Author Meets Critics: Jennifer Forestal's "Designing for Democracy"

Session Submission Type: Author meet critics

Session Description

This author-meets-critics roundtable brings together a group of scholars to discuss Jennifer Forestal’s book Designing for Democracy: How to Build Community in Digital Environments (Oxford University Press, 2022), winner of ITP's 2023 Best Book Award.

How should we "fix" digital technologies to support democracy instead of undermining it? In Designing for Democracy, Jennifer Forestal argues that accurately evaluating the democratic potential of digital spaces means studying how the built environment--a primary component of our "modern public square"--structures our activity, shapes our attitudes, and supports the kinds of relationships and behaviors democracy requires.

While many scholars and practitioners are attentive to the role of design in shaping behavior, they have yet to fully engage with the question of what structures are required to support democratic communities--and how to build them. Forestal closes this gap by providing a new theory of democratic space. Drawing from a wide range of disciplines, including architecture, psychology, and the history of political thought, she argues that "democratic spaces" must be designed with three environmental characteristics--boundaries, durability, and flexibility--that, taken together, afford users the ability to engage in fundamental civic practices.

Through extended analyses of Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit, Forestal shows precisely how well these digital platforms meet the criteria for democratic spaces, or whether they do so at all. The result is a more nuanced analysis of the democratic communities that form--or fail to emerge--in these spaces, as well as more concrete suggestions for how to improve them. In connecting the built environment, digital technologies, and democratic theory, Designing for Democracy provides blueprints for democracy in a digital age.

The roundtable will be chaired by Simone Chambers (University of California Irvine) and will include commentary from John Gastil (Penn State University), David Karpf (George Washington University), Alfred Moore (University of York), and Luise Papcke (Yale University), with a response by Forestal.

Sub Unit

• Division 40: Information Technology, & Politics

Chairs

• Simone Chambers University of California, Irvine

• Jennifer Forestal Loyola University, Chicago

Presenters

• John Gastil Pennsylvania State University

• David A. Karpf George Washington University

• Luise Papcke Yale