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While some see Internet democracy in its different flavors as the next step towards "real democracy," and as the tool that finally helps to eliminate the distance constraints in direct democracyDirect democracy comprises a form of democracy and theory of civics wherein all citizens can directly participate in the decision-making process. Some adherents want both legislative and executive powers to be handled by the people, but most extant system and increase the degree of interaction between politicians and the public, others compare it with similar hypes which came with every new medium, especially radioFor other uses see: radio (disambiguation Radio is a technology that allows the transmission of signals by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of light. Radio waves Radio waves are a form of electromagnetic radiation, and are broadcastingNote: broadcasting is also the old term for hand sowing. Broadcasting is the distribution of audio and video signals (programs) to a number of recipients ("listeners" or "viewers") that belong to a large group. This group may be the public in general, or ( Bertolt BrechtBertolt Brecht ( February 10, 1898 August 14, 1956) was an influential German dramatist, stage director, and poet of the 20th century. His life and career Brecht was born in Augsburg, Bavaria, studied medicine and worked briefly as an orderly in a hospita's utopia), cable televisionCable television or Community Antenna Television CATV (and often shortened to 'cable') is a system of providing television, FM radio programming and other services to consumers through fixed coaxial cables, rather than by the older and more widespread rad (teledemocracy) and VCRsThe video cassette recorder (or VCR is a type of video tape recorder that uses removable cassettes containing magnetic tape to record audio and video from a television broadcast so it can be played back later. Many VCRs have their own tuner and can be pro.
There are important differences between previous communication mediaTelecommunication is the extension of communication over a distance. In practice it also recognizes that something may be lost in the process; hence the term 'telecommunication' covers all forms of distance and/or conversion of the original communications and the Internet that are relevant to the political usage of the Internet.
Most importantly the Internet is a many-to-many communication medium where radio/ televisionSee TV (disambiguation) for other uses and Television (band) for the rock band Television is a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance. The term has come to refer to all the aspects of television p (few-to-many) and telephones (few-to-few) are not. Also, the Internet has a much greater computational capacity allowing strong encryption and databasing (important in community information access/sharing, deliberative democracy and electoral fraud prevention). Further, people use the Internet to collaborate or meet in an asynchronous manner—that is, they don't have to be physically gathered at the same moment to get things accomplished. Due to all these factors, the Internet has the potential to take over certain traditional media of political communication such as the telephone, the TV, newspapers and the radio.
Some would argue that the form of output of the computer does not have the same convenience of the newspaper. The advent of electronic paper is likely to change that.