critique of claim that the internet is reinvigorating civil society

"Progress doesn't just 'emerge', by championing spontaneous collectivism, internet geeks and gurus are giving up on human agency"


This is a good article in Spiked Online (22/10/04) by the prolific and controversial sociologist, Frank Furedi, which is a critique of the claim that the internet is reinvigorating civil society and a critique of two recent book articles:

'Prospects for a new public sphere', Peter Day and Douglas Schuler, in Shaping the Network Society: The New Role of Civil Society in Cyberspace, ed Peter Day and Douglas Schuler, MIT Press, 2004,

"Day and Schuler admit in Shaping the Network Society that 'it is too early to state with certainty that the initiatives we introduce here are representative of a transnational civil society movement', but they still claim that these initiatives are 'indicators of an emerging grassroots potential and openness to social change in the network society'. They also declare proudly that 'our goals are diffuse, impossible to specify precisely, and possibly contradictory' "

'We the Media: Grassroots Journalism By the People, For the People', Dan Gillmor, O'Reilly, 2004,

"Gillmor disparages the idea of the journalist as an authority on their subject, insisting that journalists should be self-deprecating by nature: 'I take it for granted...that my readers know more than I do - and this is a liberating, not threatening, fact of journalistic life. Every reporter on the beat should embrace this.' He goes on to explain that he welcomes corrections and feedback from his readers, and that 'being the least knowledgeable person in the room has its advantages; I always learn something'

While it's important for journalists to be open to criticism, Gillmor's suggestion that they should profess ignorance goes further than this. Conveniently for him, it absolves journalists from having any responsibility for getting their facts straight in the first place. But hard facts are not Gillmor's principal concern - instead, he revels in the unreflective immediacy of online reportage."


"....it is the same rhetoric used by the new anti-capitalist, anti-globalisation and anti-war movements to argue that their diffuse character and lack of clear principles are strengths rather than weaknesses - or, to use the technological argot, features rather than bugs. The term 'grassroots', used to convey the democratic credentials of these new social movements, fulfils a similar purpose to the term 'emergence'. It comes across as granting power to the multitudes, but is actually about relinquishing responsibility for ideas and actions and submitting to the spontaneous."