week ten-Does internet democracy will influence the government decision?

Nowadays, governments try to listen to citizen’s voice from the internet. For example, American government set up Whitehouse website for the netizens to present their view. It allows citizens to start and spread petitions, promising that any entreaties that get a certain signatures would receive an ‘official response’.

Democratic refers to the institutionalization of democracy, it become self-sustaining and secure from the threat of authoritarian regression and considered as “the only game in town”. (Linz & Stepan, 1996)Although it do like this, the problem cannot be solve follow the netizens voice. The internet makes some political activity easier. But it does do the real effect. In actual, Whitehouse website is more like a public relation platform. They selective answering and long response time for the Westboro petition, having long passed its ‘merits a response’ threshold had not got the replay.The petition to reduce gun violence only gets boilerplate answer. (Garber, 2013) No matter good or bad, White House's digital petitions represent a republican democracy.

Groshek’s (2009) cross-national analysis of relationship between progressive internet penetration and democratizen between 1994 and 2003 suggests the internet democratization is decided by the level of democracy of countries. The network of globalization also gets advantage and disadvantage. The information can be more widely spread, it increase the difficult of government to deal with the problem. More network power makes pressure to them. In order to stop the widely spread of serious even, government try to blockade the information. It is hard to say it is good or bad. The different county situation decides the result of digital democracy.  

The internet democracy influence the government decision is not certainly. However, the power of digital democracy cannot ignore.

References:

Linz, J., & Stepan, S. (1996). Towards consolidated democracies. Journal of Democracy.

Garber, M. (2013) The White House Petition Site Is a Joke (and Also the Future of

Democracy) The Atlantic. Retrieved from: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/01/the-white-house-petition-site-is-a-joke-and-also-the-future-of-democracy/267238/

 

Groshek, J. (2009). The democratic effects of the Internet, 1994–2003: A cross-national inquiry of 152 countries. The International Communication Gazette