The Project Gutenberg eBook, Open Source Democracy, by Douglas Rushkoff

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Copyright (C) 2003 by Douglas Rushkoff.

Title: Open Source Democracy

Author: Douglas Rushkoff

Release Date: January 20, 2004 [eBook #10753]

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

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Title page:

Open Source Democracy
How online communication is changing offline politics

by Douglas Rushkoff

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Tom Bentley and everyone at Demos for the opportunity to
extend this inquiry to a new community of thinkers. Thanks also to my
editorial assistant, Brooke Belisle, and to colleagues including
Andrew Shapiro, Steven Johnson, Ted Byfield, Richard Barbrook, David
Bennahum, Red Burns, Eugenie Furniss and Lance Strate.

Introduction

The emergence of the interactive mediaspace may offer a new model for
cooperation. Although it may have disappointed many in the technology
industry, the rise of interactive media, the birth of a new medium,
the battle to control it and the downfall of the first victorious
camp, taught us a lot about the relationship of ideas to the media
through which they are disseminated. Those who witnessed, or better,
have participated in the development of the interactive mediaspace
have a very new understanding of the way that cultural narratives are
developed, monopolised and challenged. And this knowledge extends, by
allegory and experience, to areas far beyond digital culture, to the
broader challenges of our time.

As the world confronts the impact of globalism, newly revitalised
threats of fundamentalism, and the emergence of seemingly
irrec