Rebooting America

Now that I am fully immersed into the anthology of essays, "Rebooting America," I have a more concise view of the relation between politics and the internet. More specifically how the internet and technology can be used in combination with the current political campaign/elections. From the preface, the ensuing essays are outlined as well as the motivations in compiling all of them. Various terms are thrown at us such as Millenials, Democracy 2.0, etc. These terms help to define the relationship between the Internet Age and democracy. Is the internet a necessity to achieve complete democracy? This question lingers throughout the work. I was immediately attracted to Zack Exley's essay, "To: Micah L. Sifry, Personal Democracy Forum 2008," in that it is structured to forecast into the future. Almost in the format of a memo Exley addresses the future as a virtual democracy and commonly refers to the "Bionet." Imaginary acts put into place such as the Personal Democracy Act which would provide a utopia across the board. As fictionalized that this is, some of it I believe will be prevalent in the near future.

To specifically focus on what our generation is referred to as... The Millenials. What defines a millenial? What are the expectations of a millenial? Based upon yesterday's class discussion, I felt a lot of people were stumped on these questions. Discussion was rather quieter than usual and there was a lack of intensity. Partially because we as a generation are not used to being confronted with these questions. As much as we exhibit the generation habits naturally, it is difficult to sit back and examine them. The two specific essays written about millenials are from authors not much different than us. Part of the same generation and maybe a bit older.

I think as a class we can take this generational question a step further. Maybe another type of discussion format? This also poses as an interesting final project.