According to the predictions concerning its political role, the Internet holds great promise. Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman called it, "the new Louisiana Purchase, an uncharted west." The political role of new communication technology has been termed a "great transformation." (Lawrence Grossman, 1995)
The Internet is viewed as a vehicle for educating individuals, stimulating citizen participation, measuring public opinion, easing citizen access to government officials, offering a public forum, simplifying voter registration, and even facilitating actual voting. (Anthony Corrado and Charles M. 1996) It has been termed a "powerful technology for grassroots democracy" and one that by "facilitating discussion and collective action by citizens, strengthens democracy." (Hans K. Klein, 1995) It also has been called potentially "the most powerful tool for political organizing developed in the past fifty years." (Edward Schwartz, 1996) Some organizations are already attempting to implement Web-based voter information and participation systems. (Corrado and Firestone, eds., Elections in Cyberspace, pp. 6-7).
Books, like How to Access the Federal Government on the Internet 1997, Environmental Guide to the Internet, and Politics on the Net, have appeared to guide Internet users to sites of interest to them in order to facilitate their roles as active citizens (Bruce Maxwell, 1996).
Even more grandly, according to some observers, the Internet is imbued with a capability to restructure relations between people on the planet and solve vexing economic, social, and political problems. Repeatedly, Vice President Al Gore has painted a bright future with the Internet, or "Global Information Infrastructure," as a worldwide communications device:
These highways . . . will allow us to share information, to connect, and to communicate as a global community. From these connections we will derive robust and sustainable economic progress, strong democracies, and better solutions to global and local environmental challenges, improved health care, and--ultimately--a greater.......
