In this episode, we will focus on the mechanisms through wich digital media allow challenges to social institutions.

Democracies depend on structures that connect governments, political elites, and the public. They facilitate information flows between different actors and different societal levels in democracies. Institutions like political parties, interest groups, and the news media make publics visible to elites, elites visible to publics, and publics visible to each other. They enable information flows making visible or allowing for the social construction of concerns, grievances, and interests of publics to elites and governments, while making elites and governments visible and - within bounds - transparent to the public. In this function, they provide, aggregate, and filter information.

These institutions find themselves increasingly challenged by digital media enabled actors. In this episode, we discuss the mechanisms behind these challenges.

Chapters:

00:00 - Introduction
00:20 - Intermediary institutions and the flow of information in democracies
09:52 - Lowered costs of information production, distribution, and access
14:50 - Lowered coordination costs
20:52 - Conclusion

Script:

http://digitalmedia.andreasjungherr.de/challenge.html#how-do-digital-media-drive-the-challenge-of-institutions