Sara Chapman’s Electronic Democracy is a good read!
Ultimately, telecommunications, computing, television, radio and the Internet can play an important role in the democratic process but the designers and planners responsible for schemes need to establish clearly what the roles are to be and most importantly which forms of democracy they wish to promote electronically. As suggested at the beginning of this discussion, the practices and processes of democracy are complex and democratic practice combines any number of different criteria. As such, one person’s view of what constitutes sound democratic practice may vary significantly to another’s, as highlighted above. The debate will no doubt continue and with it calls for different uses of the same technology to meet different ends.
