Bimber (first half, chapters 1-3)

Information and American Democracy (Bruce Bimber)

In the first half of Bimber's work on how information technology has influenced the democratic process in the U.S., he first introduces some of his claims before launching into a historic background outlining the sequence of his four information revolutions (23), as they grew increasingly pluralistic due to the wide variety of information flows being used. He described the groups that emerge from these pluralistic flows as post-bureaucratic, as more people have greater access to the information that enables political mobilization.

These four revolutions served as the backbone of much of Bimber's theory presented thus far, and although I do see a lot of merit in the claims he is making related to the increased mobilization the technology allows, I think they are a far too simplistic way to look at the evolution of information tech's use with democracy. This is especially true with activist interest groups today, who use a wide variety of media from all four "revolutions", so I guess we are too assume that the revolutions are cumulative, rather than sequential.

I did think it was interesting that he pointed out some of the limitations of post-bureaucratic political organization as well (109), including the "discounted value of inexpensive information and communication", and I think this is particularly topical, given the recent election this week. Because it has become so cheap to get your message out there and easy to assemble advocacy groups, voters are constantly being hit with a barrage of messages. I volunteered for most of Monday and Tuesday canvassing, and encountered much frustration among voters from all of the chaos that came with being hit over the head with non-stop political messaging. Have we reached a point where it has almost become "too" easy? I'd say.... maybe so.