Digital Democracy

Increasing attention is being paid to the political uses of the new communication technologies. Digital Democracy offers an invaluable in-depth explanation of what issues of theory and application are most important to the emergence and development of computer-mediated communication systems for political purposes.

The book provides a wide-ranging critical examination of the concept of virtual democracy as discussed in theory and as implemented in practice and policy that has been hitherto unavailable. It addresses how the Internet, World Wide Web and computer-mediated political communication are affecting democracy and focuses on the various theoretical and practical issues involved in digital democracy.

Jan A.G.M. van Dijk is an internationally recognized expert in the field of communication, his specific interest being new media studies.  Van Dijk is the author of The Network Society: Social Aspects of the New Media (SAGE, 1999) and co-editor of Digital Democracy: Issues of Theory and Practice (SAGE, 2000).  He is an advisor of the European Commission in the Information Society Forum.  As a professor of Communication Science at Twente University, van Dijk teaches and develops the sociology of the information society, in particular the social-cultural, political, and organizational aspects.