Blackwell Reference Online

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The concept of electronic democracy has intellectual as well as technological roots. Its intellectual roots are anchored in normative democratic theory and in the idea of participatory democracy (→  Participatory Communication ). Technologically, it is rooted in dramatic changes in media technology that amount to a revolution in the field of communication (→  Communication Technology and Democracy ). The communications revolution is a process that spans a long period of time, encompassing a multitude of technological developments from the first telegraph wire connecting both sides of the Atlantic Ocean since 1862 through to the diffusion of the →  Internet in the 1990s. This chain of technological breakthroughs amounts today to a media infrastructure that provides mind-boggling new opportunities in the field of communication (→  Information and Communication Technology, Development of ; Communication Infrastructure ). It opens up mass communication to every individual who cares to go public, it dramatically increases the volume of public communication, and it provides for a global presence of any piece of information as well as of any individual. As Nicholas Negroponte (1995) put it: On the net, every piece of information and every individual is just a mouse click away, independent of location. The communications revolution played to a longstanding debate in normative democratic ... log in or subscribe to read full text