This article proposes both a critique of the principal watersheds in philosophical interpretation of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) and a political theory of social communication that is capable of comprehending the impact of such technologies on contemporary societies. The principal argument is that we are experiencing a political and intellectual struggle over the forms of appropriating electronic communications media, and that the search for democratization of these media requires a reformulation of some central principles in the political theory of social communication and its relationship to democratic theory.
Internet; political theory; democracy; Republic
