This document summarizes and critiques a book about the role of the internet in politics and democracy. It discusses how the book uses the 2004 Howard Dean presidential campaign as a case study but notes several limitations. Specifically, it argues that the book does not sufficiently consider more recent developments like social media platforms and how they have become major forces in political organizing and civic engagement around the world, as demonstrated in events like the Arab Spring uprisings. The document concludes that while the internet's impact was nascent in 2004, digital democracy has since evolved into a tangible reality, as shown through modern political movements that have harnessed online tools.

1. Faraz Janan
University of Oxford, UK

2.  Hindman argues against the journalists and
pundits who have made sweeping claims about
internet transformative potential for
democracy, and suggests that the new online
bosses are not very different from the old ones.
 The author is embedded in the idea that internet
has challenged traditional media and less beyond
that in terms of electoral politics.
 A broad analysis of US presidential campaigns
with respect to the websites is given in the
book, while the focus remained on the online
bloggers.
 The book is based on two part analysis, it
presents a technical survey on the political
websites and a case study of Howard Dean’s
online campaign

3.  How open is the internet architecture?
 The issue of gatekeepers is debatable, compromised
freedom
 Are online audience more decentralized than the
audience of traditional media?
 Internet is as diverse as human imagination
 How many citizens are heard in the cyber space?
 Author believes just a few
 Are those who end up getting heard have a more
accurate reflection of the broader public?
 Bloggers suggests that

4.  The internet IS making the politics less exclusive and less
expensive
 At least in terms of fundraising and mobilization
 It is empowering citizens at the expense of elites
 The rise of Howard Dean as the front runner and success of his
support base suggests that
 Internet campaigning encourages Personal involvement and
collective action
 Howard dean known supporters rose from a couple of thousand
to 640K
 Author suggests that significant number of previously
inactive members returned into political activism as a
result of online campaigning
 Internet has challenged the status quo, vested political
interests, encouraged public debate, or have blurred
traditional distinction btw elite and the mass public
 The donors distribution and average value of individual
donation in the case of internet campaigning advocates that

5.  Digital divide – minority at disadvantage
 Medium barriers – may compromise openness
 Internet means the end of broadcasting
through organized media?
 Internet based political organization is less
important in practice
 The role of ‘gate keepers’, who decide what
people get to see, could also be manipulated
in the internet age. An analysis on search
engines on how websites are rated is
presented.

6.  Author observe Dean’s online campaign as a
failure
 It was the first online political campaign than
span 13 months
 Dean had a couple thousand known supporters
and $157K in the bank
 Dean collected $50m from 300K individuals, with
an average donation size of $80, where 99% of
individual donors contributed $200 or less
 640K signed supporters online and 189K were
either willing or participated in the monthly
meetings
 Total cost of the online campaign was less than
$1m and a team of 25 people.

8.  Dean online victory provide new tangible metrics
of realization, such as number of website
hits, supportive blogs, online following and sign-
ups.
 Overall, Dean’s online success was taken as
evidence that he has broad grass root support
 Gen. Wesley Clark followed Dean in online
pursuit.
 The author suggests that political behaviour in
online world follows unexpected fault lines
 Some observers dismissed Dean’s candidacy as a
failed referendum on the importance of digital
politics
 Author suggests that internet is a campaign for
resource than campaign for voters

9.  Anyone can make a political website, but
hardly matters if few political websites
receive high number of visitors
 The number of links pointing to a website
determine its visibility
 A small portion of the group should receive
most of the links – power rule
 Heavily linked websites should continue to
receive more links

10. W aut hor
hat
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W act ual l y happened
hat
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hat ean t hought

11.  While the role of internet in political process is a global and
continually refining phenomena, a sample case of US presidential
elections is generalized over the basic idea.
 Social media, such as Facebook, twitter, etc. are observed to
have played more vital role recently in domestic opinion
making, than personalized websites, which is ignored all
together.
 It covers the case of Howard Dean online campaign in 2004. The
role of social media from that point onwards has expanded
exponentially. For instance, the number of Facebook users and
average time per active user in:
 December 2004 = 1 million - less than 1.5 hour/user/month
 December 2012 = 1.06 billion - more than 12 hours/user/month
 Twitter reached from 4.5 million users in 2009 to over 500 million in
2012
 The book was sent for publication in 2008, which means it has
not seen the Arab spring movements in the Middle East, Anna
Hazara movement in India and many others on a smaller
scale, that has/had internet as the primary driving force behind
it.
 Digital democracy is far from a myth, and evident from the
political changes around the globe, it is shaping as a sound reality
in political arena.

12.  Egyptian revolution – mobilization at Tahrir square

13.  Anna Hazare – from hunger strike to mainstream
political party and national reforms

14.  Imran Khan
 Cricket mega star, multi millionaire, built the
biggest free health charity hospital and university in
Pakistan = FAIL
 Facebook viral of simplicity gestures = MOST
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