Bouncing off Carol's point below: I still don't quite follow. How is participatory media really supposed to increase participatory democracy? Through acts like, writing to your Congressman online, or something? Or just from the act of creating information and putting it out there?
Relatingly to the latter, I am conflicted on how much that matters. On one hand, one can definitely participate more in civics discussions and announce their opinions (I myself kinda-sorta have a blog), but on the other hand, who hears it and does it make a difference?
I especially don't really understand how participatory media really enhances democratic/civic values within the context of learning. Other than, perhaps, a discussion about the possibilities for civic engagement (or lack thereof) in current society. Through the internet, these possibilities increase (as mentioned above, you can now access your Congressman or policymaker of sorts much easier), but the receiver's inundation with incoming "civic engagement messages" also becomes quite unbearable as a result.
To give an example, I was a staff assistant at Congressman Maurice Hinchey's office (Dem from NY-22) for nine months before I started grad school. My (sad, tedious, painstaking) main task was sifting through constituent mail. About 99% of that mail was in the form of "blast emails" i.e. mailings that people send by filling out a petition form online. Yes -- this means people are engaging, but it is incredibly difficult to deal with about 5000 mailings (or often more) of the same exact letter. And often, those letters don't get treated by legislative staff as equally important to handwritten emails because they really weren't written by constituents themselves. Often, people don't even understand the issue thoroughly, they just trust the group who writes the petitions to speak in their names.
But truly, is armchair activism real civic engagement? On the whole, I would say yes. But the rise of digital technology also makes it much easier for people to view engagement as 'something I do when I surf the web during lunch' or 'clicking a couple links as I'm sifting through junk email' or the like. This doesn't necessarily take away from its validity so much as it is an important thing to identify and consider.
Perhaps the way that civic engagement is altered (as opposed to enhanced in its current form) by digital media is that participatory media fuels more one-on-one, grassroots-style development of civic values. Meaning, if I write a blog, and one person from Sascatoon reads it, and that person says "hey, this blog really opened my eyes! I'm gonna start thinking differently about civics from now on!" -- then participatory media is really working. And this is dynamic is not to be underestimated, seeing from the spread of a large number of grassroots symbols and messages through purely online communication -- it just takes a lot more time than traditional media (TV, newspapers), where people learn about the same news stories at the same time.
Taking the last point further, though, online civic engagement can also be incredibly personalized and individualized, however. People tend to read mostly their favorite online material, especially with the advent of RSS feed readers and the like. So the message they receive is often [not so much biased or one-sided as] tunnel-visioned. This is also something to consider.
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I believe the point you made towards the end of your post about getting a response to a blog posting really answers your question about how participatory media fosters civic involvement. Sometimes it is the tiniest bit of reinforcement that can really spur a person on to do more. If a person has not gotten involved in any form of civic engagement, starting small and having success or reactions from others can lead to more acive, in-person activities. For instance, Emily's post above regarding Barack Obama's campaign may pull a person in who begins to comment on one of the social networking sites. This then may lead to more active campaigning in the community.
Your point about RSS feeds is something I have thought about too. If we subscribe to feeds that validate our own thoughts and that we have an interest in reading, I wonder if this cuts down on how much surfing we do to search for information on these topics. By surfing, we have more of a chance to come in contact with opposing views. I would be interested to know how many people find that by using a reader you don't search the Internet like you used to.
Interesting point, Mary. I think, for RSS feeds, it does depend on the topic and how many points of view you get. One thing that I find particularly limiting about feed readers is that you don't get the comments usually, so that cuts down on the range of viewpoints you get right away. And that's even when you're following something you agree with.
I generally know which blogs I get that way will have interesting stuff going on in the comments, but not everyone notices that. And the comments are usually where you get the different points of view, people disagreeing and linking to other evidence and all that.
I think this is one reason I'm interested in the "social" side of the "social bookmarking" tools - will you find more points of view by following the sites someone bookmarks or contributes to a group of bookmarks on a topic than you would in reading a post on the topic?
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