De la democracia mediática a la democracia digital

Abstract

The profound changes that affect the political communication system in the parliamentary democracies begin to modify radically the relations between politicians, journalists and citizens. In this text we explore this transition from media democracy to digital democracy, from a situation characterized by a political-media blockade of the public sphere to another one in which the civic uses giving to the Internet network by citizens facilitates its reincorporation to the game of politics and information. There is argued, nevertheless, that to make of this citizen's empowerment something politically effective we need to act on the civic divide that is opened between individuals and groups that are unequal in terms of civic engagement. Not to neglect this reality allows thinking the concept of digital democracy without falling either in an ingenuous technological determinism or in a non-realistic political wilfulness.