designing technologies as democratic mediums.

I will argue that the constraints on governance in online spaces have contributed to the peril of democratic politics in general. It is not enough to merely defend existing governmental institutions; healthy democracy depends on enabling creative new forms of self-governance, especially on networks.

Andreas Hepp’s formulation of “deep mediatization” points a further way out of determinism. Under this condition, Hepp writes, “all elements of our social world are intricately related to digital media and their underlying infrastructures.”28 If society has become so thoroughly mediated, how could we expect democracy to emerge in not-especially-dem

securing a more democratic future also requires fresh attention to how online spaces organize, constrain, and enable everyday politics.