From Voice to Influence

The radical sea change in information and communications technologies over the last two decades has profound implications for how we conceive of--and experience--political participation and democratic citizenship.  To explore and explain this transformation, Danielle Allen and Jennifer S. Light have gathered together a stellar roster of political and social theorists, media analysts, and social scientists. Despite the contributors’ diverse disciplinary backgrounds, common questions and themes bridge and integrate their pieces, especially the notion of egalitarian participatory democracy. The experiences of youth with new media especially have called into question our traditional understandings of politics, and they serve as the point of departure for the volume’s investigations of citizenship in the digital age. With the political no longer confined to the institutional and electoral arenas, the volume explores participation in hip hop culture, immigration rights activism, and the porous boundary between private and public in social media. How does Facebook interact with governmental interests and regulation?  How have on-line mobilizations such as the protest against the Komen Foundation’s decision to stop funding Planned Parenthood changed the nature of political action?  Finally, From Voice to Influence argues that the opportunities presented by new media for ordinary people to be politically effective raise novel questions about how to define "good participation.” What stance should we adopt toward others who are socially, culturally, and geographically far removed but with we now interact with easily? Drawing on democratic theory and the insights of thinkers ranging from Hannah Arendt to Anthony Appiah, the contributors offer a range of distinctive visions for a political ethics to guide citizens in a digitally connected world.