The Search for E-mocracy - Internet/Web/Online Service Information

In 2000, the Internet was supposed to change politics the way TV did in 1960. Turns out this year is more like 1952.

This time four years ago, I was one of approximately two Internet journalists covering the 1996 presidential campaign. The reaction to us new-media types back then was a mixture of incomprehension and curiosity. Fellow reporters would ask if I knew how to fix their laptops. The campaign staffs treated me as a hanger-on, about as important as the Danish radio correspondent.

The experience of covering the 2000 campaign for Slate has been rather different. In four short years, the notion of Internet-based political coverage has gone from bizarre to so prosaic as to be utterly unremarkable. Indeed, most major news organizations have themselves become hybrids of print publications or broadcast services and Web sites. When a reporter has a scoop these days, he or she often breaks it online, rather than risk waiting for the next day's paper or the evening news. At a subtler level, the informal tone of Internet journalism -- subjective, epistolary and impressionistic -- has influenced the style of the old media's coverage of the campaign.

One effect of the rise of Internet coverage is that the traditional political news cycle has essentially been repealed. Stories that loom large at breakfast can go stale by the dinner hour. The campaigns have assimilated this pace. The Bush and Gore teams are now e-mailing reporters their rebuttal to the other guy's announcement before the other guy actually makes it. So much campaign news now happens in cyberspace that a journalist arguably gets a better sense of what's going on by sitting in front of a computer than by traveling on the campaign trail.

But as much as the Internet is reshaping political journalism, one could argue that it has yet to change politics very much. The currency of campaigns is still hard currency, raised mainly the old-fashioned ways, at $1,000-a-plate fundraisers and via direct mail. This money is spent on 30-second TV spots, not on banner ads on Yahoo. Pollsters still measure public opinion by telephone. And while a few candidates experimented with online canvassing in the primaries, door-to-door and phone contact remains the norm. The candidate who focused most on the Web's potential this year was Steve Forbes. But Forbes was less of a factor in 2000 than he was in 1996 -- when he ran without using the Net.

This seemingly glacial pace of change has disappointed many who hoped 2000 would prove to be the Net's 1960. For political junkies, the date is shorthand for the first nationally televised presidential debate and the last time a new communications medium transformed politics. Polling showed that voters who heard the first Kennedy-Nixon debate on the radio thought Nixon won it. The far larger number who saw the debate on TV thought Kennedy won -- and that made the difference. After 1960, the ineffable quality of coming across well on television became an essential attribute of a successful politician.

Though the election is still a few weeks off, it's probably safe to say that 2000 wasn't the Net's 1960, but more like its 1952. TV existed in that election, and Dwight Eisenhower flirted with the new medium. But TV wasn't yet pervasive enough to be a decisive factor.

In "Net Election," the project that Slate and The Standard began a year ago, we've gotten excited about several unexpected developments. One was John McCain's demonstration of how a scrappy, underfinanced challenger can use the Net for make-or-break fundraising. Another was the surprisingly early arrival of legally binding voting on the Internet in Arizona. More breakthroughs are surely in store. Yet, it's still hard to make a good case that the Internet has been a decisive factor in this year's election.

Still, Internet politics enthusiasts need not despair. While the Net hasn't revolutionized campaigns, it is transforming American democracy in ways that might prove far more significant over the long run by permitting citizens to participate in politics more easily and interact with government more than ever before.

At the most basic level, this transformation is about access to information. Citizens who want to understand what their representatives or candidates are doing no longer have to rely on the press for glimpses and snippets. Reading a newly proposed bill or learning who gave how much to your congressman used to be nearly impossible for anyone who was not a Washington-based journalist or professional activist. Now that information is readily available, organized and interpreted on a half-dozen Web sites. The Congressional Record and the Federal Register have evolved from unalphabetized phone books to searchable online databases.

Even more significantly, political information now moves in many directions instead of just one. Thanks to the Internet, the establishment press's monopoly over the dissemination of political news and commentary has ended. Citizens now communicate with each other and their representatives without benefit of media. Because there is no barrier to entry in cyberspace, amateurs can compete with professional journalists for the public's attention. Full-time hobbyists like Matt Drudge, Jim Romenesko of MediaNews and Zack Exley of the satirical site GWBush.com drew readerships as big as those of major news organizations. Others with less time on their hands find outlets for their views in chat rooms and e-mail lists.

This omnidirectional flow of information Inspires more civic participation by appealing to an infinite array of specialized concerns. Because of its extraordinary power to connect people who have anything in common - from concern over soft money to a desire to legalize marijuana - the Internet is drawing more citizens into political activism. Consider Move-On.org, an online effort to defeat congressional representatives who voted to impeach President Clinton. The group, essentially a couple of people and a PC, may prove a factor in this year's elections. Even street demonstrations, such as those at the World Trade Organization summit in Seattle, the World Bank annual meeting in Washington and the summer conventions, began online. Ironically, if you're serious about opposing globalization, you can't do it without e-mail.

The rise of e-government means the average citizen's experience dealing with the public sector is rapidly improving. Already, the Internet allows millions of people to avoid physical interaction with the Department of Motor Vehicles and the post office, while forcing those institutions to provide better customer service. Government purchasing is fast going electronic, saving billions. Online registration and voting have the potential to improve our embarrassing levels of electoral participation.

Some see the Web's transformation of democracy going even further, into Orwellian territory. President Clinton's old Svengali, Dick Morris, has started Vote.com, a Web site founded on his view that Internet-based direct democracy is destined to replace representative democracy Congress, Morris thinks, will become superfluous as it is forced to bow to tidal waves of online public opinion.

I can't see much realistic basis for this kind of prediction, but there's a lesson in it nonetheless. In politics, we must not confuse what the Web makes possible with what it makes desirable. The Internet must serve as a tool of democracy, not the other way around.

Jacob Weisberg (jacobwe@microsoft.com) is chief political correspondent for State.

From Woodrow Wilson to the World Wide Web

Even before the Internet, new media changed the rules of politics.

1916

First telephone poll conducted.

1933

FDR's first fireside chat over NBC's Blue Network.

1948

Candidate Harry Truman makes TV appearance, first by a presidential contender.

1960

Richard Nixon debates John Kennedy on television.

1964

Lyndon Johnson runs anti-Goldwater "Daisy' TV ad.

1996

Bob Dole recites his campaign's Web site address during a presidential debate.

2000

First online balloting in Arizona primary.

SOURCES: PACKAGING THE PRESIDENCY BY KATHLEEN HALL JAMIESON; MICHAEL SCHUDSON, PROFESSOR OF COMMUNICATIONS, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SAN DIEGO; BILL BENOIT, PROFESSOR OF COMMUNICATIONS, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI9 AT COLUMBIA.

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COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group