Webocracy or Webcrazy?

Politicians have always courted the media. From telegraph to tabloid; from radio to television; the candidates pose and posture, dance and debate.

Abraham Lincoln's dramatic oratory was flashed from coast to coast by telegraph. Teddy Roosevelt invented the publicity stunt to feed the appetite of a hoard of tabloid readers. Franklin Roosevelt popularized radio "fireside chats." Television became a defining force in politics during the 1960 presidential campaign when voters compared John F. Kennedy's handsome face to Richard Nixon's five o'clock shadow.

Ross Perot funded thirty-minute infomercials during campaign '96. What's next? With the popularity of the Web, politicians are swarming to create a Web presence. Is this a prelude the emergence of a new Webocracy? Computer-industry analyst Ester Dyson envisions an explosion of digital grass-roots activism or what she calls "microdemocracy."
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