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Benjamin's argument that technologies of mechanical reproduction are politically enabling has its counterpart today in the claim by some enthusiasts that new media, particularly the Internet, will bring about a new kind of democracy. For example, according to Howard Rheingold (1994), "The political significance of [computer- mediated communication] lies in its capacity to challenge the existing political hierarchy's monopoly on powerful communications media, and perhaps thus revitalize citizen-based democracy" (14). In the most extreme version of this argument, we find John Perry Barlow proclaiming in his "Declaration of Independence" (http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/John.Perry.Barlow/barlow_O296.declaration April
17, 1998) that cyberspace is a new political territory in which the laws of industrial capitalism no longer apply and that a new political order lies on (or perhaps just beyond) our monitors.
Benjamin's argument that technologies of mechanical reproduction are politically enabling has its counterpart today in the claim by some enthusiasts that new media, particularly the Internet, will bring about a new kind of democracy. For example, according to Howard Rheingold (1994), "The political significance of [computer- mediated communication] lies in its capacity to challenge the existing political hierarchy's monopoly on powerful communications media, and perhaps thus revitalize citizen-based democracy" (14). In the most extreme version of this argument, we find John Perry Barlow proclaiming in his "Declaration of Independence" (http://www.eff.org/pub/Publications/John.Perry.Barlow/barlow_O296.declaration April
17, 1998) that cyberspace is a new political territory in which the laws of industrial capitalism no longer apply and that a new political order lies on (or perhaps just beyond) our monitors.
