Radical Democracy and the Internet
Also by Eugenia Siapera AT THE INTERFACE: Continuity and Transformation in Culture and Politics (co-editor)
Radical Democracy and the Internet Interrogating Theory and Practice Edited by Lincoln Dahlberg University of Queensland and Eugenia Siapera University of Leicester
Selection and editorial matter Lincoln Dahlberg and Eugenia Siapera 2007 Chapters their authors 2007 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2007 978-0-230-00720-8 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1T 4LP. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The authors have asserted their rights to be identified as the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 Companies and representatives throughout the world PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-28315-6 ISBN 978-0-230-59246-9 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780230592469 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Radical democracy and the Internet : interrogating theory and practice / edited by Lincoln Dahlberg and Eugenia Siapera. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Internet Political aspects. 2. Democracy. 3. Radicalism. I. Dahlberg, Lincoln, 1966 II. Siapera, Eugenia. HM851.R35 2007 322.40285 4678 dc22 2006047975 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07
Contents List of Tables Notes on Contributors vii viii 1 Introduction: Tracing Radical Democracy and the Internet 1 Lincoln Dahlberg and Eugenia Siapera 2 Globalization, Technopolitics, and Radical Democracy 17 Richard Kahn and Douglas Kellner 3 Radical Citizenship in the Republic of Technology: A Sketch 37 Darin Barney 4 Civic Identity and Net Activism: The Frame of Radical Democracy 55 Peter Dahlgren 5 Online Direct Action: Hacktivism and Radical Democracy 73 Tim Jordan 6 Between Agonistic and Deliberative Politics: Towards a Radical E-Democracy 89 Joss Hands 7 Participation and/or Deliberation? The Internet as a Tool for Achieving Radical Democratic Aims 108 John Downey 8 The Internet and Discursive Exclusion: From Deliberative to Agonistic Public Sphere Theory 128 Lincoln Dahlberg 9 Multicultural Radical Democracy and Online Islam 148 Eugenia Siapera 10 Democracy, Postcolonialism, and Everyday Life: Contesting the Royal We Online 168 M. I. Franklin 11 Hegemony or Multitude? Two Versions of Radical Democracy for the Net 191 Nick Dyer-Witheford v
vi Contents 12 Internet Piracy as Radical Democracy? 207 Mark Poster 13 Feminism, Communicative Capitalism, and the Inadequacies of Radical Democracy 226 Jodi Dean Index 246
List of Tables 7.1 Distribution of wealth in the United Kingdom (percentage) 113 7.2 Internet access by household income deciles 114 vii
Notes on Contributors Darin Barney is Research Chair in Technology and Citizenship at McGill University, Canada. He is the author of Prometheus wired: The hope for democracy in the age of network technology and The network society, and co-editor (with Andrew Feenberg) of Community in the digital age: Philosophy and practice. Lincoln Dahlberg teaches and researches in the areas of media politics, critical theory, and digital democracy. He has published extensively in these areas and is also the co-editor of the journal New Zealand Sociology. Lincoln is currently based in the School of Journalism and Communication at the University of Queensland, Australia. Peter Dahlgren is Professor of Media and Communication at Lund University, Sweden. His research focuses on the media, democracy, and contemporary socio-cultural processes. At present he is studying young citizens use of new communication technologies for democratic participation and identity work. His forthcoming book is Media and civic engagement. Jodi Dean is an Associate Professor in the Political Science Department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, New York, USA. She is the author of Solidarity of strangers, Aliens in America, Publicity s secret, and Zizek s politics. She is the editor of Feminism and the new democracy and Cultural studies and political theory. With Paul A. Passavant she edited Empire s new clothes: Reading Hardt and Negri. With Jon Anderson and Geert Lovink she edited Reformatting politics: Networked communications and global civil society. John Downey is Senior Lecturer in Communication and Media at Loughborough University, UK. His research interests include comparative media analysis, political communication, and media and conflict. He is well known for his work on the Internet and counter-publics. His publications include Technocities, and he is currently writing a book on the political economy of digital media. Nick Dyer-Witheford is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. viii
Notes on Contributors ix He is the author of Cyber-Marx: Cycles and circuits of struggle in high-technology capitalism. He has also co-edited Digital play: The interaction of technology, culture and marketing. M. I. Franklin is Senior Lecturer in Social and Political Theory at the University for Humanistics, The Netherlands. Recent books are Postcolonial politics, the Internet and everyday life: Pacific traversals online and Resounding international relations: On music, culture and politics. She is an average cybernaut barely managing to resist the seductions of mobile telephony and 24/7 broadband. Joss Hands teaches Communication Studies at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK, and is a visiting lecturer at Roskilde University in Denmark. His research centres on the relationship between democracy and technology, specifically the Internet. He also has interests in the political economy of communication and the culture and politics of the public sphere. He recently completed a research project on the democratic use of the Internet by local government in the UK and has co-edited, with Eugenia Siapera, At the interface: Transformations in culture and politics. Tim Jordan is Reader in Sociology at the Open University, UK. He is the author of Cyberpower, Hacktivism and cyberwars, and Activism!: Direct action, hacktivism and the future of society. He is also the editor of Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest and recently co-edited Storming the millennium: The new politics of change. Richard Kahn is a Teaching Fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, USA. He is the co-editor of Theory, facts, and interpretation in educational and social research. He has published numerous articles with Douglas Kellner on topics related to the intersection of technology, politics, culture, and education. His main research interest is in theorizing and promoting ecopedagogy. Further information about him, including many of his articles, can be obtained at his website: http://richardkahn.org/. Douglas Kellner is George Kneller Chair in the Philosophy of Education at UCLA, USA, and is the author of many books on social theory, politics, history, and culture, including works in cultural studies such as Media culture and media spectacle; a trilogy of books on postmodern theory with Steve Best; a trilogy of books on the Bush administration, including Grand
x Notes on Contributors theft 2000, From 9/11 to terror war, and his latest Media spectacle and the crisis of democracy. His website is at http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/ kellner/kellner.html. Mark Poster is Professor of History at the University of California, USA. He is Chair of the Department of Film and Media Studies and a member of the History Department. He is the author of many books used throughout the world on media and politics courses, including the most recent The mode of information, The second media age, What s the matter with the Internet?, Cultural history and postmodernity, and Information please: Culture and politics in the age of digital machines. Eugenia Siapera teaches Media and Communications at the University of Leicester, UK. Eugenia has worked on the relationship between the new media and multiculturalism. Her work has appeared in New Media and Society, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, and the European Journal of Cultural Studies. She is the co-editor (with Joss Hands) of At the interface: Continuity and transformation in culture and politics.