Media, Culture & Society (0 1996 (SAGE, London, Thousand Oaks and New Delhi, Vol. 18: 233-247

The new canals of Amsterdam: an exercise in local electronic democracy

Kees Brants

DEPARTMENT OF COMMUNICATION, UNIVERSITY OF AMSTERDAM

Martine Huizenga

KTA, AMSTERDAM

Reineke van Meerten

AMSTERDAM MUNICIPALITY

The applications of recent information and communication technology (ICT) and their potential for changing the political process have been adorned with both euphoric and pessimistic labels. Teledemocracy, electronic Athens or Commonwealth, are examples of the former. Push-button or dialing democracy, electronic Orwell, Bonapartism or populism examples of the latter. Infocracy could go either way, merely depending on the user of the label. Such extremes might seem odd, but are not that surprising as most new inventions, certainly those related to communication have usually been accompanied by a mixture of high hopes and gloomy fears.

ICT is a label for many gadgets and guises, ranging from the personal computer, CD-ROM, VCR and email to (coaxial and optical fiber) cable networks and information superhighways. What is, however, not recognized in such a summary, is the developmental process. Some say we are already talking about a third generation of information technology, the first characterized by the computer merely being used as a calculator and for information storage (the 1950s and 1960s), and the second by the introduction of the personal computer and the relative explosion of individual use of the new technology (1970s and 1980s). In the 1990s we are witnessing the convergence of different modes - notably microelectronics, computers and telecommunications into information and communication networks. Picture, sound, text and data are digitized and integrated into one single medium.

The agent of change of the present generation will most likely be the Internet, not only because of its massive and pervasive global network but particularly because of its anarchistic nature. No one is in charge, and the driving force seems to be non-hierarchical interactivity. Scientists and the military have been familiar with the Internet for some time now, but so far. Most people in Europe use it for e-mail. However, an increasing number cruises around the Net, retrieving data, visiting libraries and government information services, or joining discussion groups on a whole range o~ topics (some of which are too obscene to stand the light of day).

All over the world, an estimated number of between 30 to 50 million people use the Internet and the size is said to double every year, but nobody really knows by how much, as it is a network of (some 50,00(ª networks. For most in Europe, it is still a voyage of discovery, but one " learning fast. In the USA, some people already spend up to eight hours, a day 'travelling'. When - as in the state of Maryland in the USA or the city of Bologna in Italy - the service is offered to citizens free, its potential is limitless (see Negroponte, 1995: 180-3).

Although the Internet is known for its global reach, its local application and interactivity in particular make it the phenomenon mentioned in the same breath as electronic democracy, where the old cast of rulers and ruled will be turned upside down and the consumers of political information become producers again. The interactivity and political uses of ICT are relatively new to Europe, the Netherlands being a forerunner. In the cll.~ of Amsterdam a number of experiments are taking place and it is here th~t! the democratie claims can be tested.

The relation between politics, this new technology and a new impetus iol democracy does not come out of thin air. There is a distinctive coincidentalit" and interdependance between socio-political developments leading UP 1,1 what has been dubbed by many 'politics in crisis' and the differeiii generations of ICT.

Polities, political communication and ICT

The development of information and communication technology t~ike, place in a dynamic and'demanding'environment, in which technology ~11W society influence cach other. On the one hand, the needs of a society ~in,: the ability to absorb it decide for a large part the (speed of) implementation (,* ICT. On the other, the revolutionary development of ICT influenc( society. The question is whether ICT has the power to change politk,~ reality fundamentally?

Historically, with the rise of radio and television, ICT nicely fitteel 1h,

demands and structure of both society and the political system. The Netherlands in those days was known for its 'pillarized' structure: society ~k,as split along religious and ideological cleavages, segmenting social groups into 'pillars', the basis of which was formed by political parties,

newspapers and broadcasting organizations, but extending to unions, the cducational system, sports clubs, etc. Politics was for the elite, deciding hebind closed doors and supported by mass media that passed on the

ideological message. Together, they formed a more or less closed political communication culture in which press and broadcasting functioned more as integrating cement than critical watchdog.

The public sphere was very much on the receiving end and consensus f-nore a matter of course than something to be achieved. The developments in the area of computer technology did not threaten this neat system. Mainframes then were expensive, enormous and rather user-unfriendly computers for a limited group in science and industry. The word democracy in relation to these technologies was not part of the vocabulary.

In the 1970s and 1980s developments in society and technology rocked the tenuous balance within this closed political communication system. The loosening of religious ties, democratic claims and the rise of new social

rnovements all over the western world, was translated in the Netherlands into de-pillarization. As the floating voter appeared, the self-evident j)olitical support which was so characteristic of the Dutch politics of

accomodation, disappeared. At the same time the state of ICT and its growing availability speeded up this emancipatory movement Traditional inass media de-pillarized too, and took up the role of the watchdog of democracy. Video cameras and personal computers became available to a

nass audience. Radio transmitters appeared in many a household, judging rom the thousands of illegal stations that sprung up.

Transmission and use of ICT were no longer in the hands of a traditional ~Ociopolitical elite. The receiver of the message had gone adrift, could cven become a sender himself. The embodiment of these new, complex developments in the area of communication was formed by local public

,iccess channels. In Amsterdam, this channel (Salto) has, for more than 10 ~ears now, facilitated minority groups to voice ideas and broadcast cultural experiments. Public access channels like these broke through the com~nunicationbierarchy or, with a littie exaggeration, through the tyranny of

the existing broadcasting companies' one-way street.

The diffusion of computer technology, and especially the linking of PCs ,~ithi telecommunications, opened up new potential means of communication. This coincided with and fitted the process of individualization in

'ociety, a society which was emancipating itself from the hierarchical political system.

The third generation of computer technology - according to some, the )nly one worthy of the name ICT - in a way developed alongside the

traditional political media of mass communication. Where the mass med" have become the watchdogs, network technology has the potential to develop into the means of dem ocracy. The amount of information that can be retrieved, stored, analysed, manipulated and sent ' and the speed with which this can be done, has grown enormously. As for politics, database, give access to background information for citizens and decision maker, alike, providing knowledge more and more indispensable for understanding and participating in complex policy processes. But, more importantK. the decentralized and interactive use of network technology can breák through the communication hierarchy and the distinction between sender and receiver (Abramson et al., 1988: 38). With the sheer endless reach and communicative potential, the public sphere (including the old means oi mass communication) and the culture of political communication ha~ extended.

Analogous to these technological and sociopoliticaI developrnent~. different uses of ICT can be distinguished. As we saw, the first claims oi democratizing ICT came when the political system got out of balance. The political crisis was characterized by the isolation of political parties vis-a-", the electorate. Especially in the last decade, politics has been in a bit of ~1 shambles, forcing politicians to relegitimize their trade. The dramat " decline of voter turn-out, notably in the 1990 local elections, prompte(.; many city executives to review their links with the electorate, and information technology was seen as a possible help. The first application, were therefore initiated by politicians, hoping to extend and improve tK functioning of existing political institutions in the traditional publi, domain. It is typical that the first experiments with interactivity were trice out on the traditional mass media, notably television.

A democracy-related characteristic of ICT is its potential to selee. information more accurately, and thereby facilitate narrow casting 1 ( ) ' specific audience. This new application has a definite attraction 1w politicians. With the help of a growing number of opinion polls, they car assess people's wishes and grievances, to which they can react. Example, of computers and on-line services being used are mainly in the line u' improving the quality of the electoral process: citizens can find informat101 enabling them to make a well-informed choice and politicians can targi. voters with information the gatekeepers of free publicity do not alv.~i.\, deem newsworthy.

Selnow (1994) gives the hypothetical but realistic example of the polili~',i candidate who, through opinion polls and database information, targe*~ ~ selected group of potential voters with specific views on abortion, at ~11, same time conveniently concealing views on other issues highly relevan 1 !l the targeted voter, and possibly contrary to his or her stands. In 1993. th, local branch of the Green Left party in Amsterdam targeted a grour 1 . 5600 Amsterdammers who had protested in writing against the constrtietik"

of a tennis park in a city forest. The protesters' narnes had been registered and stored in a database of the municipality, and Green Left - which ,supported the tennis park - explained its stand to the 5600 through direct niail. Complaints about misuse of privacy were not upheld by the local council (Depla, 1995: 149).

Socializing democracy

Three things stand out in this short history of the dialectics of technology,

~ociety and politics- Firjs, while the Internet is typically global, some of the

e interesting ai loca,1

mor * m)lications of electronic media take p!a t ~e

re-veF-C-erta-in-lv in ~reiation to democracy, local experiments with the uses

Of more than global ones, have enlarged citizen participation.

Second in spite of forms of interactivity, the examples given have

tisually been executive-initiated d mostly based on giving

rnore (access to) information. Politics in this form remains more a model of

i(yffviffi-~ini-through the dissemination of information than of communica

!ion and discussion. Politicians decide on the definition of the problem and

!he content of the message and thus strongly influence the direction of the

~)utcome.

Although organized top-down, there are examples of extra-parliarnentary

,ittempts to open up the domination of politics. In the 1995 national (Jections in the Netherlands a nonprofit organization produced a diskette tor sale and available in libraries) which enabled voters to compare their

iews on certain issues with those of the contending political parties, after

Il\hich the computer calculated the party closest to one's personal issue Aands, and gave a suggestion what party to vote for.

Network technology in principle enables the avoidance of the top-down

ipproach. Hence, the distinction of producers and consumers of infor

niation vanishes and every individual has the opportunity to become a politician' themself. The most often quoted example of the participatory

rower of ICT in this respect is probably the electronic campaign by the homeless population of Santa Monica for shower facilities, bathrooms, '~tundromats and lockers. The Public Electronic Network (PEN) in this city 'las, specifically designed to 'promote community-oriented participatory Jemocracy' through two-way conversation between citizens and public Aficials. The availability of free terminals in libraries and shopping mails ~)r(mpted this usually poorly organized group to lobby for themselves -\bramson, 1995: 8). Here the public sphere is widened and boosted by a ~,cilitating government.

Vhird, in talking about democracy, ICT is used mostly instrumentally, as

lechnological extra which helps to irnpro~~and_ pufe~e ~ting

pres ive ~e y

-ee-nt~a mocracyn~i cy making terms: rationalization of

-ern~m~.f ~or~i~,. , n imnrovinfy noliev nrocesses. reinstatine the

238 Media, Culture & Society

Brants et al., The new canals ofAmsterdam

239

primacy of parliament and the city council, opening up public information

systems previously accessible - only to public officials and the press, and

improving the role of the citizen as voter (Depla, 1995: 90ff).

Only very few, if any, of the ICT applications aim at what could be called

the socialization of democracy: - the improvement of responsiveness of

political representatives, active citizenship, communication and public

debate instead of information and consultation, bottom-up instead of top~

down, responsibility shared by decision makers and the public. In talking

about electronic democracy, we are more interested in the latter, in the

socialization of democracy. We want to stion of w

probe the 52e~ ~_he

use of ICT leads to a fundamental chap&e in the-Dolitical proce s: in the roles the different actors lay, the wav ULQblms are defined in an open _pia . _ff _ys

debate in which interactivity between politicians and citizens and between citizens themselves is pivotal, and the w ecisions are finall made. Fot that reason we will focus on three projects in the city of Amsterdam thal. to varying degrees, claim to revolutionize the role of communication in the democratic process.

Three projects

Amsterdam bas one of the most advanced cable networks in the Netherlands and one of the largest in Europe and, at the same time, likes to propagate itself as the centre of Dutch telecommunication activity. The city council claims that telematics would not only profit Amsterdam economically but also culturally. An economic policy of telematics-push is. therefore, combined with a cultural one of demand-pull. Moreover, there is an almost 1960s libertarian philosophy in the presently centre-left cit\ council that technology is there for the people and its use should thus be democratized.

Together with the crisis in local politics this formed the breeding groun(~ for experiments with local electronic democracy: the City Talks aimed a! improving the quality of the public debate and creating a more open climate for discussion, the City Consultations hoping to make the decision process more transparent and accessible, and the Digital City claiming lu be both sender and receiver, a centre of information, discussion and opinion forming. Not only were they developed more or less consecutivel~ the origin and form of the experiments reflect the process of change in technological possibilities and in the definition of politics and politic~,~ communication.

City Talks

jocal municipality that subsidized the programmes. Based on a limited

form of two-way communication, the intentio-n- wa-s to- -reverse the infor

niation flow: citizens tell politicians-whát- they think of certain - issue 1 s

f0ste of _polifi~ciansA~ainin _ ~suor~~tfor d~eci-s-ions by S.~plairijng and

convincing.

--Répresentatives of political parties and non-governmental organizations discussed for three and a half hours topical local issues (chosen by representatives of social movements) such as poverty, unemployment, crime and housing, while the home audience could get extra background information via teletext. At the same time, the audience could react, give its opinion on the issue, which was then included in the debate, or vote for certain statements or policy options. The polling result was shown in the programme. In the course of the series of Talks the technology got more Avanced: from telephone and teletext to computers placed in public places like libraries and the town hall.

To broaden both the quality and quantity of the public debate, the City Falks aimed at as large an audience as possible. In terms of userfriendliness, the technology used - television and telephone originally - scored relatively high. On the other hand, television is by nature a one-way medium with limited potential for interactiveness: a few people provide content for a mass audience. Public access channels are an attempt to 'democratize' the medium by enlarging access hut, because of their broadcasting character, they remain largely non-interactive. Moreover, the public access channel Salto usually has very low audience ratings. But this time thousands phoned in. With the programme on traffic and public transport - where the municipality is following a controversial policy of discouraging the former and supporting the latter - the telephone exchange even got jammed. Research on those phoning in showed, however, that very few 'ordinary people' were involved, and that the Talks tended to be limited to those who already participate in or have access to the public debate: there was a bias towards the well-spoken, the educated ~md the politicallv interested.

In spite of the use of interactive teletext, the medium of television seemed to limit the provision of information. All participants - local politicians, members of pressure groups and citizens alike - complained of a lack of room to make their point. The last two were also dissatisfied with the lack of follow-up in terms of political consequences. Partly as a result of this, the interactive element was taken out of the City Talks altogether. 'I'he programme has been moved from the public access to the local semicommercial channel. It is now more professional and has the form of a talk ~how with a live audience participating to a certain degree. The idea of

the first programme took place) is a new initiative connecting old and new technologies: it is broadcast via the public access channel and at the same time has a site on Digital City. It was started by citizens to revive the original idea of reversed information that lay at the heart of the City Talks. Their first live broadcast used telephone and computer optimally. lt remains to be seen whether the bottorn-up approach will overcome tbc problems that marred the City Talks.

City Consultations

The City Consultations (Stadsberaad) were designed in 1993 as a sort ol

interactive electronic questionaire which was meant to confront citizen~

wif"E--tLrh-ie c--ó-n-s-eq-quèn-c-è-s Jr-é-5ó1éé-s-tjey could make o s nd

t s -p~_

rn, k

h,.

t us make the policy process mo was accessible vi;t

interactive teletext (again by combining teletext and telephone) and tested

first on the budget allocation of a sub-local authority.

Through a publicity campaign, the inhabitants were asked to give thelir opinion and preferences on the core business activities and budgel allocation of the local authority. To enter the system they could dial ~i telephone number where they would be informed on how to get theil teletext page and be 'guided through' the private questionnaire. Thc system was open 24 hours a day for all Amsterdammers. As if politician~

themselves, the viewers were first shown how the 'real' politicians had defined the problem and then the stages of the decision making process Ideally, the questionaire broke with the binary yes-no structure, as i! showed all the relevant considerations a decision is based upon, gave usel, the possibility of ranking options and preferences and showed the result o~ specific choices. It 'led' the user through the whole decision process in th~ form of 'choice trees' and showed the outcome of the decision makin~ process, while enabling the respondent to review specific choices.

Participants of the poll, which was held shortly before the local election', would be able to compare their choices with those of others, such as peol)k in their neighbourhood, political parties, etc. The idea was rather revolutionary, as the city councitlors would take stock of the outcome. But thL technology was not quite ready. In practice users got lost between t111 choice trees, and the asynchronous text (telephone) and picture (teletext) During a period of two weeks, 500 users called the systern, which is iii,! over 1 percent of the district's population. As they are anonymous, no dal : are avajlable on the composition of this group. Next to this phoneii, system, a representative sample of the district's population was called an,: 'led through' the questionnaire. However, the technique broke down

in the end conventional interviewing methods were used to substantiate 111~ information gained from the 500 callers.

The complexity of the mixture of various techniques in the City Consultations (teletext, telephone and a voice computer) made thern almost inaccessible: transparency turned into invisibility. A second experiment on ideas about and preferences for alternative forms of employment never really got off the ground and was finally and rather unsuccesfully perforrned on the Digital City. The typical broadcast model of the Consultations,-!2W

down technology and the bottom-up approach

City very well. In four weeks-,7t~ 157 participants answered the

questionaire.

Because the technique failed, the interactivity hardly worked and

because the audience reached was too small to speak of a contribution to the quality of participation in local dernocracy; the Consultation experirnents, set up by a few enthusiasts within the municipality and an IT firrn, have now been terminated.

1)igital City

While City Talks and Consultations were - in a mixture of involved enthusiasm and political panic - more or less initiated from above by politicians and public officials, the Digital City network (De Digitale Stad) which opened up in January 1994 - shortly and purposely before the local elections - was organized by a group of citizens and has a 'flat' organizational structure. It is a joint initiative of De Balie, a centre for

politics and culture, and the XS4a11 Foundation, which has its roots in the hackers' movement. Its approach is bottorn-up. In principle everybody is able and welcome to raise an issue, participate in a debate, chat openly or put information on the network. Although originally subsidized, it is now fiinded through advertising revenue and space rented out to commercial and non-commercial information providers.

_Essentially. Dig~italCity is an Amsterdam _site of the Internet, and

COmparable to the Free Nets in the USA. The concept is simple: it is a

CO enting_ Amsterdam Ma virtual citv aiid- ~ virtual

COmmun ple, a library, a coffee bar, a post office, a

iliuseum and even dark alleys (for one's wildest dreams). The metaphor is

~.xtendedia-th.a..£~~~~~en~-bu

Fhere are streets and squares where the assembled buildings share a eertain (cultural, political, etc.) 'sphere'. One can rent flats and build houses. There is an 'office block' where a range of commercial and dealistic organizations provide information. Discussions spring up in

Miual publie spaces, the topics being limitless, and the result sometimes Jitlicult to ignore for decision makers.

1)igital City's town hall provides access to the administrative information -\stem of the local government (BISA), formerly exclusively reserved for

municipal employees and politicians, and the public information systern (PIGA), previously solely reserved for municipal press officers. Political parties publish their programmes, policy documents and views on certain issues, while leading dailies have opened up their archives. To reach the City network one needs a personal computer and a modern, or a connection to the Internet, but public terminals have been placed in libraries, museums, the town hall and homes for the elderly. Except for the telephone cost for the home user, access is free of charge.

The leading technology with Digital City is computer network technology,

facilitating non-hierarchical, interactive use. Special care has been given to the interface. There is a help desk, the number of telephone lines has been raised in order to avoid 'traffic jams', and the installation of public terminals can in principle overcome the limited availability of computers. Citizens can participate freely in all discussions, or start a discussion group themselves. Although the amount of information in the City is thus still growing, access to the Internet is limited. In most households in the Netherlands, both television and telephones are present, PCs can now be found in four out of ten families, but moderns and communication software are rare. For full use of the Internet, one has to log in via an Internet provider.

Although the network technology is in principle more democratie than

broadcasting, the reality of access paints a different picture. The profile of the 'inhabitants' of the City reflects the relative exclusiveness of the use of network technology. In September 1995, there was a population of around 35,000, but many visiting 'guests' are not registered. Digital City claims that there are 5000 consultations a day, with an average duration of 15 minutes (there is very little use at the weekend). However, certainly in the beginning, the users were limited in demographic scope: the majority is young (58 percent under 30), well educated (almost three quarters with higher education), employed and male (Schalken and Tops, 1994; Abramson, 1995, notes the same unevenness with the American Free Nets). The number of female users is growing slowly from 9 per cent in 1994 to 15 per cent at the end of 1995.

The discussion platforms on computer technology, art and culture, the

relation between information technology and democracy and on the level of democracy within Digital City itself are better visited than those on specific political issues (half the users do not live in Amsterdam), which feeds the suspicion that the Digital City is more a place for a (new) elite and a number of 'techno freaks' than for 'ordinary' citizens. The start of other Digital Cities elsewhere in the Netherlands might 'socialize' the

medium a bit more. On the other hand, discussions can be lively, intensive and substantial. A well visited discussion group on the 'multicultural city and racism' sprung up after a visitor to the City announced that he would vote for an extreme right-wing party (Centrum Democraten). The discussion lasted for several weeks and covered government policies, personal

experiences and normative statements. It is not known whether the visitor

that triggered the discussion changed his mind in the end.

The case for electronic democracy

Analytically, the po~Iit~ic~~~~~s is divided

into two, closely linked, domains: a discursive pubTic-s-p'gére, accessible to

all to get information, voice opinions-a-nU-in--gè-né-~al ~Participate in debate; and

a decision making sphere where the wants and desires articulated in the public

sphere are selected (or not), formulated in policy, decided upon and

executed. The claini of eleetronie democracy is that under its 'regime' the

distinction-5 S.

The three Amsterdam projects all share the aim of narrowing the gap

between (local) polities and citizens, raising information levels, hoping for a more transparent policy process, enlarging access, allowing for participation and sharing responsibility in decision making. But they differ in their organizational structure, the technology used and their level of interactivity.

With the City Consultations, the initiative and the content were defined

by local government and, as a result, tended to serve mainly as (more potential than actual) input for political decision makers, and not so much as a platform for ideas and discussions. The decision on the content of the political agenda was limited to the traditional definers of polities; whoever lowns' a problem has the possibility to create and to influence the public definition, to define what caused it and how it should be solved. The communicative and technological necessity to limit the number of choices was strengthened by the political desire to stay within certain policy limits too. In that sense, the level of interactivity was minimal and the outcome left to those who controlled the input. The organization of the communication was still hierarchical. The claim was made to construct a publie sphere, with the emphasis on bottom-up initiatives, while the content, the decision making structure and the broadcasting structure, were top-down and the technique inaccessible. This made the project hang in the air a bit right from the start. The decision to stop it was therefore not so much a retreat from local government commitment, as a realization that socializing democracy needs more than a strong will.

The decision to abandon interactivity and the idea of 'reversed infor

mation' with the City Talks was a different matter. The Talks were initiated by the local municipality, very much with the idea of reducing the gap between decision makers and citizens in mind. As with the Consultations, the organization was top-down, but the discussion agenda was set, or at least drawn up, in collaboration with representatives of social organizations in Amsterdam. The aim was for politicians to come down

and take seriously the issues and points raised. Input-democracy, in which

wants and desires are articulated and formulated bottom-up, did indeed receive a boost with the short-lived Talks. Politicians could not avoid participating in the communications and taking the arguments seriously. Moreover, with the crisis in party politics, the executive has increasing problems to legitimize its agenda initiatives.

Ideally, with the notion of socializing democracy, citizens can share in the responsibility of decision making, thus turning politics into coproduction and even going beyond direct democracy. There were glimpses that such an upturn was beginning to take place. In practice, however, citizens still had to 'go up' with their grievances, the electronic discussions thus being input for the political agenda, not forming the agenda itself, let alone a decision taking forum. Moreover, when outcomes of discussions threaten delicate balances of political coalitions and council decisions reached with great difficulty, politicians have tended to criticize the representativeness of the participants, and the lack of room to give information they deemed indispensable for a rational discourse in the public sphere (Dubbelboer, 1995). In the end, both Talks and Consultations had more to do with extendmg ánd improving the functionin of äe

e~~i.ntitutions t an with socializing democracy.

Ti-ns!-i~tutions_~tVan wit~hsoc~ializi~n~~4

Digital City did not start as a mechanism of local democracy and is still only a limited space of the city and in the discussion groups, is devoted to traditional politics. Discussions on Digital City are diverse, ranging from the politically constructive to the agressively personal, leading to what in the Internet world have already been called 'flame wars', referring to the digital flamethrowers participants use in their 'discussions'. On the other hand, local government information and information from nongovernmental organizations is vast and still growing.

The question is whether in this information flow and the cacol2hony of

uiscussion groups, senous would-be particiDants will be able to find their

,ta MorP-co-nte-nt'is ~unou ~tedly -availab~le,~ut 7wit~ =ore communica

y.

tion and participation or, as in the case of the City Consultations, making participants at best technically share in the decision making process, it seems to have the conflicting potential of making the policy process transparent and complex at the same time, and thus more elitist and inaccessible.

Digital City does, however, point to a possible revitalization of social structures, be it in a virtual community (see Schalken and Tops, 1995: 52). City Talks and Beurs TV create interactivity between viewers and those participating in studio discussions. Digital City also enables horizontal debate between citizens themselves, without intermediaries and, because of its virtuality, not restricted by time and place. Digital City can thus, function as a community network, an audiovisual space where temporarv communities can discuss certain themes as part of an existing local community.

democracy

as the magic formula against 12oliticLip crisis, but now fear they fetched in

tF

e Trojan liorse. ICT networks strengthen 'single issue-ness'. and might r hem obsolete as the representatives of both volonté général and specific interests. The slight panic in party political circles seems, however, rather premature. A combination of public and decision making spheres cannot yet do without intermediaries such as political parties. Moreover, Digital City's voluntary nature is both its strength and its weakness: in this organizational set-up no one is committed to the outcome.

A new public sphere?

With the transition from direct to representative democracy, we can see a shift in the definition and value of politics. In the'old days', politics was not only defined as a functional instrument to organize society in the most

efficient way, it also had its own ethical and educational value. Participating in politics functioned both as a means to reach a decision and as an instrument to become a full-fiedged 'burger'. In modern representative democracy, the control of the decision making process is in theory shared by political parties and mass media functioning as watchdogs. The educational value for individual members of society has gradually disappeared: one becomes a 'burger' at school or in church, and more recently (and not unproblematically) in front of the television.

The public sphere referred to by the proponents of electronic democracy

is in a way a return to what Habermas (1962) distinguished as the bürgerfiche Oeffentfichkeit. In his analysis of the formation of public opinion during the development of capitalism in Western Europe, Habermas

envisaged a social space between the state and civil society, gained by the emerging bourgeoisie of the 18th century. In the salons in France, the tea and coffee houses near Parliament in London, and similar places elsewhere in Europe, private citizens, the avant garde of the bourgeois class, 'men of letters', assembled as a public, critically discussing and thus controlling the workings of the state. Their power lay in their sensitivity to new social issues which they 'launched', so to speak, into the decision making arena. Their discussions were fed and disseminated by an increasingly independent press, which transformed private views into public opinion. The upcoming working classes were mostly excluded from the bourgeois discussions, but similar though politically less influential discourses took place in reading clubs, peoples theatres and, later, the socialist press, where a more proletarian public sphere was formed (see Vester, 1970; Negt and Kluge, 1972).

The development of the industrial welfare state from the late 19th

eentury onwards - with governments more and more intervening in the

i~rivate st)here - has chanf!ed and finallv disinteerated the public sphere,

according to Habermas. From a basis of discussion, where information was being presented to a critical public, the platform became a basis of consumption. Publicity turned into public relations, journalism lost its critical role, the audience was only expected to identify and to acclaim. 'Public opinion', Dahlgren (1991: 4), summarizing Habermas, was 'no longer a process of rational discourse but the result of publicity and social engineering in the media'.

Although he criticizes the monolithic compactness with which Habermas pictures the communications sector in society, Dahigren adds four intertwined areas which both strengthen and problematize Habermas's point: the crisis of the nation state, the segmentation of audiences, the rise of ne~k social movements and the availability of ICT for consumers. The first two were in fact the rationale for the top-down technology-push philosophy of the political elite in Amsterdam in supporting City Talks and Consultations, the last two for the bottom-up emphasis of publics involved in processes of electronic democracy. Dahlgren mentions the relative availability of advanced computer and communication technology to consumers, not least to those new political movements who make use of e-mail and direct mail to discuss, communicate and act. lt is here that he locates the emergence of a plurality of dynamic alternative public spheres, next to that of the corporate state and the existing mass media.

Network technology has the potential to create a new c sphere

which tits the social st-ructure better, a public domain 3miich, ideally.

coincides with the decision making domain. However, politics does not yet

Pol,ti 7

fit the ncw 'technology. -ansfeel uncomfortable with the different

role they have to play in such a challenging direct democracy. Political

communication then becomes difficult and ineffective. On the other hand,

if the trend in national broadcasting is for more entertainment, games, talk

shows, reality, etc., and less news and current affairs, then there is (at least

in theory) room for the political dimension of ICT.

The streets of Digital City are lined with the prerequisites for socializing oemocracy: its bottom-up philosophy, its'flat'organizational structure and voluntary nature, its interactivity, its user-friendly interface. Up to now. the social structure of the discussion groups makes them more comparable to Habermas's elitist salons than to alternative public spheres, but theil potential accessibility and their sensitivity to new social issues could well turn them into a vehicle for the counterculture of the 21st century.

References

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Abramson, J., F. Arterton and G. Orren (1988) The Electronic Commonwealth. Ncw York: Basic Books.

Dahlgren, P. (1991) 'Introduction', pp.1-27 in P. Dahlgren and C. Sparks (eds) Communication and Citizenship. London: Routledge.

Depla, P. (1995) Technologie en de vernieuwing van de lokale democratie. 's Gravenhage: Vuga Uitgeverij.

Dubbelboer, N. (1995) 'Van Stadsgesprek tot Beurs-TV: Overheidscommunicatie in het digitale, multi-mediale tijdperk', pp.57--63 in Jaarboek Overheidscommunicatie 1995. 's Gravenhage: Vuga Uitgeverij.

Habermas, J. (1962) Strukturwandel der Oeffentlichkeit. Neuwied: Luchterhand.

Negroponte, N. (1995) Being Digital. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

Negt, 0. und A. Kluge (1972) Oeffentlichkeit und Erfahrung. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

Schalken, K. and P.W. Tops (1995)'De Digitale Stad; Gemeenschap en democratie in de informatiemaatschappij', pp.47-55 in Jaarboek Overheidscommunicatie 1995. Is Gravenhage: Vuga Uitgeverij.

~Ielnow, G. (1994) High-tech Campaigns. Westport: Praeger.

Vester, M. (1970) Die Entstehung des Proletariats als Lernprozess. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.