Exploring the dark and bright sides of Internet democracy: Ethos-reversing and ethos-renewing digital transformation

A broad spectrum of public opinion has long portrayed the Internet as a harbinger liberal-democratic ethos-renewal. Recent empirical evidence, however, points to opposite, ethos-reversing effects. This paper theorizes how liberal polities condition ethos-renewing and cycles digital transformation. I advance number ideal-typical propositions on Internet-enabled ethos-renewal ethos-reversal, illustrating my with examples from two leading transformation ambitions: Finland UK. Ethos-renewal requires paradigm-shifting investment by representative direct democracy bodies in five complementary spheres transformation: i) politics: enhance representativeness participation political decision-making through methods deliberation, ii) media: invest private (social) media journalism ethos counter-balance profit-oriented amplification post-truth phenomena, iii) identity: pro-actively renew emotional belonging moral community face globalization individualization pressures, iv) education: create Netizens resilient phenomena media, v) markets: place at service an algorithmic data commons rather than techno-feudal enclosures.