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The Myth of Digital Democracy
Is the Internet democratizing American politics? Do political Web sites and blogs mobilize inactive citizens and make the public sphere more inclusive? The Myth of Digital Democracy reveals that, contrary to popular belief, the Internet has done little to broaden political discourse but in fact empowers a small set of elites--some new, but most familiar.
Matthew Hindman argues that, though hundreds of thousands of Americans blog about politics, blogs receive only a miniscule portion of Web traffic, and most blog readership goes to a handful of mainstream, highly educated professionals. He shows how, despite the wealth of independent Web sites, online news audiences are concentrated on the top twenty outlets, and online organizing and fund-raising are dominated by a few powerful interest groups. Hindman tracks nearly three million Web pages, analyzing how their links are structured, how citizens search for political content, and how leading search engines like Google and Yahoo! funnel traffic to popular outlets. He finds that while the Internet has increased some forms of political participation and transformed the way interest groups and candidates organize, mobilize, and raise funds, elites still strongly shape how political material on the Web is presented and accessed.
The Myth of Digital Democracy. debunks popular notions about political discourse in the digital age, revealing how the Internet has neither diminished the audience share of corporate media nor given greater voice to ordinary citizens.
Matthew Hindman argues that, though hundreds of thousands of Americans blog about politics, blogs receive only a miniscule portion of Web traffic, and most blog readership goes to a handful of mainstream, highly educated professionals. He shows how, despite the wealth of independent Web sites, online news audiences are concentrated on the top twenty outlets, and online organizing and fund-raising are dominated by a few powerful interest groups. Hindman tracks nearly three million Web pages, analyzing how their links are structured, how citizens search for political content, and how leading search engines like Google and Yahoo! funnel traffic to popular outlets. He finds that while the Internet has increased some forms of political participation and transformed the way interest groups and candidates organize, mobilize, and raise funds, elites still strongly shape how political material on the Web is presented and accessed.
The Myth of Digital Democracy. debunks popular notions about political discourse in the digital age, revealing how the Internet has neither diminished the audience share of corporate media nor given greater voice to ordinary citizens.
200 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
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March 2, 2017Mentioned in this excellent article in the NYT on the influence of the internet on politics.
September 21, 2009
This book was a significant paradigm shift for me. I am used to reading literature that champions the Internet as the tool of the people. Matthew Hindman proves that, when it comes to certain cross sections of reporting, that is not really true.
Hindman studied the political blogosphere. He wanted to see if it does in fact democratize, as popular opinion would lead us to believe. He found that it does not. Instead, it preserves the patterns of concentrated control that have existed in the media for decades. His work is very quantitative and many of the statistical models are over my head, but his conclusion is still clear: "Online speech follows winners-take-all patterns. Paradoxically, the extreme 'openness' of the Internet has fueled the creation of new political elites. The Internet's successes at democratizing politics are real. Yet the medium's failure in this regard are less acknowledged and ultimately just as profound."
This is a rather depressing message: The Internet is a winner-takes-all place where only the top influencers are heard and everyone else is a tree falling in a forest? I'm not sure Hindman meant to be quite so fatalistic but his research should still give us pause before we go running around talking about how empowered we are by the digital age.
Hindman studied the political blogosphere. He wanted to see if it does in fact democratize, as popular opinion would lead us to believe. He found that it does not. Instead, it preserves the patterns of concentrated control that have existed in the media for decades. His work is very quantitative and many of the statistical models are over my head, but his conclusion is still clear: "Online speech follows winners-take-all patterns. Paradoxically, the extreme 'openness' of the Internet has fueled the creation of new political elites. The Internet's successes at democratizing politics are real. Yet the medium's failure in this regard are less acknowledged and ultimately just as profound."
This is a rather depressing message: The Internet is a winner-takes-all place where only the top influencers are heard and everyone else is a tree falling in a forest? I'm not sure Hindman meant to be quite so fatalistic but his research should still give us pause before we go running around talking about how empowered we are by the digital age.
November 16, 2014
A nice book about Hindman's research into whether digital media is promoting democracy. The claim of the title is definitely overstated, and the results are much more modest (deciding whether or not "digital democracy" is a myth is beyond the scope of any single book).
That being said, Hindman convincingly shows that the blogosphere is at least as "winner-take-all" as traditional media, and that the people who are running new media properties are as white, male, and well-educated as their traditional media counterparts.
That being said, Hindman convincingly shows that the blogosphere is at least as "winner-take-all" as traditional media, and that the people who are running new media properties are as white, male, and well-educated as their traditional media counterparts.
January 13, 2019
Great book that questions the role of the internet in reducing or exacerbating the control of the elite on politics. Are we perhaps simply witnessing new forms of exclusivity? My favorite part was where Hindman reminds the reader that Google's PageRank algorithm is precisely designed to select results based on the reinforced popular opinion through link structures. While great for finding information, this is probably not appropriate for political information seeking, as the mass opinion isn't always the representative opinion. Great resource! This does present one side of the argument though. It would be refreshing to read Hindman argue for the potential of digital democracy as well; I do believe there is some.
November 21, 2013
The plastic utopianism of Silicon Valley has been a nice current of bits surrounding us for the past couple of decades. We were all whipped into a frenzy of smaller, faster, more productive. The problem, perhaps, lies in the association of speed with progress, in the idea of technological progress as a catalyst for societal progress.
The arguments for the buzz-worded democratization that is mostly mentioned is the inherent infrastructure and equality of the Web, but really, there was always going to be optimism, because it is a new technology, more advanced than ever before.
Hindman, in The Myth of Digital Democracy, does not have to dig deep to cut down this myth: despite the many people producing text online, readership is more concentrated than in traditional newspapers, and the few large blogs and websites that get all the attention are predominantly run by well-educated white males with previous experience in journalism. There is no evidence for democratization in any way, and in fact, the Internet might actually be harmful to the deliberative part of democracy. People online tend to be more rude and less emphatic in their communications, because they forget that they are not talking to a machine but to another human being.
Hindman's book did not get a lot of press. The myth has not been pierced, and the bigger question here is: why do we want to believe in this so much? Do we need it, need the comforting idea of progress, the illusion of participation? Perhaps we cannot afford to let go of yet another dream, to have yet another utopian island ruined - that is to say, humanized - by reality. Hopes for the Internet were so high, that we cannot allow ourselves to admit that perhaps it does not measure up to its ambition, that perhaps the Internet, just as every other sphere of human interactions, is bound to our inherent social values, is not devoid of evil, greed and deception, and does not fuel equality.
What it comes down to is this: the internet is just the uppermost layer of the cake of expression. We are not born and raised online (should I add: "yet"?). The different opportunities we have in the real world trickle down to the virtual plane. Even the skill set needed to educate yourself online needs to be handed to you in the old-fashioned, cold, hard, physical way. To expect this one layer of our society to undo all the inequalities of the whole world is indeed, very much, a utopia.
The arguments for the buzz-worded democratization that is mostly mentioned is the inherent infrastructure and equality of the Web, but really, there was always going to be optimism, because it is a new technology, more advanced than ever before.
Hindman, in The Myth of Digital Democracy, does not have to dig deep to cut down this myth: despite the many people producing text online, readership is more concentrated than in traditional newspapers, and the few large blogs and websites that get all the attention are predominantly run by well-educated white males with previous experience in journalism. There is no evidence for democratization in any way, and in fact, the Internet might actually be harmful to the deliberative part of democracy. People online tend to be more rude and less emphatic in their communications, because they forget that they are not talking to a machine but to another human being.
Hindman's book did not get a lot of press. The myth has not been pierced, and the bigger question here is: why do we want to believe in this so much? Do we need it, need the comforting idea of progress, the illusion of participation? Perhaps we cannot afford to let go of yet another dream, to have yet another utopian island ruined - that is to say, humanized - by reality. Hopes for the Internet were so high, that we cannot allow ourselves to admit that perhaps it does not measure up to its ambition, that perhaps the Internet, just as every other sphere of human interactions, is bound to our inherent social values, is not devoid of evil, greed and deception, and does not fuel equality.
What it comes down to is this: the internet is just the uppermost layer of the cake of expression. We are not born and raised online (should I add: "yet"?). The different opportunities we have in the real world trickle down to the virtual plane. Even the skill set needed to educate yourself online needs to be handed to you in the old-fashioned, cold, hard, physical way. To expect this one layer of our society to undo all the inequalities of the whole world is indeed, very much, a utopia.
January 24, 2009
I actually finished Matt's book a while back, but I wanted to note that it successfully challenges the conventional wisdom on how the Internet has changed communications and democracy. And there are lessons to be learned within these pages not just for politicians and political scientists but also for journalists and other media professionals. Much of Matt's data includes news and media site traffic, and the patterns that Matt found in the concentration of Internet traffic around elite sites and the phenomenon of the "missing middle" seem to be rather universal anyway.
January 30, 2013
Hindman consistently proves that the Web does not diversify political discourses by shifting power away from professional, political and technical elites; quite the opposite, it maintains traditional social hierarchies.
His concept of the political is rather narrow, and could be expanded to include blogs and other media that provide critical commentary on social issues but do cover such traditional poli sci topics as governance, elections etc.
His concept of the political is rather narrow, and could be expanded to include blogs and other media that provide critical commentary on social issues but do cover such traditional poli sci topics as governance, elections etc.
January 4, 2009
While I think the argument made by Hindman has a bunch of holes in it because he only looks at the issue from one perspective (traditional political science), I still learned a number of things about the internet in general by reading about Hindman's studies.
December 2, 2011
It might be easy to speak in cyberspace, but it remains difficult to be heard.
April 20, 2012
A much-needed empirical study of many aspects of the Net's effect on (U.S.) democratic life.
May 7, 2014
An engaging and thorough analysis of the alleged democratization of politics through the internet. Well researched, even if some of his theories are a bit wonky.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews