Politics in the Internet Age

Growing access to the Internet in the 1990s held the possibility of changing American politics yet again. The Internet, according to its proponents, can potentially make many more sources of information available to voters. The most visionary supporters of the Internet claim that it is rapidly making access to political information much more democratic, allowing more citizens to find outlets not only to gain news and information, but also to express their views. (The enormous growth of talk radio in the past decade is also cited as an example of citizens participating in political life.) The Internet, they claim, is interactive, and will introduce a new era of teledemocracy, in which citizens can vote and express their opinions on a range of issues from the privacy of their own homes.