Communication and Democracy

Protecting and expanding democracy around the globe is a perennial national security interest for the United States. A standard vehicle for democratization has been economic development. Another factor which stimulates both democratization and economic growth, namely access to information, could be consistent with the historically strong statistical correlation between democracy and development and might also help explain some of the recent unprecedented political changes. This study addresses the relationship between democracy and the new communication media by applying theory and data analysis to the task. The author concludes that one cannot reject a hypothesis that democracy and networked communication are positively correlated.