ABSTRACT
For over a decade, policy-makers, academics and other social commentators have been debating about existence (or not) of a link between the application of information and communications technology and democracy. Although there seems to have developed a consensus regarding the significance of ICT, there is still a deep divide between the apocalittici (cf. Abramson, Arterton and Orren, 1988; Arterton, 1987) and the integrati (cf. Barber, 1984; Toffler, 1980), to borrow the terms that Umberto Eco (1964) has used in his discussion of the mass media.
