The Role of Digital Tools in the Development of Citizen-Centered Politics. Who do the digital media serve? Between cyber-optimism and cyber-skepticism. (original) (raw)

The activities of hackers and hackerspaces have easily discernible economic and political potential. And the question of the political potential of digital tools clearly preoccupies Katarzyna Klimowicz. In her article The Role of Digital Tools in the Development of Citizen-Centered Politics she tries to determine whether digital tools – or digital media, to be more precise – may rather serve the rulers or the ruled. Calling the support of the wide choice of authors writing on cyber revolution in dissemination of information, from Castells to Morozov, she boldly attacks the idea of political participation in its classical shape as sadly unresponsive to “the basic concerns, needs and rights of ordinary citizens”. She counters the traditional political processes and systems with the notion of online and offline interdependencies, which she duly illustrates with the examples of the transnational Pirate Party International and the Spanish party Podemos, both parties abhorring the established right/left divisions and focusing only on stimulation of participatory citizenship. She leaves the reader with nagging question whether all those new digital tools may be the cure-all for the tarnished ideal of democracy.