4 - Re-constructing digital democracy: An outline of four ‘positions’

Source: Banco Mundial

Currently, a lot of definitions of what digital democracy means are being adopted. What Lincoln Dahlberg attempt to do in his article is to outline this diversity in four different positions.  For Dahlberg, a position means the particular positions of people or groups considering some features; rhetoric, practices, identities, and institutions (2). The author made a critical-interpretative approach based on his understandings of digital democracy and drew upon his knowledge the following four concepts; liberal-individualist, deliberative, counter-publics, and autonomist Marxist.

The liberal-individualist position understands the digital media as an opportunity to individuals realize their particular interests through ‘liberal political systems’(4). The author argues that the communication provided by Internet and other medias enable individuals to claim rights violation and offers the means to individuals take action about it. This position seems to disregard any representation of government. However, Dahlberg posits that it encourage reviewing the political system to advance individual participation in democracy (5).

In the deliberative position, digital media and Internet are seen as supporting the ‘deliberative democratic public sphere’(5). For Dahlberg, this kind of deliberation is not a traditional pre-defined rational deliberation; it is a public sphere in which is possible to access the publicly democratic interests, or, the consensus. This public consensus will guide official decisions and influence representative government. However, there are some concerns regarding the impact of the increasing participation of state and corporate interests in deliberative spaces on the general online debate.

The counter-publics position described by Dahlberg as ‘the role of digital media in political formation, activism and contestation’(6). The engagement found in these group formations leads the author to subjects related to systemic exclusion and injustice. Here, the author defines democracy based on two main considerations. The first considers the antagonistic relations of inclusion and exclusion as part of the discourse that organizes social relations, and the second poses the first as the impulse for the formation of counter-publics as critical and reflexive spaces of social communication. For Dahlberg, digital technologies support the reproduction of dominant discourse whilst enable the inclusion of the excluded ones facilitating the constitution of counter-publics and counter-discourse through alternative websites and social initiatives on online spaces (7).  The author posits that the ‘counter-publics digital democrats’ preferred forms of digital activism are ‘electronic civil disobedience’ and ‘digital culture jams.' For activists, these actions are effective to be noticed by state and corporate interests. In this position, digital media are seen as a powerful weapon for oppressed movements.

The fourth and last digital democracy position is the Autonomist Marxist. Here, the digital communication network is seen as the foundation of a decentralized, collaborative and independent force of production. Each agent that make part of this networks is unique and make part of the ‘community of singularities,' the Antonio Negri’s concept of the multitude(9). Digital media network are considered the distributor of intangible and tangible goods such as knowledge, music, videos, and second-hand products.  However, what is clear for Dahlberg is that this immaterial work is appropriated by capitalism whenever possible and Autonomist Marxists are not concerned about to avoid this situation. Dahlberg argues that they are more worried about practical processes rather political and legal challenges.

The sketch made by Dahlberg here attempt to indicates four digital democracy positions not only to reflect about their visions but to recognize digital democracy constraints. What Dahlberg wisely did in each position stated was to propose a range of possibilities to overcome these limits. 

Work cited:

Dahlberg, L. (2011). Re-constructing digital democracy: An outline of four ‘positions’ New Media & Society, 1-18, DOI: 10.1177/1461444810389569

Hardt, Michael, and Antonio Negri. “Resistance.” Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire. New York: The Penguin Press, 2004. 63-95.