Continent of Docu-Blogs Use Case: The IT-Gipfelblog

Abstract

The Internet is not the first innovation which people have expected to lead to an enhanced sense of togetherness, understanding and even world peace. After the establishment of the first stable telegraphic connection, both radio and television have subsequently been supercharged with such utopian expectations, only to be rapidly demystified thereafter. The Internet is no different. Nicholas Negroponte, an early visionary of web culture, still prophesized in 1997 that the Internet would overcome nationalism and create world peace [Neg97]. Since then, however, all kinds of radical groups and unions have been quick to instrumentalize the new medium for their causes, putting an end to such romantic expectations. The Internet differs from its predecessors in communications technology in a fundamental way: It is a decentralized technology and the first medium ever to function without a vulnerable core which makes it impossible to control. Until now, no government – not even the Chinese leadership through its nationwide firewall – has managed to bring this digital network under its control [Neg97, Bla08]. This unique characteristic is the reason why the dream of the digital democracy (hereafter referred to as e-Democracy ), and a society free of the influence of manipulated media and lobbyism, stays alive [Mac04]. In the US, for instance, the Internet has become the primary source of information for the majority of citizens. According to the Spew Center for the People and the Press in Washington D.C., the Internet is already the most important contact point for news about electoral campaigns for the age group between 18 and 29 years [Pew08]. This is not only beneficial to the websites of traditional media corporations but also particularly important for weblogs and big social networking platforms like myspace.com, facebook.com or youtube.com. The focus here is not only on clicks. While the Clinton campaign was focusing on big campaign contributions, the campaign of Barack Obama mobilized over a million small-time donors through the use of the Internet [Bla08]. This illustrates that even though it might be too early to speak about real e-Democracy, the Internet nevertheless has a strong influence on political campaigns. How exactly can the participative character of the Web 2.0 enhance or enable democratic decision making processes and which ICT is the most suitable to achieve maximum success in this regard?