Ourspace

Christine Harold's Our Space provides a good deal for thought. The book is a complex discussion about the necessity of constructing publics, but one that argues against thinking about these publics as existing in opposition to capitalism. Harold argues (perhaps in a Foucaultian manner) that attempting to create something new in opposition to that which currently exists is a hopeless project, and one that actually may reinforce existing power dynamics.

This changes the terms of the debate over the relationship between corporations and individuals. While some worry about, as discussed by Harold, the danger posed to websites such as MySpace by corporate interests -- that something organic will be squashed by corporate interests -- Harold sees this as a false description of the relationship between individual and corporation. First, there is no mythical time we can hark back on in which "rebels" existed free from outside influence. Second, the idea of a rebel is something that can and has been appropriated by corporate interests.

Her critique of those who would outrightly steal copyrights and attempt to redistribute them to the public is, of all her examples, in my mind the most illuminating of how this is so. The very idea of stealing something depends on an idea of ownership. Stealing reinforces claims of ownership and involves the apparatus of the state in enforcement ownership rights. The Creative Commons, and other "open source" projects attempt to work through ownership by creating a spectrum of ownership rights that allow and encourage collaboration.

The metaphor of working through or going with the flow emerges many times in this book, including in the conclusion when Harold compares football to surfing. Harold uses it in reference to culture jammers or hackers who understand the system and work within the system in order to change the system.

There is also a strong collaborative element to Harold's prescriptions. This stands in contrast to the mass media model in which the relationship between media and consumer is top-down. Of course, as Harold has noted, corporations have discovered the potential of allowing individuals cooperate in the construct of their entertainment. Again, Harold would caution against seeing this as an out and out appropriation of the individual. Nor would she take the opposite, perhaps naive, stance that it is not an appropriation of the individual. Rather, Harold seems to say that there is a good deal of potential in collaborative relationship. Further, more equal collaborative relationships are possible.

My critiques of the book are few. I think I could have benefited more from some examples of the problems associated with copyright laws. Harold discusses Disney's successful efforts to protect its copyrights over Mickey Mouse and other Disney products and also, in less detail, the efforts on the part of corporations to product their products in the digital age. I am not really sure what the public are missing out on. Free copies of Disney movies? I see how this is more important in scientific and scholarly work -- but it also seems as if there are strong collaborative norms in the sciences.

I also think that Harold could have provided a more clearer road map. I think it is a powerful suggestion to think about how to work within the system, but to what ends?

Paper topic

This paper will examine the potential for citizen participation in the construction of administrative law to serve as an opportunity for deliberative democracy. I will first provide an overview of the necessity of fostering deliberative democracy as well as a discussion of what forms deliberative democracy may take. Using Coleman and Blumler's concept of a "civic commons" as a roadmap, I offer a description of the ways in which the administrative law process may approximate a "civic commons." I end with a research design aimed to test the potential relationship between administrative law and deliberative democracy.

Civic Commons

Coleman and Blumler discuss the potential for the Internet serving as a "civic commons," and describe the "civic commons" as:

an enduring structure which could realize more fully the democratic potential of the new interactive media. This would involve the establishment of an entirely new kind of public agency, designed to forge fresh links between communication and politics and to connect the voice of the people more meaningfully to the daily activities of democratic institutions. The organization would be publicly funded but would be independent from government. It would be responsible for eliciting, gathering, and coordinating citizens' deliberations upon and reactions to problems faced and proposals issues by public bodies (ranging from local councisl to parliaments and government departments), which would then be expected to react formally to whatever emerges from the public discussion (Coleman and Blumler 181).

While not conforming entirely to the parameters of a civic commons described by Coleman and Blumler, various characteristics of administrative agencies in the United States mirror these parameters. In certain circumstances, administrative agencies are required by law to respond to petitions for agency action submitted by citizens, must produce a record that reflects input received from interested parties, and often must base their decision or be able to justify their decision on what is contained in that record. Furthermore, administrative agencies are encouraged by law to utilize "electronic dockets" to allow interested persons to participate in agency decision making procedures by submitting documents electronically (Funk et al. 2006: 111). Certain aspects of the administrative law process, then, contain elements of a civic commons as they encourage public input and hold decision makers accountable.

The Political Brain

Drew Westen provides a compelling analysis of relationship between how people think and political campaigns. Arguing against a rational choice model of decision making in which individuals are assumed to calculate the costs and benefits of certain actions and are assumed to then follow the course of action that maximizes benefits over costs, Westen adopts instead a model of behavior in which emotion plays a stronger role in decision making. When it comes down to it, most decisions are made not based on some rational calculation but on "gut feeling." Westen faults the Democrats for attempting to appeal to rationality when they should be appealing to emotion.

Westen's analysis is comprehensive and compelling, but there are a number of problems. First, I think Westen only partially describes how political scientists understand decision making, especially those who adopt a boundedly rational model of decision making. He paints all political scientists, including those who adopt bounded rationality, as rational choicers. The difference is that bounded rationality assumes not that people always make rational cacluations (as rational choice does) but that there are circumstances in which people are able to make these calculations and circumstances when they are not. By extension, there are times when people are able to make political decisions based on a "rational" analysis of what they are being offered by politicians, and times when they are no able to do so.

Second, I think Westen is really critiqing a certain type of political communication and does not adequately distinguish between mass communciation and deliberative democracy. It may be true that emotion is a more important factor in mass communication, but does that hold true for the kinds of smaller scale deliberative communication that civic engagement scholars envision? If Westen is correct (and no distinction exists), it suggests to me that you could never persuade with rational communication but that emotion will always triumph. However, if we can distinguish between types of political communication, then there seems to be a role for both emotion and rationality.

Third, I think Westen errs in conflating the personal communication failures of a few albeit important national Democratic politicians. Perhaps they individually suffer from an inability to connect with people emotionally. Is that enought to castigate wide swathes of the population as fundamentally not understanding how people think?

Hearing the Other Side

In Hearing the Other Side, Diana C. Mutz provides a compelling theoretical and empirical examination of the complicated relationship between deliberation and democracy. Questioning the normative prescription that a good citizen, by definition, engages in deliberation with those who have different opinions as part of the political process, Mutz asks if and how Americans actually engage with other Americans who might disagree with them. Despite the attractiveness of a normative argument for interaction between likes and unlikes, Mutz shows that in practice there are numerous factors that work against interaction, including geographic segregation and social practice. Not only do people tend to live amongst those with whom they agree, social norms work against discussing politics in public let alone airing a minority opinion. Mutz describes benefits associated with talking with people with different opinions: such activity increases one's knowledge of other opinions and is associated with greater tolerance. Additionally, and surprisingly, Mutz finds that the factors that encourage deliberation may work against factors that encourage political participation. Homogeneous social networks may reinforce individuals' political beliefs and encourage people to vote (as they known they are in the "right"), but homogeneous social networks are not the best sources of cross-cutting political information. On the other hand, heterogeneous social networks provide a good deal of interaction with other political positions but may dampen political behavior such as voting as being exposed to ideas that challenge one's own position may undermine beliefs.

Two thoughts. First, in Chapter 4 Mutz explores the possible ramifications on political behavior (including voting) of cross-pressure from within their social group. The experience of black women during this election cycle is perhaps an excellent opportunity to test the effects of cross-pressure on groups of people (as no doubt scholars are). Contrary to Mutz's description of the dampening effect of cross-pressures, however, it seems that voter registration and participation is skyrocketing among all Democrats, and potentially including among black women -- a group that should be facing a good deal of pressure. Political participation seems to be up even in the face of competing messages about the right choice. Second, Mutz speaks briefly in the conclusion about the role of the media. She contrasts an earlier media experience with the current one, speaking of the difference between broadcasting and narrowcasting. She seems to suggest that during the time of broadcasting, there was more diversity -- "As the number of potential places to obtain news multiplies, consumers must choose among them, and that exercise of choice may lead to less diversity of political exposure" (145). On the one hand, there may have been more political exposure when people were watching one of three television channels and all carried politics whereas now, people can choose not to watch politics. On the other hand, there seems to be a homogeneity of information problem regardless of whether there are few or many news sources. Bennett et al referred to media outlets as sampling from the day's new stories -- everyone carries the same basic stories but there is variation along the dimension.

The best thing about this book is that I got to cite it in a recent conversation with Mike's parents. Mike and I, the Democrats, have often found ourselves head to head with Nancy and Dick Gates, the Republicans. Dick was talking about a conversation with some of his golf buddies, who asked (jokingly or not?) if Dick was able to convince Mike and I yet of the rightness of being a Republican. Nancy and Dick are intensely interested in this presidential election and though both of them will likely vote for Senator McCain, they are very impressed in Senator Obama's candidacy and consume a variety of media -- including Rush, Chris Matthews, and Bill O'Reilly. After discussing the book, we all came to the conclusion that the conversation we were having was perhaps more important than convincing each other that they are wrong and we are right (though we'll probably keep trying to anyway). Actually, conversations with Mike's parents are more comfortable for me because I know I won't turn Republican. It is harder to talk politics with our friends Jeff and Ben because they are Obama supporters and I'm for Hillary . . .