Interactive information technology has the potential to become the 21st century’s electronic version of the meeting place on the hill near the Acropolis, where 2,500 years ago Athenian citizens assembled to govern themselves. The electronic republic cannot be as intimate or as deliberative as the face-to-face discussions and showing of hands in the ancient Athenians’ open-air assemblies. But it is likely to extend government decision making from the few the in the center of power to the many on the outside who may wish to participate.
Predictor: Grossman, Lawrence K.
Prediction, in context:In his 1995 book “The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in the Information Age,” Lawrence Grossman, former president of NBC News and PBS, writes: ”The citizens of ancient Athens who assembled on the hill of Pnyx would never recognize today’s impersonal, far-flung system of democracy in the vast United States involving more than two hundred million people. It has almost nothing in common with their own intimate face-to-face style of direct political involvement involving only thousands. But the next century is likely to tell a very different story. Interactive telecommunications technology makes it possible to revive, in sophisticated modern form, some of the essential characteristics of the ancient world’s first democratic politics. Instead of a show of hands, we have electronic polls. Instead of a single meeting place, we have far-flung, interactive telecommunications networks that extend thousands of miles. In place of personal discussion and deliberation, we have call-ins, talk shows, faxes, and on-line computer bulletin boards … Interactive information technology has the potential to become the 21st century’s electronic version of the meeting place on the hill near the Acropolis, where 2,500 years ago Athenian citizens assembled to govern themselves. The electronic republic cannot be as intimate or as deliberative as the face-to-face discussions and showing of hands in the ancient Athenians’ open-air assemblies. But it is likely to extend government decision making from the few the in the center of power to the many on the outside who may wish to participate.”
Biography:Lawrence Grossman wrote the book “The Electronic Republic: Reshaping Democracy in an Information Age” (Penguin, 1995). The former executive at NBC and PBS urged people to realize that digital communications had altered how things can and should be done. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics
Subtopic: Democracy
Name of publication: The Electronic Republic (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 2: The Roots of the Electronic Republic: Democracy’s Third Transformation
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Pages 48, 49
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne