Is the horizontal leveling of internet communications really an instrument of democracy?
Once voice can decide to speak out and can gain a global audience virtually overnight, influencing political decision making both on a national and global level as well as at a local level, based solely on the influence and endorsement of their peers. The ability of any voice anywhere to influence the course of decision-making that impacts society is the foundation of democratic action. The corollary of that freedom, however, is that it takes democratic organization of all of the content generated by social media for people to become aware of such opinions. If millions of voices shout out but we hear from the same media-selected opinion-makers again and again then social media has done little good. This is where the traditional media outlets fail us oftentimes. It is good to have high-quality traditional media outlets, but social media outlets enable a far broader array of opinions and insights to surface by enabling a far broader array of influencers and leaders to arise through the c
