Democracy and the Challenge of the Computer Medium

Since the disorganization of traditional patterns and individualization shape the politics of modernity, the fabrication of political identities has been revealed as a laborious and precarious act. But the membership in political parties or movements is transformed not only by the loss of traditional embedding or class consciousness, but also by the emergence of new media and new forms of political communi¬cations that strongly shape and influence political practices and communications. Empirical research therefore indicates, that digitalization is indeed a challenge to (the established rules and structures) of modern democracy. Inspired by a theoretical interpretation of case studies on political communication on Facebook and Twitter, digital democracy and cyber security, the change of political organization in political parties, on media use and the emergence of a successful right-wing populist party in Germany, the proposed contribution tends to focus on media-indicated changes in political structures, communications and socialisation. In all these cases, we may observe the emergence of a new Political Self, the emergence of new patterns of political speech and desperate efforts of challenged political organizations and institutions to acclimate to a new digital environment. The shock of the computer medium questions elaborated political practices, it changes the premises of political communications in social, temporal and functional dimensions. Theoretically, my argumentation follows a systems-theoretical tradition, supplemented by constructivist media theories and a socio-historical interest in the interdependencies of media and society. Using this theoretical frame, we may observe the fragility and processuality of political self-des¬criptions and performances in a computerized society. This leads directly to the following important democratic-theoretical question: How does this society, challenged by the introduction of the computer medium, produce lasting collective binding and legitimacy of it’s political decisions?