Rediscovering the Pleasures of Pluralism: The Potential of Digitally Mediated Civic Participation — Digitalist Papers

We agree with those who think revitalizing place-based identities and local engagement may help to break down these walls. If we redirect people’s attention back to local politics and working with fellow community members on projects that have a tangible impact, perhaps we can restart a positive feedback loop and regenerate the crosscutting connect... See more

Over the last 50 years, people have shifted away from meeting and volunteering regularly in associations and informal gatherings such as support groups and Bible study groups, choosing instead to engage through “checkbook participation,” where we outsource and pay local and national organizations who hire professional staff to do the good works and... See more

Digital intermediation could help offer this kind of access to what Zacka calls “the lively and diverse intermingling of strangers in the public arena” and what the urban planner Jane Jacobs described as the “great and exuberant richness of differences and possibilities, many of these unique and unpredictable—and all the more valuable because they ... See more

Polis ensures that participants focus on the content of comments and the state of the conversation, because there are no direct conversations or interactions with other participants. Discussion on the platform in this sense happens at a distance, like an observer sitting on a park bench or standing on a balcony.

Many online spaces for political discussions are no better. To paraphrase Audrey Tang, Facebook is like trying to have a political discussion in a nightclub. (11) Some online spaces are far worse, involving people or bots who take a “no-holds-barred” approach to the things they say, or worse, may actively seek to incite a virtual mob to go after yo... See more

The work of political theorist Bernardo Zacka illuminates the importance of “in-between spaces.” Zacka’s focus is on physical spaces, such as balconies on apartment buildings that overlook the street, and how they can enable what Zacka calls a “reserved sociability” that strengthens pluralism in democratic societies. (12) When the driver of a car s... See more

Quantitative experiments, sometimes including tens of millions of individuals, have examined inclusiveness and efficiency in decision-making via digital networks. Their findings suggest that large networks of nonexperts can make practical, productive decisions and engage in collective action under certain (1) conditions. (2) These conditions includ... See more

First, identity authentication can ensure that everyone on the platform is a human entitled to join the platform...no bots, and maybe no commercial companies. It used to be that knowing someone’s identity was necessary to ensure that they had rights to participate. But much of the toxicity of current social media interactions is about identities as... See more

With technologies that can now facilitate discussion and decision-making among groups both big and small, we must ask if we can build new kinds of intermediating digital spaces, ones that provide perspective, attention, and action on shared rather than personal problems, while at the same time accommodating discussion and deliberation at local as w... See more