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Digital technologies are changing the public sphere. Novel technologies of data-gathering, transmission, storage, analysis and distribution are remaking the scope of the public sphere. The technology is in its infancy so any commentary is directed to a work in progress. Quite where the new technology will take the public sphere is anyone's guess but several strands can be picked out as the state, corporate world and ordinary people interact with the new technology: thus, digital surveillance, digital government, digital data-mining and digital social media. In respect of political life, celebrants have advertised the imminent arrival of a new age of popular democracy; doubters have called attention to the increased powers of surveillance provided to the machineries of the state and the corporate world. In the case of British political culture these technologies are feeding into a complicated scene, in which a highly centralized state machine coupled to a party political scene dominated by a dual-conservative party hegemony interacts with a populace that is diverse, internet-savvy, and in significant measure disenchanted with mainstream politics.

DOI: 10.1057/9781137023834_10

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