HBI researcher Jan Rau describes how our democracy can be strengthened in digital spaces in the special issue of the journal “Wissen schafft Demokratie” [Knowledge Creates Democracy] on the topic of “Netzkulturen und Plattformpolitiken” [Net Cultures and Platform Politics]. “Wissen schafft Demokratie” is a publication series of the Institut für Demokratie und Zivilgesellschaft [Institute for Democracy and Civil Society]. All articles are available as open access publications.
Abstract
While the digital transformation of the political public sphere is powerful in triggering political turbulence and upheaval, it is often weak when it comes to channeling this turbulence into lasting and constructive political change. The political spaces of opportunity created by technological change offer both authoritarian and democratic potential for our democracies – the former must be contained, the latter enabled. In order to achieve these goals, we must promote democratic forces in the digital space and weaken anti-democratic forces in the spirit of defensive democracy, find a middle ground between too much and too little conflict and polarization in social discourse and, finally, test new ways of channeling digital turbulence into constructive and long-term political change.
Rau, J. (2023) Digitale Turbulenzen: Aufbau einer demokratischen Gesellschaft in Zeiten des digitalen Umbruchs [Digital Turbulence: Building a Democratic Society in Times of Digital Upheaval]. In: Institut für Demokratie und Zivilgesellschaft (ed.). Wissen schafft Demokratie. Schwerpunkt Netzkulturen und Plattformpolitiken, volume 14. Jena, pp. 16–29.