The increasing interconnection of global society via modern telecommunications technology offers the potential for a new form of democracy, one where citizens are much more mobilized and engaged in their own government. This not only fulfills the democratic ideal, but helps counteract abuses of power.

Networkeddemocracy.com focuses on developing and supporting the means for a higher quality of citizen participation in the public sphere. Initially, this means attention to emerging issues of the impacts of technology on society and societal choice, including how the new media is used to shape messages and affect culture. While the major, well funded outlets can be expected to gather more data and have more resources to cover a wider range of issues, this site aspires to provide a particular view: one that is focused more on making effective decisions in the public sphere rather than being entertained by sensationalism.

As such, the work seeks to enable citizens to more effectively join together and collaboratively design and coordinate action that is aimed toward envisioning and manifesting a better future society. What that future society looks like, and how it comes into being is the responsibility, of all of us. No one person or group of experts can determine what the ideal society should be. So, the networkeddemocracy.com does not seek to proscribe that society. Rather, the mission of networkeddemocracy.com is to facilitate the organization of the conversation so that each and every one of us can contribute to creating a better future.

Why Now?

It is critical now, perhaps more than ever, that the people of the world engage in taking responsibility for our actions as global society. As contemporary human society moves toward increasing cultural complexity, ever greater technological prowess, and higher rates of cultural change, humans have evolved to the point where they have the power to destroy themselves and, potentially, the world. Yet, this power seems to manifest either haphazardly, without consideration of future impacts, or through the efforts of disparate interests who seek to aggrandize themselves. Csikszentmihalyi, in The Evolving Self
, asserts, “Many of us have effectively left the reins of the community in the hands of real-estate speculators, the owners of large construction firms, and others whose interest in the common good is usually limited and self-serving.” Moreover, some critics contend that world affairs are increasingly manipulated by multinational corporate interests with the power to topple governments and oppress entire nations. (See One World Ready or Not: The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism
). Clearly, this is a situation that does not necessarily promote meaningful living or a sustainable world. Humans are subsequently faced with a serious issue: Although individuals can always seek to improve themselves, “it is almost impossible to live a decent life when then the social system is devoted to greed and blind exploitation” says Csikszentmihalyi. Rather, humans must develop equitable social systems that assimilate the interests of all affected individuals. Banathy (2000) has proposed that such a social system would be a real democracy, as opposed to the representative democracy that is in vogue throughout the world today. Such a real democracy would provide the means for individuals to publicly discuss relevant issues and collectively determine the appropriate actions.

Chief Editor

The founder and chief editor of this site (and currently the webmaster) is Douglas C. Walton. Doug holds an M.S. and a Ph. D. degree in Organizational Systems and a B.S. in Applied Economics. He is president of the International Systems Institute and a part-time professor at the Saybrook Graduate School. He has over twenty years of experience in computers and telecommunications, with recent emphasis on the design of web systems for knowledge management and collaboration. His dissertation, An Evolutionary Systems Model for Using the Internet to Facilitate Democratic Inquiry among Distributed Design Communities, is available at Proquest. He has published several articles in systems journals, including the following:

• Is Modern Information Technology Enabling the Evolution of a More Direct Democracy?
• Revitalizing the Public Sphere: The Current System of Discourse and the Need for the Participative Design of Social Action

Doug also contributed to a chapter in the just-released Dialogue as a Collective Means of Design Conversation. To contact Doug, send email to doug@networkeddemocracy.com