ABSTRACT
The Internet permits what we could call "scattered gatherings" of citizens, creating the possibility of reconstituting the public sphere among spatially dispersed communicators. The Internet held a special place within the panoply of media appropriated by French citizens to discuss and debate the election of 2004. What stands out in the Internet context, relative to other media representing the American electoral drama, is the frank and passionate way in which the motifs of American power and French vulnerability were articulated. In some cases the Internet was used to enhance citizen access to a place-based community, such as the Blacksburg Electronic Village, one of the oldest online networks designed to enhance civic access and public participation in the town of Blacksburg, Virginia. Jurgen Habermas has proposed the conditions for an "ideal speech situation" that provides a point of reference for judging the constructiveness of online communication in developing the public sphere.
