Digital multimedia technologies have arrived, he noted, at the same time that public trust of government has reached an all-time low. The concept of electronic democracy thus allows us to rethink the institutions of government and the communications systems that mediate between citizens and government. Instead, people with shared interests are forming narrow electronic communities that consume time and energy that they might otherwise have invested in their geographic communities. These electronic communities may ultimately become potent political networks, he added, which is likely to destabilize the political system further. Communications defines communities, Noam summarized.
Communities define politics.
And the breakdown of the coherent national communications system will reflect and accelerate a fundamental centrifugalism that will reshape, in time, the country and its politics in many important ways. Conference participants also analyzed such issues as enhancing access to political information, protecting confidentiality in the electronic political process, maintaining civil liberties in a teledemocracy, and campaigning for office electronically. The report features assessments of policy and technology from experts who assembled at an Annenberg conference in the spring. Never before had a group of such stature come together to address these pressing issues. Speakers exchanged ideas on how technology can assist students with disabilities and how government, industry, and advocacy groups can get the technology to the people who need it.