"Democracies don't prepare well for things that have never happened before."

"Democracies don't prepare well for things that have never happened before."

-RICHARD A. CLARKE,
former White House counterterrorism chief.

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/30/national/30TERR.html?todaysheadlines

Coming to a power socket near you: Internet, telephony

Coming to a power socket near you: Internet, telephony

S'pore Power arm to launch commercial trials of new communications technology

By
Tang Weng Fai ,, Business Times - 28 Dec 2001
http://business-times.asia1.com.sg/news/story/0,2276,31650,00.html?

(SINGAPORE) Singapore is all set to be the first country in the Asia-Pacific, including Japan, to commercially try out a new breakthrough in communications technology.

By channelling data traffic through the existing network of electrical cables and wires, the technology will allow users to simply plug into their electrical wall sockets to access services such as fast Internet and telephony.

All they need is basically an adaptor - which also functions as a modem - to plug into a power socket. The technology also offers an alternative to home networking without having to undertake messy rewiring.

(((((((())))(((((((((((((((((

Internet Misuse Still a Problem

Friday, December 28, 2001

Internet Misuse Still a Problem

by Demir Barlas, Line56

http://www.line56.com/articles/default.asp?NewsID=3254

"While the Internet is a powerful tool for business efficiency, it can also be a massive drain on productivity when misused. Different sources estimate that American businesses are losing anywhere from $1 billion (Newsweek) to tens of billions of dollars (IDC) because of Internet misuse, which is simply defined as non-work-related use of the Internet while on company time. In 2001, Gallup found that the average employee spends 75 minutes per workday day on the Internet. Given the Department of Labor's finding that the average cost of employing an American worker is $20 per hour (including wage, insurance, and benefits), this means that companies are losing an average of $125 a week per worker."

"""""""::::::::::::::""""""":

U.S. Providing $8.2 Million to Rebuild New York City TV Antennas

New York Times , December 23, 2001

U.S. Providing $8.2 Million to Rebuild TV Antennas
By RAYMOND HERNANDEZ,

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/23/nyregion/23CABL.html?todaysheadlines

"Roughly 20 percent of the 7.3 million homes in the New York metropolitan television market are not hooked up for cable or satellite service.

Many homes have only some of their sets wired for cable and depend on the broadcast signal for other sets."

================

"Net News Lethargy"

Features Posted December 21, 2001

Net News Lethargy
"Most sites fail to make use of the medium's main strength – speed"

http://ojr.usc.edu/content/story.cfm?request=676

By Amy Langfield, OJR Contributor

"For purposes of this story, the 15 most-trafficked news Web sites were examined on a routine basis during the past three weeks and more closely as breaking news happened. Those top 15 sites were chosen based on Jupiter Media Metrix' September ratings of news sites with the most unique visitors.

They are as follows:
1] CNN.com,
2] MSNBC.com,
3} Time.com,
4} ABCNews.com,
5} NYTimes.com,
6} WashingtonPost.com,
7] USAToday.com,
8] Slate.com,
9] FoxNews.com,
10] LATimes.com,
11] AP.org,
12] Boston.com,
13] Miami.com,
14] USNews.com,
15] WSJ.com.

In addition, several other wildcards were thrown in,
including BBCi, CBS.com, the DrudgeReport, CSMonitor.com, NandoTimes.com and the Guardian."

OOOOOO…………….OOOOOOO

E-Mail Gets the Cold Shoulder in Congress, December 13, 200I

Mr. Larry Neal, deputy chief of staff for Senator Phil Gramm (Republican-Texas), in response to a New York Times reporter on the impact of e-mail lobby campaigns stated:

"The communication that Sen. Gramm values most certainly does not arrive by wire. It is the one where someone sat down at a kitchen table, got a sheet of lined paper and a No. 2 pencil, and poured their heart into a letter." [69]

It is axiomatic in the lobbying game that a hand-written letter by a concerned constituent has by far the strongest impact on an elected representative.

As well, the more personal and relevant to the voter’s life the communication is, the more likely the letter will elicit a genuinely interested response from the representative's office.

When a family without health insurance and mounting medical bills writes to their elected representative about Health Care Legislation, they will most surely get a personalized response.

Other personalized contacts from the home district[70] like impassioned telephone calls and even hand written postcards also carry some weight.

Mass snail-mail-letters and postcards, where people just sign at the bottom of a form are weighed much less by elected officials. E-mails as we shall see are practically "mass-less", carrying almost no political weight. ~~ Technopolitical

Notes:
[69] Raney, New York Times . E-Mail Gets the Cold Shoulder in Congress, December 13, 200I

Accessed on date of publication @ http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/13/technology/circuits/13CONG.html

Available via Lexis –Nexis (Or you could pay the NYTimes.com $2.95)

[70] I cannot emphasize this point strongly enough as a major flaw of e-mail campaigns is that they often come from outside a legislators district rendering them as meaningless.

"Asian-Americans and the Internet: The Young and the Connected"

Asian-Americans and the Internet: The Young and the Connected

For release at noon (Eastern), December 12, 2001

http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/toc.asp?Report=52

34% of Asian-American users get the day’s news online during a typical day, compared with 22% of whites, 20% of Hispanics and 15% of African-American Internet users.

78% of Asian-American users have sought travel information online.

53% of Asian-American users have sought financial information online.

49% of Asian-American users have sought political information online.

68% of Asian-American users have used the Internet for school research, compared with 51% of white users;

59% of Asian-American users have gone online for work-related reasons, compared with 50% of white users.

A table comparing Asian-Americans’ use of the Internet with other groups is on page 10 of this report…………………//////////

*****

Online Asian-Americans are voracious consumers of information, especially on a typical day.

www.pewinternet.org

http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/reports.asp?Report=52&Section=ReportLevel2&Field=Level2ID&ID=352

" The most popular form of information gathering is simply accessing the day’s news – about three-fifths of Internet users of different races have ever gotten the news online.

However, Asian-American users are much more likely to have made getting the news online a part of their daily lives.

Just over a third (34%) of users get the news online on a typical day. In comparison, 22% of white users get the news daily, along with 15% of African-American users and 20% of Hispanics online.

Asian-American users are also more likely than other Internet users to have gotten news on the financial markets, sought travel information, looked up information about their hobbies and gotten political news on a daily basis. Much like others with Internet access, online Asian-American users frequently turn to the Internet to find the answer to a question. Fully three-quarters of Asian-American users have done so at one time or another, and about a fifth do so on a typical day."

*******
********

groups -- globally and locally -- use the Internet as an organizing too

The Pew Foundation American Life Project (www.pewinternet.org):

“Lee Rainie, the [Pew’s] project's director, said [that] groups -- globally and locally -- use the Internet as an organizing tool. A classic example on the global scale, he said, is how the protests against the World Trade Organization were organized.”

Quote from: Federal Computer Week @ http://www.fcw.com/

'Study defines 'local groupies'
by Dibya Sarkar. Nov. 2, 2001.

Last accessed September 1, 2002 @

http://www.fcw.com/geb/articles/2001/1029/web-pew-11-02-01.asp

Study defines 'local groupies'

Study defines 'local groupies': "
Study defines 'local groupies'
BY Dibya Sarkar
Nov. 2, 2001

Although a new study suggests that Internet use doesn't signal a revival of civic engagement, Americans are going online to 'intensify their connection to their local community,' using it for public discussion and to gather information about local governments and schools.

The study assessed the scale of two kinds of online users: 'Cyber Groupies,' who join online groups with no geographic boundaries, and 'Local Groupies,' who connect with groups based in their community.

The resulting report -- 'Online communities: Networks that nurture long-distance relationships and local ties' -- estimated that there are 90 million Cyber Groupies and 28 million Local Groupies. The study was conducted by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (www.pewinternet.org), a Washington, D.C.-based research group that studies the Internet's societal impact."

AFL-CIO Hosts Online Labor Day Festival

AFL-CIO Hosts Online Labor Day Festival
U.S. Newswire

http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0829-123.html
29 Aug 2001 : 13:53

AFL-CIO Hosts World's Greatest Online Labor Day Festival
To: National Desk
Contact: Lauren Cerand, 202-637-5295
Matt Painter, 202-637-5245
both of the AFL-CIO

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 /U.S. Newswire/ -- "The AFL-CIO opened its
second annual Online Labor Day Festival, billed as the "biggest
hometown Labor Day festival in the USA," at www.aflcio.org/laborday.
It will run through Sept. 21, 2001."

"Cyberspace offers immense new possibilities for working people
to make their voices heard and build 'community' in an entirely new
way," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney. "This festival brings
together the best of our culture and history in a powerful way
that's building for the future."

"The AFL-CIO's second annual Online Labor Day Festival is part of
a broader trend of cyber unionism, as unions find new ways to bring
together working people on issues that are important to them.
Today's unions are using technology to help new members organize,
mobilizing members and activists, and celebrating union culture.

Many workers who are forming unions are using an online presence
to keep in contact with each other, and to update supporters.
National INS agents, Delta flight attendants, SBC and Verizon
workers, part-time community college teachers in California, and
SecurityLink workers isolated in trucks all day have all used the
Internet and e-mail successfully to come together in unions.

Mobilization has reached new potential online -- activists
e-mailed their Congressional representatives to oppose Fast Track
trade legislation, commercial actors utilized email and the
Internet to win their strike, and worker activists have used Palm
Pilots for political campaigns and member mobilization.

Some 60 percent of union members have computers, according to a
poll by Peter D. Hart Research, Inc., conducted in January 2000.
The survey also found that 74 percent of union members with
computers have Internet access."

Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire

mmmmm

Internet Proves to be Powerful

Internet Proves to be Powerful

in Political, Legislative Battles
By Jim Buie
Copyright 2001

Impeachment Sparked Deluge of Downloading and Online Mobilization !!

"The success of Ventura and other Internet-savvy candidates in 1998 wasn't the only evidence of the Internet's emerging political power. The release of the Starr report over the World Wide Web in the fall of 1998 increased overall Internet traffic by as much as 80 percent, and sparked a deluge of heated discussions on and off the Internet.

Alerting and mobilizing people entirely over the Internet, Jim Robinson, the publisher of the conservative Free Republic web site, sponsored an "Impeach Clinton" rally at the Washington Monument on Halloween. It attracted more than 4,000 people, and set a new standard for grassroots organizing by Internet. "I don't think anything like this has ever happened before, where thousands of people who didn't know each other get together in a place thousands of miles from home," Brian Buckley, counsel for the web site, told The Washington Post."

"Conversely, more than 500,000 Internet users, fed up with the impeachment process, signed a petition and pledged more than $10 million through the web site Move On.org to defeat the politicians they believe ignored voters' wishes to censure President Clinton and move on to other business. MoveOn.org ultimately collected more than $2 million and donated it to progressive candidates in Campaign 2000. Since the election, MoveOn.org has established itself as an effective advocacy group."
http://www.us.net/indc/column2.htm#Impeachment

===================================================

the Internet

and the

Impeachment of Bill Clinton

by TechnoPolitcal

Blog Staff

~~ Bill Clinton's recreational dilly dallys and the disproportionate Republican impeachment , evolved , both from and into an important touchstone of early political & general internet history.

Matt Druge's pioneering website lit the Impreachment Scandal Fire, that spread in no small way by the internet, esp. so considering that there really was not that many people online in 1998.

The effect of the Internet on the Presidency of Bill Clinton cannot be underestimated. Clinton haters and muckrakers were among the first to use the Web to spread their wares, with Matt Druge becoming the first Internet news superstar by breaking the Monica Lewinisky story. (Though, where is Matt today in 2002?) As well the final report by the office of Special Prosecutor Richard Starr on the Whitewater ---(which grew into the Lewinsky mess)--- shook the world wide web in a way thatno event had no event had done so before.

“The release of the Starr report over the World Wide Web in the fall of 1998 increased overall Internet traffic by as much as 80 percent, and sparked a deluge of heated discussions on and off the Internet.” [111]

President Clinton had the mixed blessing of the Cyber-Activism and Political Information Portals (PIPs) taking root during his term.The Internet certainly was a contributing factor in his impeachment by the House as documented in these quotes from cyber-political journalist Jim Buie:

“Alerting and mobilizing people entirely over the Internet, Jim Robinson, the publisher of the conservativeFree Republic web site, sponsored an "ImpeachClinton" rally at theWashington Monument on Halloween [1998]. It attracted more than 4,000 people, and set a new standard for grassroots organizing by Internet,” [112]

However the Internet may haveplayed an even larger (but still minor in my opinion) role inClinton's subsequent acquittal by the Senate.

“… more than 500,000 Internet users, fed up with the impeachment process, signed a petition and pledged more than $10 million through the web sitewww.Move On.org to defeat the politicians they believe ignored voters' wishes to censure President Clinton and move on tother business. MoveOn.org ultimately collected more than $2 million[113] and donated it to progressive candidates in Campaign 2000.” [114]

-----------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Case of Minnesota E-Democracy, by Lincoln Dahlberg

Extending the Public Sphere through Cyberspace: The Case of Minnesota E-Democracy

by Lincoln Dahlberg
First Monday, volume 6, number 3 (March 2001),
URL: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue6_3/dahlberg/index.html

Copyright ©2001, First Monday

"Over the last decade a lot has been said about the possibilities of the Internet enhancing the public sphere. The two-way, decentralized communications within cyberspace are seen as offering the basis by which to facilitate rational-critical discourse and hence develop public opinion that can hold state power accountable.

However, this potential has largely gone unrealized. Instead, cyber-interaction is dominated by commercial activity, private conversation, and individualized forms of politics. In this paper I investigate how the present Internet may be used to more fully facilitate the public sphere.

To do this I evaluate Minnesota E-Democracy, an Internet-based initiative that attempts to develop online public discourse. Drawing upon a model of the public sphere developed from Jürgen Habermas' work, I show how the initiative structures discourse to overcome many of the problems that presently limit democratic deliberation online.

While some significant limitations do remain, I conclude that Minnesota E-Democracy provides a basis from which online deliberative initiatives can, given adequate resourcing and further research, extend the public sphere through the Internet."

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{

Get Out the Vote: The Web has become a must tool for most political lobbyists. Some do it better than others

"Get Out the Vote: The Web has become a must tool for most political lobbyists. Some do it better than others"

By MICHAEL TOTTY

http://online.wsj.com/article_email/0,,SB1018650866755190720,00.html

"The Congress Online Project, a research program by George Washington University and the Congressional Management Foundation, last year completed a study of the use of e-mail by members of Congress. While the study found that all but about two dozen House and Senate offices regularly used e-mail to communicate with constituents, it also found that Congress was unable to keep pace with a flood of electronic missives: Representatives received more than 48 million messages from constituents in 2000, up from 20 million in 1998, and the numbers are rising by an average of a million messages a month."

&&&

During the 2000 Presidential primary season, Senator John McCain's campaign scored a fund-raising coup online

During the 2000 Presidential primary season, Senator John McCain's campaign scored a fund-raising coup online in the wake of his victory in the New Hampshire Republican primary. Team McCain raised about 2 million via his campaign website in the week after his NH primary win.[93] [94] But Senator McCain still lost the nomination to now President George W. Bush.

The Internet and the Future of Presidential Politics

====================

The Digital Tea Leaves of Election 2000:
The Internet and the Future of Presidential Politics

by Don Lewicki and Tim Ziaukas
First Monday, volume 5, number 12 (December 2000),
URL: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_12/lewicki/index.html

http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/818/727

Abstract

While the Internet may not have played the transformational role in the election of the U.S. President in 2000 that some predicted, this new medium of political communications suggested what an Internet-driven transformation in political communications might look like. After setting the stage by discussing the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) by Sen. John McCain in the primary campaign, the researchers evaluate the Web sites of four major candidates for President of the United States over the course of the general election. Additionally, this article serves as a digital archive of Web pages caught at what many believe is the nascent stage of what might come to be the dominant medium for political communications in the decades to come.

===========================

e-advocates/Juno Post-Election Review Finds Net Savvy Challengers Defeat Incumbents

~Technopolitical editor's note:~~
~~ In the 2000 Congressional races the Internet played a debatable role in overall election strategies. E-Advocates (a firm that manages online campaigns) and Juno Online Services (hosts of many campaign websites @ www.juno.com ) ---- and who are by no means unbiased observers---- did a post-2000 election study of Congressional candidates and their websites. I want to quote from their finding summary first and then highlight what I see to be the holes in their arguments.

“In Campaign 2000, challengers who won tight congressional races against incumbents also won the battle of the Web, according to a post-election review of congressional candidate Web sites by e-advocates.com and Juno Online Services, Inc. The study found that in the 8 toss-up U.S. House and Senate races where a challenger won, an overwhelming majority – 75 percent – employed a superior Web strategy, as defined by online voters in a February 2000 e-advocates/Juno survey and candidate rankings on top search engines. Additionally, in seven out of the eight races, the winning challenger raised less money than the losing incumbent – an anomaly in the results of all congressional races nationwide”.

It is my firm believe based on experience as a political professional, that core organization of any campaign's staffing and activist base is the most important factor –--even over money--- in any successful election run or lobby-issue crusade. The fact that the less-funded challengers with effective websites fared better than those without effective websites, more than likely means that these campaigns were simply more energetic and better organized to turn out their voting supporters. It is not so much that their website helped them win, but that producing a solid website was reflective of good core organization. Richard Davis correctly asserts that "the Web plainly is less useful than, say, direct mail or newsletters" [102] in getting out information about a campaign and/or candidate. And until the digital divide is completely closed in the USA it will most certainly remain that way.

The message that the Internet can only play a small supporting role in winning election campaigns seems to have registered with Congressional candidates in the upcoming 2002 elections. A study by the Bivings Group shows that as of March 2002 “only 29 percent of Senators and Representatives up for election in 2002, have clearly marked campaign websites.” [103] The same study put Republicans as better equipped in using the Internet to energize their bases, and for adding to those numbers. So as of now the GOP is winning this Cyber-Electioneering arms race and only a post-mortum of the 2002 race will tell if it will also translate into electoral victories.

I do plan to do a follow up when that scorecard is in. For there are on the horizon in this year's 2002 elections several trials of voter-peer-to-peer Cyber-Electioneering [sort of like phone-tress but in cyber-space], and the experimentation with techno-real-time monitoring of voter turnout on election day, possibly enabling elections campaigns to better target election day voter pulls as the day progresses. As we have seen in the 2000 American Presidential elections every vote can count (---unless the Supreme Court says no---) so any cyber-tools that may get you additional votes will eventually find their way into the permanent arsenals of election campaigns. (We will see if any of the above mentioned cyber-electioneering "experiments" become worth writing about after the 2002 election.)

********************

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_natrvw/m4PRN/2000_Nov_20/67456681/p1/article.jhtml?term=cyberpolitics
Nov 20, 2000

e-advocates/Juno Post-Election Review Finds Net Savvy Challengers Defeat Incumbents.

In Toss-Up Races, Congressional Challengers

Used the Web to Advantage

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 /PRNewswire/ --

In Campaign 2000, challengers who won tight congressional races against incumbents also won the battle of the Web, according to a post-election review of congressional candidate Web sites by e- advocates and Juno Online Services, Inc. (Nasdaq: JWEB).

The study found that in the 8 toss-up U.S. House and Senate races where a challenger won, an overwhelming majority -- 75 percent -- employed a superior Web strategy, as defined by online voters in a February 2000 e-advocates/Juno survey and candidate rankings on top search engines. Additionally, in seven out of the eight races, the winning challenger raised less money than the losing incumbent -- an anomaly in the results of all congressional races nationwide.

Among winning challengers in toss-up House and Senate races, all had Web sites that provided information and features desired by voters online, including issue statements, campaign e-mail addresses, volunteer and online contribution opportunities, and online voter registration capabilities.

. Eighty-eight percent of winning challengers provided issue statements that could provide the basis for voters to compare candidates, a feature desired by 79 percent of Internet users. Sixty-three percent of winning challengers provided campaign e-mail addresses, a feature of interest to 73 percent of Internet users.

All victorious challengers provided Internet users with the ability to volunteer with their campaigns online, a feature identified as important by 13 percent of Internet users, and 88 percent of winning challengers gave Internet users the ability to make campaign contributions online, a feature of interest to 7 percent of Internet users

. Thirty-eight percent of winning challengers offered online voters the ability to register to vote online, a feature of interest to 42 percent of Internet users.

"Today's savvy candidates aren't just going door-to-door, they're connecting with voters desktop to desktop," said Pam Fielding, principal, e- advocates. "With 59 percent of U.S. adults now online, no candidate in a tight race can afford to ignore the Web -- or the needs of e-voters," said Nicole Duritz, also a principal, e-advocates.

The firms also tested the ranking of candidate sites with top search engines -- an important strategy for campaigns to connect with online voters.
The search engine test found that 75 percent of winning challengers in tight races achieved a first-page, search-engine ranking with at least three of the four major engines as identified by Media Metrix -- Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and Lycos. Reviewers gave candidates a successful rating with a search engine if, after entering their first and last names into the search field, the search engine provided a link to the candidates' official campaign Web sites on the first page of the search results.

In seven out of the eight races analyzed by e-advocates and Juno, the winning challenger raised less money than the losing incumbent.

According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) data analyzed by U.S. PIRG and reported in an unrelated study, only seven percent of winning congressional candidates nationwide raised less money than their opponents. Michael Cornfield, George Washington University Associate Research Professor and Research Director of George Washington University's Democracy Online Project, observed that the findings suggest a strong Internet strategy can "help financial underdogs gain better footing."

"Election 2000 will go down in history as the first presidential cycle where the Net played a decisive role in political campaigns.

Candidates and elected officials who underestimated the virtual voter were likely to suffer for it," said Roger Stone, Vice President of Juno Online Services and director of the Juno Advocacy Network, Juno's Washington D.C.-based public interest and political advertising division.

To view a chart detailing candidate Internet performance, please visit http://www.e-advocates.com/survey .

The U.S. Senate race for Washington State remains undecided and, for this reason, is not included in the analysis.

About e-advocates

e-advocates, based in Washington, DC, is a full-service Internet advocacy consulting firm dedicated to helping public affairs and advocacy organizations harness the power of the Internet to achieve legislative and political priorities.

Principals Pam Fielding and Nicole Duritz are leading experts in the field of cyberpolitics. Fielding is coauthor of the recently published book, The Net Effect: How Cyberadvocacy is Changing the Political Landscape, which highlights how the Internet is reconnecting citizens with government. e-advocates is a subsidiary of Capitol Advantage, the premier innovator of Internet-based political tools and services.

Through the use of its products, hundreds of organizations have promoted their agenda and influenced the political process by engaging individuals in political dialogue. Survey results can be viewed at http://www.e-advocates.com/survey . To reach Pam Fielding and Nicole Duritz for comment, please call 202/955-3001.

About Juno

Juno Online Services, Inc. is a leading provider of Internet access to millions of computer users throughout the United States

Founded in 1996, the company provides multiple levels of service, including free basic Internet access, billable premium dial-up service, and (in certain markets) high-speed broadband access. Juno's revenues are derived primarily from the subscription fees charged for its billable premium services, from the sale of advertising, and from various forms of electronic commerce.

Based on its total of 3.7 million active subscribers during the month of September 2000, Juno is currently the nation's third largest provider of dial- up Internet services, after AOL and EarthLink. As of September 30, 2000, Juno had approximately 12.77 million total registered subscriber accounts.

For more information about Juno, visit http://www.juno.com/corp . To get a copy of the Juno software, go to http://www.juno.com or call 1-800-TRY-JUNO.

COPYRIGHT 2000 PR

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_natrvw/m4PRN/2000_Nov_20/67456681/p1/article.jhtml?term=cyberpolitics

Newswire Association, Inc.
in association with The Gale Group and LookSmart. COPYRIGHT 2000 Gale Group

Post-Election 2000 Survey on Internet Use for Civics and Politics

http://democracyonline.org/databank/dec2000survey.shtml

Post-Election 2000 Survey on Internet Use for Civics and Politics
December 4, 2000

"Highlights of a nationwide survey of 1,006 American adults, conducted for the Democracy Online Project between November 21-26, 2000, by Thomas Opinion Research, in conjunction with the TNS Intersearch Omni Poll (margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points):

The most general findings:

- More than one in three Americans (35%) uses the Internet to get information about politics, campaigns, or issues in the news. In 1998, 25% did. Thirty percent of today's "online public," reported getting public affairs information from the Internet "almost every day" and 35% do so Aoccasionally."

- Four in ten Internet users (40%) Bor 14% of the total adult populationB say the Internet was important in providing them with information that helped them decide how to vote in the November election. In 1998, 36%, or 9% of the total population, responded similarly. Men relied on the Net more than women, 44% to 33% saying it was an important source of help in deciding their vote. Half of the youngest users (ages 18-34; 491%) relied on the Net considerably, and 45% of those ages 35-44.

The following figures are percentages of the 55% of survey respondents who said they use the Internet. (Note: this is somewhat higher than the 44% of Americans online according to the U.S. Department of Commerce's August 2000 study.)

- When it comes to politics and public affairs, Net users turn to e-mail more than the Web. And they prefer humor to action."

From: http://democracyonline.org/databank/dec2000survey.shtml

9999999999

Cyberspace and the Concept of Democracy

~`This next one is really unique. The only article in my knowledge to mention existentialism, Rushdie and cyberspace’s concept of democracy, ~~
~TechnoPolitical

Cyberspace and the Concept of Democracy

by Fred Evans
First Monday, volume 5, number 10 

(October 2000),

Copyright ©2000, First Monday
URL: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_10/evans/index.html

Salman Rushdie's provocative novel, Midnight's Children and the Internet. Rushdie's fictional devices for talking about the society of India bear a strong affinity to descriptions of the Internet.

Although we will occupy ourselves only briefly with Rushdie's novel, it will help us show how the Internet reveals important aspects of society and democracy.

It is ironic that we can use the Internet to inform us about the democracy of the very societies that gave birth to this information and communication technology - that we can use the virtual or artificial as a model for understanding, and perhaps improving, the actual.

====================

Assessing E-Government: The Internet, Democracy, and Service Delivery by State and Federal Governments

One of the Best Early Studies. Very Historical, ~tb

Assessing E-Government: The Internet, Democracy, and Service Delivery

by State and Federal Governments

by Darrell M. West

Brown University

Providence, RI 02912

(401) 863-1163

Email: Darrell_West@brown.edu

September, 2000

http://www.insidepolitics.org/egovtreport00.html

last accessed March 18 2009

Freedom of Information? The Internet as Harbinger of the New Dark Ages

Freedom of Information? The Internet as Harbinger of the New Dark Ages

by Roger Clarke
First Monday, volume 4, number 11 (November 1999),
URL: http://firstmonday.org/issues/issue4_11/clarke/index.html

" There's a common presumption that the Internet has brought with it the promise of openness, democracy, the end of inequities in the distribution of information, and human self-fulfillment. Any such conclusion would be premature.

The digital era has ambused and beguiled us all. Its first-order impacts are being assimilated, but its second-order implications are not. Powerful institutions perceive their interests to be severely threatened by the last decade of technological change and by the shape of the emergent 'information economy'. Elements of their fight back are identified, particularly extensions to legal protectionism, and the active development and application of technologies that protect data from prying eyes.

Many of the features that have ensured a progressive balance between data protection and freedom of access to data have already been seriously eroded. The new balance that emerges from the current period of turmoil may be far less friendly to public access and more like a New Dark Ages."

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{

New Statesman: Change the world via e-mail - use of Inernet by political activists - Brief Article

New Statesman: Change the world via e-mail - use of Inernet by political activists - Brief Article: "FindArticles > New Statesman > Nov 1, 1999 > Article > Print friendly

Change the world via e-mail - use of Internet by political activists - Brief Article
Brian Doherty

Open to everyone, the Internet offers new possibilities to those trying to challenge the established order.

'The revolutionary forces of the future may consist increasingly of widespread multi-organisational networks that have no particular national identity, claim to arise from civil society and include aggressive groups and individuals who are keenly adept at using advanced technology for communications.' So spoke the Rand Corporation in 1993.

But did they mean multinational corporations or the social movements opposing them? Both sides could fit the description, and that tells us something about the most important political battle of our time, one in which the Internet is playing an increasingly important role.

For campaigning groups such as Earth First!, where actions speak louder than words, the real measure of the difference the Internet makes is in its effectiveness as a mobilising tool. Detailed tactical manuals on everything from tripods to tunnels are available online and may explain why this technology has spread so fast. It is also easy to find a local Earth First! group in Br"