Politics in the Information Age
Duane Freese examines the role of weblogs in the growing pressure on Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, and what it says about information technology's impact politics in the future.

New information technology doesn't change politics per se. But it can have a leveling effect by creating a real forum for the views of more participants. When conducted through broadcast TV ads, telephone solicitations and direct mail campaigns, politics favor the kinds of organizations that only money can buy. And while ultimately that is the kind of organization any candidate needs, the Internet and new media allow motivated, like-minded, concerned people to coalesce and break through the normal filters of big money and big politics.

The technology appears to give no partisan advantage. Anti-globalists use cellphones and email to coordinate their anti-World Trade Organization protests, while libertarians used email to organize defeat of the intrusive "Know Your Customer" rules that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation had proposed for banks back in 1999. And now, a handful of conservative-leaning weblogs are leading the charge to unseat Lott.

Read Freese's story to have a fuller understanding of how the Internet and weblogs (of which this is one of thousands) can be used as tools of political communication and action.

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