Tocqueville in cyberspace: Using the Internet for citizen associations

Political theorists like Alexis de Tocqueville have long recognized the imp ortance of citizen associations for the practice of democracy. Through part icipation in associations, citizens both receive an education in public aff airs and create centers of political power independent of the state. Essent ial to participation in an association is participation in a forum, a commu nication space that allows for many-to-many communication in which citizens can "treat of public affairs in public" (Tocqueville, 1945, p, 109), Parti cipation in forums suffers from numerous barriers, however, such as the nee d to meet in one common place, the need to meet at one common time, and the potentially high costs of participation. Online forums on the Internet avo id many of these barriers, and thus they hold the promise of facilitating t he formation and operation of citizen associations. This was confirmed in 1 995 by the experiences of a Boston-based citizen association, the Telecommu nication Policy Roundtable-Northeast (TPR-NE), TPR-NE's uses of the Interne t suggest that online forums may allow associations to be more responsive, more robust, and able to unite more members.