"As Africa becomes increasingly urban, the reach and use of mobile telephones and other portable digital devices inevitably are becoming a mass medium. This shift creates new opportunities for existing broadcasters and publishers. And it creates new opportunities for a much larger number of new inde ... pendent media, including new providers of news, information, education, health care, entertainment–and program streams combining many or all of these elements. It also creates new ways for citizens to monitor and petition their governments. And it creates new avenues for governments to reach and influence citizens, for good or ill." (Conclusion) more

"The essays collected here capture the richness of current discourse about democracy and cyberspace. Some contributors offer front-line perspectives on the impact of emerging technologies on politics, journalism, and civic experience. What happens, for example, when we increase access to information ... or expand the arena of free speech? Other contributors place our shifting understanding of citizenship in historical context, suggesting that notions of cyber-democracy and online community must grow out of older models of civic life. Still others consider the global flow of information and test our American conceptions of cyber-democracy against developments in other parts of the world. How, for example, do new media operate in Castro's Cuba, in post-apartheid South Africa, and in the context of multicultural debates on the Pacific Rim? For some contributors, the new technologies endanger our political culture; for others, they promise civic renewal." (Publisher description) more