Category Archives: Thesis

Communication through tools like Twitter and WordPress is fundamentally changing the way we consume, discover, and interact with information. This radical effect on information consumption is driving the reorganization of communication patterns as well. The effects of all this are most readily seen in the media and technology industries but are no less revolutionary in politics. What follows are the sections of my senior thesis in which I address the question of how these technologies are providing of a radically different conception for political participation.

Redefining political participation

The tech­no­log­i­cal capac­ity of indi­vid­u­als to pub­lish infor­ma­tion online expanded tremen­dously over the last decade. Free plat­forms for pub­lic expres­sion and pub­li­ca­tion of ideas pro­lif­er­ated, most recently through ser­vices like WordPress and Twitter. There are now an incred­i­ble vari­ety of tools avail­able to peo­ple that… Continue read­ing →

Real-Time Politics

Communication has been able to hap­pen nearly instan­ta­neously over the web for years now. Technologies like push email have pre­vi­ously opened chan­nels through which infor­ma­tion can be trans­mit­ted in real-time. Today’s real-time web are dif­fer­ent because of the public-by-default nature of mes­sages. Communication through tools… Continue read­ing →

How we can participate

As tech­nol­ogy and the tools for com­mu­ni­cat­ing online become more mature and acces­si­ble, some gen­eral trends emerge. First, with the rise of the real-time web and ser­vices like Twitter com­mu­ni­ca­tion online hap­pens faster. It is also com­ing from mil­lions of indi­vid­u­als who can pub­lish from… Continue read­ing →