Is the Globa.I Information Infrastructure a Democrabc Technology? ml Deborah G. Johnson Renssaelaer Polytechnic Institute, 59oyN Y johnsd@rpi, edu has traditionally been understood, can be realized in a world that does not depend on physical, geographic space. he global information infrastructure (hereafter the GII) is often claimed to be a democratic technology. It is said to create electronic democracy, to facilitate or enhance democratic processes. The aim of this paper is to explore what these claims might mean and to suggest approaches to the GII that will be fruitful for evaluating such claims. The undertaking will shed light on the social, and particularly value, implications of the GII. The task necessarily involves three fundamental questions: What is the GII? What is democracy? What does it mean to say that a technology carries a value? To say that the GII is democratic is to say that this technology has a value embedded in it, that it contains or favors or facilitates democracy. Democracy is a value in the sense that when individuals make claims about the Internet or the GII being democratic, they are claiming that there is a strong link between the technology and patterns of behavior associated
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