Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Kazimierza Wielkiego w Bydgoszczy
Abstract
The accepted scheme of explanation tries to analyse the effect the state-of-the-art multimedia techniques have on realizing a model of more active participation of people in public life in which medialisation of politics is becoming an inseparable element. Therefore, teledemocracy which means interactive communication between particular segments of the authority is the basic challenge of contemporary times. However, the main problem of democracy in the era of multimedia is a dissonance between active participation of citizens in public life with a simultaneous conscious choice of political programs and a form of unconscious participation in the performance the politics provides people with transforming it into "consumption of politics”. Quoting the opinions of scholars representing different scientific disciplines, the author points at various faces of teledemocracy, and at the same time, at the consequences of politics medialisation. The author suggests that if politics is only reduced to struggle for power techniques it loses its essence. Such attitude leads to an extreme relativism in comprehending social interests, as well as to political cynicism. It is also a challenge for modern Polish democracy, and maybe particularly for the Polish political reality loaded with spontaneous processes of transformation
