The country may be moving in the direction of purer democracy than anything the ancient Greeks envisioned. It promises to be a fiasco. Opinion polls and focus groups are Stone Age implements in the brave new world of interactivity just down the communications superhighway. Imagine an ongoing electronic plebiscite in which millions of Americans will be able to express their views on any public issue at a press of a button. Surely nothing could be a purer expression of democracy. Yet nothing would have a more paralyzing impact on representational government … Now imagine the paralysis that would be induced if constituents could be polled instantly by an all-but-universal interactive system. No more guessing what the voters were thinking; Presidents and lawmakers would have access to a permanent electrocardiogram, hooked up to the body politic.
Predictor: Koppel, Ted
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 new technologies also offer political dangers that are many and serious. In 1994, ABC News anchor Ted Koppel echoed the views of many, and perhaps even most of his colleagues in journalism, politics, and political science by expressing dismay at the likelihood that these technological tools will create an excess of democracy. ‘The country may be moving in the direction of purer democracy than anything the ancient Greeks envisioned,’ Koppel wrote. ‘It promises to be a fiasco. Opinion polls and focus groups are Stone Age implements in the brave new world of interactivity just down the communications superhighway. Imagine an ongoing electronic plebiscite in which millions of Americans will be able to express their views on any public issue at a press of a button. Surely nothing could be a purer expression of democracy. Yet nothing would have a more paralyzing impact on representational government … Now imagine the paralysis that would be induced if constituents could be polled instantly by an all-but-universal interactive system. No more guessing what the voters were thinking; presidents and lawmakers would have access to a permanent electrocardiogram, hooked up to the body politic.’ The brave new world of interactivity, whose political consequences Koppel finds so appalling, is, indeed, just down the communications superhighway. And for better of worse, the new interactivity brings enormous political leverage to ordinary citizens at relatively little cost. With the prospect of a microprocessor, keypad, or telecomputer in the hands of every voter, we are, as Koppel put it, unquestionably ‘on the verge of giving our politicians a devastatingly accurate radar system that will tell them unambiguously just which way the crowd is milling.”
Date of prediction: January 1, 1995
Topic of prediction: Global Relationships/Politics
Subtopic: General
Name of publication: The Electronic Republic (book)
Title, headline, chapter name: Chapter 7: The Shape of the Electronic Republic: The Citizens, the Congress, the Presidency, and the Judiciary
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
Page 147
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Guarino, Jennifer Anne