Putting It all Together: The Essay

For my essay for New Communications Technology, I have decided to tackle the rather tricky looking but thoroughly interesting, topic number four. Which poses the questions of; What are the uses/limits of the Internet in terms of politics and or Democracy? Should we rethink the nature of the political? What happens to the nation/state in the age where networks, that have the potential to span the entire globe? What has happened to the idea of 'community', in age of networked digital media?

I actually became interested by this topic, because of Stephen Stockwell's lecture on 'Political Possibilities". But also because I completed 'Introduction to Politics' last semester, and found it very interesting.

Unfortunately I have not had a lot of time so far to analyse what I believe to be suitable sources for this essay. But I have found a few that relate to how the internet affects the political sphere.

One of these was a thesis I found relating to this topic by, Alinta Thornton (2002). It is a report titled, 'Does Internet Create Democracy?'. This seems to be an excellent report because it relates to the impact of the Internet on the social sphere, formation of political will, online voting, interactivity ,to name but a few. I think this will be very useful toward the argument I want to develop for this essay. Thornton (2002) states,

'In my view, the explosion of direct participatory democracy Rheingold hoped for is highly unlikely to eventuate merely as a result of the Internet's existence'.

I believe this may be a useful quote in order to support my argument

I want to develop a paragraph each for the 'pros's and con's, which may relate to democracy and the Internet. I found an online article written by, Daniel Kohanski (2008). Which relates to these aspects I wish to discuss in my essay. The article is titled, 'The Internet's Impact on Democracy'. It is useful as it gives a balanced approach to the issue. An aspect which should not be omitted in an essay. I want to give a balanced approach to my essay,by also keeping in mind my main argument or thesis statement.