Our friends at Pew weigh in with a new report on the nature of the impact on the internet in America on our political discourse: “As wired Americans increasingly go online for political news and commentary, we find that the internet is contributing to a wider awareness of political views during this year’s campaign season.

“This is significant because prominent commentators have expressed concern that growing use of the internet would be harmful to democratic deliberation. They worried that citizens would use the internet to seek information that reinforces their political preferences and avoid material that challenges their views. That would hurt citizens’ chances of contributing to informed debates.”

This is a key discussion point for our upcoming Internet & Society conference on politics.  I will be interested to hear what Prof. Cass Sunstein, a Saturday Dec. 11 discussion leader, has to say about these findings.