ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the political impact of the new information technology, not to make purely technical distinctions between delivery systems, but rather primarily from the standpoint of political sociology. Democracy is not exclusively a question of options and choices for elites, but a social responsibility on the part of those elites to the widest number of people for their inclusion into the decision-making framework of society. The chapter is concerned with the dissemination of information from senders to receivers in formats that do not have the characteristic benefits of hard copy-that is, the printed word. The history of science and technology indicates that the latest and newest modes of communication and transportation do not liquidate the need for earlier forms. The political problem during the final years of the twentieth century is much less the amount of scientific information and technical material available than the integration and accessibility of the value in that information.
