To defend that possibly outrageous position, one needs to confront other dragons. Democracy is an old dragon. What it is and what its features should be are hidden in a thick cloud of scholarly debate and political conflict. To the uninvolved, but not uninterested, all that is visible is a continual tumult punctuated by flashes of lightning and claps of thunder. On the fringe of the melee over definitions, democracy's weakened state and how to strengthen it are argued over in a raucous debate further confusing the observer.
Communications technology is a young dragon.
It seems bent on swallowing up everything in sight. But the world we see mirrored in its shining surface appears distorted, almost unrecognizable, but somehow unchanged from what we have already or possibly worse. People have been disagreeing about that for centuries and one always has the feeling that there are political agendas behind the doctrinal disputes. Beware of technology. It has a way of reformulating the world in its own image while leaving fundamental problems unsolved.