... and Worship Free Markets
How much confidence do you have in the free-market system?

. . . .
See the full survey results
. . . .
 

[an error occurred while processing this directive] 

These ideas triggered an electronic outpouring, as thousands of Internet users responded to the article by emailing me. Representatives of both major political parties, media organizations, and corporate and educational groups offered me piles of money to speak to them about this emerging consciousness. Yet I declined all these offers because I saw the "Birth of a Digital Nation" piece as merely a signpost pointing toward the early stirrings of a nascent political community. The article rejected my own observations, but I couldn't really confirm that those observations were true. 

Others, however, were eager to test my hypotheses. A few months after my article was published, Wired teamed up with Merrill Lynch Forum to develop a survey that would examine the attitudes and beliefs of individuals who are at the leading edge of the digital revolution. The two companies then recruited Frank Luntz - an Arlington, Virginia, pollster and political strategist who has worked with House Speaker Newt Gingrich, New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, and Canada's Reform Party - to conduct the survey and analyze the findings. 

The survey was designed without any input from me, and I learned of its existence just two weeks before the results were compiled. The findings themselves were revealed to me during my first-ever videoconference, as I sat in Wired's Manhattan office watching Frank Luntz address the Wired Ventures hierarchy in a San Francisco conference room. It was an unnerving experience, largely because writers rarely have their speculations subjected to rigorous and thorough analysis. 

It turns out the "Digital Nation" piece was right and wrong. 

The survey reveals there is indeed a distinct group of Digital Citizens. As I suggested, they're knowledgeable, tolerant, civic-minded, and radically committed to change. Profoundly optimistic about the future, they're convinced that technology is a force for good and that our free-market economy functions as a powerful engine of progress. But among the survey's many powerful findings, one in particular caught me by surprise: where I had described them as deeply estranged from mainstream politics, the poll revealed that they are actually highly participatory and view our existing political system positively, even patriotically. 

In fact, Digital Citizens love their political system more than the system loves them. Almost all conventional wisdom about digital culture - especially as conveyed in recent years by journalists, politicians, intellectuals, and other fearful guardians of the existing order - is dead wrong. The Internet, it turns out, is not a breeding ground for disconnection, fragmentation, paranoia, and apathy. Digital Citizens are not alienated, either from other people or from civic institutions. Nor are they ignorant of our system's inner workings, or indifferent to the social and political issues our society must confront. Instead, the online world encompasses many of the most informed and participatory citizens we have ever had or are likely to have. 

. . . .

Discuss the survey with Jon Katz and other digital citizens, in Threads. 
. . . .
 
 
 

Feedback | Help | About Us  | Jobs | Advertise | Privacy Statement  | Terms of Service

Copyright © 1994-2000 Wired Digital Inc., a Lycos Network site. All rights reserved.