In "The Virtual Community," Chapter Ten: Disinformocracy, Howard Rheingold states in the very first sentence of chapter ten that virtual communities could help citizens revitalize democracy, or they could be luring us into an attractively packaged substitute for democratic discourse. Focusing on journalism and the public sphere, I'm going to apply theories used in our text book, and compare them with Rheingold's ideas. These theories include the hegemonic and political economy theories, democratic participant theory,
Rheingold in some way uses the hegemonic theories and political economy theories to express his position about free communication and discussion of ideas. These theories are ideas about how elites, who are mostly economic institutions, use media (as well as other economic related bodies) to maintain control. They tend to focus on social elites' use of financial influence to inspire media bodies. Rheingold argues that "if a few people have control of what goes......
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