Republic.com.

• Author: Nadel, Mark S.

REPUBLIC.COM. By Cass Sunstein. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2001. 224 pp.

1. INTRODUCTION

   In his perceptive work, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, Larry Lessig observed that the efforts of businesses to modify the code of cyberspace to satisfy their commercial interests were producing an environment that threatened many of society's fundamental values. Lessig urged the public, particularly libertarians, to carefully consider both the full social costs and benefits of such architectural changes to the Internet before they were a fait accompli. To the extent the public believed social values needed protection, he warned that passivity could be more dangerous than careful governmental action. (1)

   Cass Sunstein's Republic.com offers an intriguing and complementary message. His is a Huxleyan Brave New World perspective in contrast to Lessig's Orwellian concerns. While Lessig focuses on how the acts of others may harm society, Sunstein concentrates on the dark consequences of the self-serving actions of citizens. He extends the approach of Nell Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death--a criticism of the television medium's surreptitious harmful effects--to the Internet:

   What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. (2) Sunstein argues that if people come to rely on custom-edited newspapers, which MIT's Nicholas Negroponte has dubbed the "Daily Me," (3) they will, unintentionally, threaten a foundation of the American democratic system. By efficiently serving citizens' consumer goals, he believes that Daily Mes actually undermine citizens' political interests, permitting consumer sovereignty to trample political sovereignty. (4) He concludes that "[r]ather than a utopian vision, [the Daily Me] is best understood as a kind of nightmare," (5) and his warning about the socially isolating consequences of such specialized technologies (6) echoes, in some respects, those of Charlie Chaplin in "Modern Times." (7) He asks the public to think carefully before embracing the attractive, but stealthily harmful, Daily Me option.

   Sunstein expresses concern that Daily Me filters will restrict the attention of even open-minded citizens to the few areas of their specialized interests. He fears that they will leave individuals oblivious of many of the shared experiences that now unify the nation (8) as well as the challenging new viewpoints and issues that now reach them via unexpected or unchosen exposures. He also worries that the Internet will invite close-minded citizens to become more extreme in their views by helping them to congregate with other extremists in enclaves where, psychological studies show, such deliberation generally heightens their extremism. Sunstein sees these phenomena as threatening a well-functioning system of free expression, and thus, a strong deliberative democracy, issues also explored by Andrew Shapiro's The Control Revolution. (9) Although Sunstein often refers to and relies on Shapiro, Sunstein focuses more on the impact of consumer interests as manifest in the Daily Me and of "enclave deliberation"--deliberation by fragments of a community. (10)

   Certainly Republic.com deserves praise for channeling public attention to and stimulating thinking about the potential hidden effects of cyberspace on the American system of democracy, and for advocating efforts to preserve and promote deliberation and address polarization in a cyberspace environment. It is comforting that someone with Sunstein's stature and both breadth and depth of knowledge of freedom of expression and democracy is worrying about this issue. He deserves particular praise for his inter-disciplinary approach--considering significant research in psychology--in analyzing enclave deliberation.

   It is somewhat disappointing then to report that Sunstein does not deliver the deep and perceptive treatment of the issues that this author had expected. For example, Sunstein fails to prominently acknowledge that individuals most commonly use filtering as a time management tool to help them consume information more effectively, not as a screen against serendipity or challenging viewpoints. Hence, he neglects to observe that open-minded citizens are likely to design customized filters to provide precisely the kinds of information that he fears that filters will exclude: common experiences and diverse views on important public issues.

   Furthermore, he fails to note that even close-minded individuals will find filters ineffective for diminishing their most significant daily contacts with unwanted messages, which now occur through unfiltered channels of communication. Those channels include private contacts with family, friends, and colleagues, passages through public spaces, and the efforts of Hollywood and Madison Avenue, whose sine qua non is generally to create the most broadly shared experiences possible. Moreover, creative artists are likely to include at least some examples of contrasting viewpoints and deliberations about important public issues in their products because such contrast and tension works as effective drama.

   It is also regrettable that Sunstein offers only a cursory treatment of proposals for taking advantage of the attributes of cyberspace to combat polarization and promote deliberative democracy. He explicitly states "I do not intend to offer a set of detailed policy reforms or any kind of blueprint for the future; this is not a policy manual," and the six proposals he offers in one 24-page chapter resemble retreads of older standard proposals. (11) They lack the imagination typical of his other work.

   The rest of this review considers these matters in more detail. Part II examines the two types of information that appear to be most important for citizens to share so as to preserve an effective deliberative democracy: common experiences and contrasting viewpoints on public policy issues. Part III discusses why both open- and close-minded individuals are likely to use Daily Me filters to gain access to common experiences and that the open-minded citizens will also likely seek access to contrasting viewpoints. Part IV explains why even the Daily Me filters of closed-minded individuals will not protect them against exposure to opposing viewpoints via the many channels of communication that are beyond the coverage of such filters: the many forums of private conversation as well as public forums. Part V discusses Sunstein's concern that deliberative enclaves maintained by close-minded extremists will lead to increased polarization. Part VI touches on a few ideas about how cyberspace may be employed to promote more effective democratic deliberation.

2. THE INFORMATION CITIZENS NEED TO FOSTER DELIBERATIVE DEMOCRACY

   Sunstein finds that for a deliberative democracy to function effectively, it is important that citizens have access to three types of information:

   [1] ... materials, topics, and positions that people would not have chosen in advance, or at least enough exposure to produce a degree of understanding and curiosity; [2] ... a range of common experiences; and [3] ... exposure to substantive questions of policy and principle, combined with a range of positions on such questions. (12) His concern with the first type of information, which he characterizes elsewhere as a kind of serendipity, appears to be somewhat misplaced to the extent he treats it as separate and apart from the other two. The second category of information, which he describes as providing a social glue, appears important for fostering community. The third type is clearly important and appears to be virtually identical to the type of information sought by the FCC's former "fairness doctrine."

   1. Common Experiences

      Sunstein believes that to ensure an effective system of freedom of expression in a democracy, many or most citizens should have a range of common experiences, (13) well characterized by one commentator as "a kind of social glue, a common cultural reference point in our polyglot, increasingly multicultural society. (14) In addition to enabling communication, common experiences can also stimulate conversation, by creating mutual interests. (15) In fact, he defines "solidarity goods" as particularly valuable precisely because they are consumed by many others and thus provide a common experience that can be shared. (16)

      Certainly Sunstein is correct that "[t]o the extent that choices ... proliferate, it is inevitable that diverse individuals ... will have fewer such reference points. Events that are highly salient to some people will barely register on others' viewscreens." (17) Yet, three institutions make particular efforts to provide Americans with common experiences: schools, the entertainment industry, and advertisers. (18) Those setting the curriculum for public elementary and secondary schools seek to ensure at least a minimum familiarity with general world knowledge, and post-secondary schools often establish minimum breadth requirements to ensure that their graduates share some further understanding of the world. (19) As already noted, most of those producing films, television shows, musical recordings, etc., also generally attempt to gain the largest possible audiences for their stories. (20) Finally, advertisers, seeking to maximize the sales of whatever product or service they are promoting, seek to spread their message to a maximum audience of potential buyers.

      Two types of common experiences are particularly important for enabling individuals to be part of a community: a common language to communicate and awareness of important names...