Republic.com 2.0 - Hardcover

Sunstein, Cass R.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691133565 ISBN 13: 9780691133560

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2007

Synopsis

What happens to democracy and free speech if people use the Internet to listen and speak only to the like-minded? What is the benefit of the Internet's unlimited choices if citizens narrowly filter the information they receive? Cass Sunstein first asked these questions in 2001's Republic.com. Now, in Republic.com 2.0, Sunstein thoroughly rethinks the critical relationship between democracy and the Internet in a world where partisan Weblogs have emerged as a significant political force.

Republic.com 2.0 highlights new research on how people are using the Internet, especially the blogosphere. Sunstein warns against "information cocoons" and "echo chambers," wherein people avoid the news and opinions that they don't want to hear. He also demonstrates the need to regulate the innumerable choices made possible by technology. His proposed remedies and reforms emphasize what consumers and producers can do to help avoid the perils, and realize the promise, of the Internet.

About this title

About the Author

Cass R. Sunstein is the Felix Frankfurter Professor at Harvard Law School. His many books include Worst-Case Scenarios, A Constitution of Many Minds, and, with Richard Thaler, Nudge.

From the Back Cover

"Republic.com enraged many because it asked a set of uncomfortable questions that few had a way of answering. In this beautifully revised edition, Sunstein continues to press these difficult questions, not as an attack on new technologies but as a challenge to make them make democracy work. This is a compelling if sober set of questions from America's foremost legal scholar."--Lawrence Lessig, Stanford University

From the Inside Flap

"Republic.com enraged many because it asked a set of uncomfortable questions that few had a way of answering. In this beautifully revised edition, Sunstein continues to press these difficult questions, not as an attack on new technologies but as a challenge to make them make democracy work. This is a compelling if sober set of questions from America's foremost legal scholar."--Lawrence Lessig, Stanford University

Reviews

In this follow up to Republic.com, his first appraisal of technology's effect on public discourse, University of Chicago Law School professor Sunstein waxes pessimistic about today's "nightmare" of limitless news and information options-and, more significantly, the limitless options for avoiding it. Gravitating toward those newspapers, blogs, podcasts and other media that reinforce their own views, citizens carefully filter out opposing or alternative viewpoints to create an ideologically exclusive "Daily Me." The sense of personal empowerment consumers gain-and subsequently equate with "freedom"-only fuels the "echo chamber" effect, which replaces a sense of democratic unity with accelerating polarization. Sunstein argues that the most obvious dangers of this effect-single-minded terrorists and hate groups who use cyberspace to communicate directly with receptive audiences-hide the more subtle and far-reaching consequences of the "growing power of consumers to 'filter' what they see": not only do diverse publics need to hear multiple voices, they also must cultivate a culture "where people actually want to hear what others have to say." This perceptive volume effectively illuminates the contradictory impulses at the heart of the citizen-consumer, demonstrating how "there can be no assurance of freedom in a system committed to the Daily Me"; though challenging and thought-provoking throughout, Sunstein's chapter of partial solutions proves underwhelming.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0691133565
• ISBN 13: 9780691133560
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272