1. We Media and Democracy

2. David Gauntlett: Web 2.0
Tim Berners Lee invented the Internet with the vision that people would be connected and creative
“He imagined that browsing the Web would be a matter of writing and editing, not just searching and reading” – Gauntlett
Web 2.0 invites users to play
We are seeing a shift away from a ‘sit back and be told’ culture towards more of a ‘making and doing’ culture

3. David Gauntlett: Web 2.0
In the case of the media, there is obviously the shift towards internet-based interactivity
At least 3/4 of UK population are regular internet users
More than 1/3 of people have a Facebook account
More and more people are writing blogs, participating in online discussions, sharing information, music and photo, and uploading video.

4. Web 2.0
Includes a social element where users generate and distribute content, often with freedom to share and re-use
Has resulted in an increasing ‘globalisation’
The birth of a more ‘participatory culture’
Moving from a communication model of ‘one-to-many’ to ‘many to many’ system

5. Dan Gillmor: Citizen Journalists
‘Big media’ have enjoyed control over who gets to produce and share media
Effect on democracy
Who owns these companies?
Are we represented?
Gillmor sees the Internet as a catalyst for a challenge to this established hegemony
Gillmor calls bloggers ‘the former audience’: news blogs a new form of people’s journalism

6. Citizen Journalism
Theorist Mark Poster says the internet provides a ‘Habermasian public sphere’ – a cyberdemocratic network for communicating information and points of view that will eventually transform into public opinion.

7. Keith Bassett: Cyberspace Democracy
“The public intellectual of today must now be much more alive to the possibilities for participating in what could become a new ‘cyberspace democracy’ – an expanded public sphere which is less academic and less elitist”

8. New Media Increased interactivity of audiences
Poststructuralist theory sees the audience as active participators in the creation of meaning
In a postmodern world consumption is seen as a positive and participatory act
An increased ‘democratisation’?