Debate on Bruce Bimber's book Information and American Democracy

Abstract

The Internet, particularly over the last decade, has attracted the interest of a great number of academics, having become a commonplace for many social scientists. Internet penetration levels, together with the variety of tools and services available for its users, are affecting the economic, social and political behaviour of many citizens of societies across the world. In this latter political sphere, specialists have shown interest in the effect of the Internet on citizens’ civic engagement, political participation and, generally, on the very political structure of democratic countries. In this field of research, Bruce Bimber is a prominent figure. His book Information and American Democracy, one of his most representative works, is a point of reference for the field. The book introduces concepts such as “information regime”, “post-bureaucratic pluralism” and “information abundance”, as well as a model for analysing the relationship between information and politics in the United States which have served as a reference for researchers interested in the subject. The aim of this debate is to discuss, eight years after the publication of this book, the relevance and importance of its fundamental approaches. In addition, we have attempted to revisit those ideas from the present time. Lastly, we have given this debate an international scope in order to enrich it with perspectives and experiences from a varied range of countries. Thus, we have had a heterogeneous and comprehensive group of specialists including Steven Livingston (George Washington University), José Luis García (Universidad de Lisboa), Liu Gang (Chinese Academy of Social Sciences), Lorenzo Mosca (Universitá Roma Tre), David Karpf (Rutgers University) and José Manuel Robles (Universidad Complutense de Madrid). Following the comments of these authors, B. Bimber himself offers a brief review of his work and provides brief responses to the commentators’ comments.