss stand at a traveling carnival.

The Cultural Consequences of the Information Superhighway

New information technologies can easily be turned to malign ends. Through advertising and other means, they have been used not only to exploit our hearts’ desires but to manufacture new ones. Along with the specter of greater government control over citizens’ lives that becomes possible with the new information technologies, this ‘commodification of desire’ must be considered one of the darker prospects of the NII … With the NII, it seems likely that the machines will grow stronger, as will marketers and governments.

Democracy On-line

As the information infrastructure changes, so do the possibilities for creating nominating systems that will attract and select the best candidates. Theoretically elegant but heretofore impractical voting systems could come into widespread use. Instead of starting with an initial pool of five to 10 candidates preselected by political parties or mass-media pundits, it might be practical with computer voting to start with hundreds or thousands of candidates and have the public do the selecting. With the advent of relatively inexpensive and convenient home voting, we could also have three or four nominating rounds instead of the two customary today. And the new media rather than the parties could be given control of the basic nominating-system protocols.

Democracy On-line

Perhaps the party system could be abolished … Already the growth of the television over the last few decades has seriously diminished the power of the parties. This trend toward weakened parties is likely to continue as a result of the emerging information infrastructure and the new agent-based media it engenders. A logical implication is to institutionalize the growing powers of the media over the nominating system. For example, an electoral agents’ association could set dates and criteria for nominations – something the media currently do in a much less democratic way with so-called ‘hidden’ nominations. The hidden nomination is the process, most pronounced in presidential primaries, whereby the media anoint a handful of candidates as serious contenders.

Democracy On-line

The new technology will make possible new ways to publicly finance elections. Instead of money going to candidates, money could be given directly to the voters. Instead of tens of millions of dollars in communication vouchers being given to presidential candidates to spend on 30-second television ads, money could be given directly to citizens to spend on information about political candidates. Such voter-based vouchers are far more democratic than candidate-based vouchers but have never been more practical before … A special class of information agent – the electoral agent – could be given special treatment much like nonprofit organizations, which receive privileges such as tax exemptions and reduced postal rates. As with nonprofits, electoral agents could provide a public good that would otherwise be underproduced.

Democracy On-line

The new media, while continuing to weaken the political parties, could nevertheless greatly diminish the utility of candidate self-promotion. The reasoning is that voters in the future will increasingly get their political information from … impartial information agents, not from the candidates directly. If that turns out to be the case, then not only will traditional candidate self-promotion become obsolete, but so will the power of lobbyists and special interests who derive their power from their ability to fund candidates’ media campaigns. A candidate could spend huge sums taking out television ads, but it would do no good if the voter has come to rely on agents for political information.