Virtual communities changing politics?

The primary focus here for me is each article's take on what the internet is doing to politics and in particular, the "public sphere". This sphere was essential for philosophers (Greeks, Habermas, etc.) for people to engage in politics. Overtime the philosophical view of private and public spheres has changed such as Hannah Arendt's notion of a "social" sphere that arises out of the public and private. This is where the markets come into the picture, but this has less to do with what the topic is. The point is that the way in which citizen engage in politics is changing. It is easier to stay informed about what is going on with 24/7 news on the internet, critical writings about politics, and easy access to resources to be more educated about politics. As Poster's article says, "The age of the public sphere as face-to-face talk is clearly over: the question of democracy must henceforth take into account new forms of electronically mediated discourse." Is it possible for discussion of politics to be transferred over cyberspace instead of meatspace completely? I don't believe that the notion of a public sphere will be completely moved to internet discussion. There will still be activities and interaction that the internet might not be able to provide in the realm of politics.

Like I said before, the internet does provide supplementary content for political citizens that may not have been accessed before. This year's election is definitely an example of this change in doing politics. The election of '08 had a larger voter turnout than the previous election and I think this could be due to the role of the internet. Sure, the internet was apart of the last election, but this time there was more interaction of users on the internet, some of the debates featured citizens posting questions via Youtube for candidates to respond to. Citizens made political videos like the last post mentioned that raised awareness of not only the candidates, but the political process in general. I don't want to fall into some kind of deterministic ideology about the internet, but it seems like it within virtual communities, user created political content, activism, etc. could benefit in more awareness of politics.