In Online Democracy, Fun Is Imperative

The predictable responses to mistrust—engagement only where we feel we are making a difference, the transfer of public functions to private entities, transparency, disengagement, and fear—all present significant challenges to a culture of healthy civic engagement. Unfortunately, a more daunting challenge has emerged as a consequence of mistrust: th

We’ve grown so used to the idea that social media is damaging our democracies that we’ve thought very little about how we might build new networks to strengthen societies. We need a wave of innovation around imagining and building tools whose goal is not to capture our attention as consumers, but to connect and inform us as citizens.

There is one more layer yet to the problematic nature of a sole focus on voting and electoral politics as the expression of citizenship: the very idea that formal government is what it’s all about. This is politics as a spectator sport at best, rather than a participatory pursuit, and as such is the specialised realm of experts who are a breed apar

I will argue that the constraints on governance in online spaces have contributed to the peril of democratic politics in general. It is not enough to merely defend existing governmental institutions; healthy democracy depends on enabling creative new forms of self-governance, especially on networks.