Matthew Hindman

The author examines the idea that the Internet leads to a broadening of political discourse and gives new voice to individuals who have not been part of the discussion in the past. His findings are depressing, but not too surprising to someone who is a politics watcher. Instead of looking, like most people do, at who is speaking on the Internet, he turns it around and looks at who is being heard. He examines the sites with the biggest traffic and evaluates the demographics not only of who writes the sites, but who reads them. His answers may surprise a lot of people. One downside of the book is that it is very jargony, with a lot of discussion of statistical analyses. If a person does not understand the concept of a long tail, and is not reasonably savvy in computer-speak, there are large chunks that might leave them behind. While I am pleased to have the statistics laid out so extensively, I fear this might make the book a lot less accessible to a lay audience.… (más)