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Title: The Big Disconnect

Subtitle: Why the Internet Hasn't Transformed Politics (Yet)

Author: Micah L. Sifry

Narrator: Stephen McLaughlin

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins

Language: English

Release date: 08-13-14

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 6 votes

Genres: Science & Technology, Technology

Publisher's Summary:

Now that communication can be as quick as thought, why hasnt our ability to organize politically - to establish gains and beyond that, to maintain them - kept pace? The web has given us both capacity and speed: but progressive change seems to be something perpetually in the air, rarely manifesting, even more rarely staying with us.

Micah L. Sifry, a longtime analyst of democracy and its role on the net, examines what he calls The Big Disconnect. In his usual pithy, to-the-point style, he explores why data-driven politics and our digital overlords have failed or misled us, and how they can be made to serve us instead, in a real balance between citizens and state, independent of corporations.

The web and social media have enabled an explosive increase in participation in the public arena - but not much else has changed. For the next step beyond connectivity, writes Sifry, we need a real digital public square, not one hosted by Facebook, shaped by Google, and snooped on by the National Security Agency. If we dont build one, then any notion of democracy as rule by the people will no longer be meaningful. We will be a nation of Big Data, by Big Email, for the powers that be."

Members Reviews:

Essential, sobering reading for lovers of the Net and democracy

Micah Sifry brings to this topic a lifetime of engaged writing about politics, a commitment to progressive values, and a deep love for the possibility of transformation offered by the Internet. He is by no means an "Internet basher." In fact, I first met Micah during the Dean campaign when the hopes for the Internet's effect on politics and governance were at their highest. This book is an intervention by someone who still loves the Net.

That's what makes this heart-felt, fact-based, deeply informed assessment of the state of the Internet transformation so sobering. Micah holds dear the promise of the Net, understands the Net deeply, and is in despair. Anyone who has hoped that the Internet would provide a better way of campaigning and governing needs to read this book.

Micah makes the case for the failure of the Net to transform politics with a heavy heart. There's more big money in politics than ever, and the incumbent political forces have mastered the use of the Net as a tool of mass manipulation and distraction. He recognizes that the corruption of politics over the past twenty years is by no means the sole fault of the Internet; the parties, the Supreme Court, the President, and all of us are responsible, with the Net enabling the best of our behavior as well as the worst. He lays all this out clearly, with compelling stories, and without overstatement.

Try as he might, Micah has trouble finding reasons to hope, for if we've failed to take advantage of the the Net to democratize politics so far, what will change so that now we do so? He hasn't given up, but it's clear that Net Magic isn't going to do the trick all by itself.

I personally think the book does not always give full credit to the distance we've come since before the Net. For example, in the pre-Net days, it was difficult to gather information about something as straightforward as the candidates' positions on issues. You'd get a one-page position paper, perhaps, and only on a limited numbed of topics.