Has the internet made great strides in democratizing politics?  Dan Herman forwarded me a link to this new book, The Myth of Digital Democracy, which deals with a topic that we had recently been discussing.  Although Web 2.0 tools have the potential to improve democracy and reach out to more citizens, they’re just as likely to serve as dividers between the haves and have-nots.

This reminded me of an article from the Washington Post that appeared last week, “Well Connected Parents Take on School Boards”.   Parents are now using social networking, email blitzes, partnerships with business groups and data access to fight for a wide range of changes.  The battles they fight cover a broad spectrum of issues, such as pushing back school start times or redrawing district boundaries. In atleast one case, parents have even used the web to force changes on grading schemes (lowering the bar for an ‘A’ from a 94 to a 90, in percentages).

Many new parents today have grown up digital, and know how to leverage the web.  But many haven’t.   To quote a source from the article,  “Schools need to be more concerned about the digital divide than ever before…We don’t want to create two levels of power, those with access to information and those without it.”  Clearly, this divide has the potential to widen the have and have-not gaps.  In the case of redrawing boundaries, for example, it’s very difficult to create a situation where all parties gain.  If the change was created by a computer-literate interest group, it’s reasonable to fear an increased disparity between socio-economic classes. 

As Web 2.0 tools start to reach an increased proportion of our population, there is (understandably) a push to increase citizen input into policy-making (such as Obama’s change.gov). In some instances, there’s even evidence of a movement towards small-scale direct democracy (see England’s “Vote for Your Park” program).

But an increase in collaborative policy-making has to be met by an increase in Web education and public progams to ensure universal internet access.  Reading the papers last week, I was somewhat letdown that in the America’s spending on broadband expansion to rural areas was being reduced in the proposed stimulus package (relative to what was initially proposed).  I think this is a mistake.

Moving forward, I see a wealth of opportunities for increased citizen collaboration in policy-making.  But let’s work a little harder at getting everyone up to speed.

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