Much of the comment about the new Pew Internet and Civic Engagement Survey has been around its finding that wealthy and well-networked people are the most likely to participate in civic activities online. The already-engaged, in other words, are the beneficiaries of much engagement work.
I don’t think we should worry too much about that. That isn’t because I think poor people don’t matter, or that the politically disengaged deserve to stay disengaged. I think that the demographics of online engagement will solve themselves if we get democratisation right.
After all, the same middle-class bias is seen in voter turnout in the offline world. Voters are older, richer and more middle-class than the non-voters and since online civic engagement is designed by and for the politically-active, it is hardly surprising that those engaged online are old, rich and middle-class too.
The rewards of political engagement online also accrue mostly to those who already have strong views. The man ranting about privatisation on Comment is Free and the libertarian on Free Republic share the misperception that the great mass of the people are behind them. In fact, the great mass of the people don’t know what to think and aren’t particularly bothered about it. What use do they have for a discussion forum, however elegantly designed?
Fixing the class bias in politics without expanding the political class is impossible – and expansion of the political class has to come as a consequence of wider and deeper political engagement both online and off.
To do that, governments need to nurture political spaces with their attention, so civic participation has results beyond a warm fuzzy feeling. The civic engineers need to create spaces in such a way that people aren’t just reciting political cliches, but are really discussing and developing ideas in possession of the facts.
Most importantly, though, the people themselves need to be brought to realise, through advertising or through campaigning, that political engagement is more than a hobby for old rich people, it’s a vital part of the duty we have to our world. This last point sounds like moralising – and it is. Democratic transformation in politics can only come through citizens, and an engaged and dutiful citizen can’t be created by a well-designed website.