Copyright (C) 2003 by Douglas Rushkoff. This Project Gutenberg
is also available online at: http://www.demos.co.uk/catalogue/opensourcedemocracy_page292.aspx
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Title page:
Open Source Democracy
How online communication is changing offline politics
by Douglas Rushkoff
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Tom Bentley and everyone at Demos for the opportunity toextend this inquiry to a new community of thinkers. Thanks also to myeditorial assistant, Brooke Belisle, and to colleagues includingAndrew Shapiro, Steven Johnson, Ted Byfield, Richard Barbrook, DavidBennahum, Red Burns, Eugenie Furniss and Lance Strate.
Introduction
The emergence of the interactive mediaspace may offer a new model forcooperation. Although it may have disappointed many in the technologyindustry, the rise of interactive media, the birth of a new medium,the battle to control it and the downfall of the first victoriouscamp, taught us a lot about the relationship of ideas to the mediathrough which they are disseminated. Those who witnessed, or better,have participated in the development of the interactive mediaspacehave a very new understanding of the way that cultural narratives aredeveloped, monopolised and challenged. And this knowledge extends, byallegory and experience, to areas far beyond digital culture, to thebroader challenges of our time.
As the world confronts the impact of globalism, newly revitalisedthreats of fundamentalism, and the emergence of seeminglyirreconcilable value systems, it is incumbent upon us to generate anew reason to believe that living interdependently is not onlypossible, but preferable to the competitive individualism,ethnocentrism, nationalism and particularism that have characterisedso much of late 20th century thinking and culture.
The values engendered by our fledgling networked culture may, in fact,help a world struggling with the impact of globalism, the lure offundamentalism and the clash of conflicting value systems. Thanks tothe actual and allegorical role of interactive technologies in ourwork and lives, we may now have the ability to understand many socialand political constructs in very new contexts. We may now be able tolaunch the kinds of conversations that change the relationship ofindividuals, parties, creeds and nations to one another and to theworld at large. These interactive communication technologies couldeven help us to understand autonomy as a collective phenomenon, ashared state that emerges spontaneously and quite naturally whenpeople are allowed to participate actively in their mutualself-interest.
The emergence of the internet as a self-organising community, itssubsequent co-option by business interests, the resulting collapse ofthe dot.com pyramid and the more recent self-conscious revival ofinteractive media's most participatory forums, serve as a case studyin the politics of renaissance. The battle for control over new andlittle understood communication technologies has rendered transparentmany of the agendas implicit in our political and cultural narratives.Meanwhile, the technologies themselves empower individuals to takepart in the creation of new narratives. Thus, in an era when crassperversions of populism, and exaggerated calls for national security,threaten the very premises of r