Imagined democratic affordances: can the internet finally democratize politics?

Affordances are those possibilities that a certain environment facilitates (e.g., online social media allow the fast sharing of personal pictures). Imagined affordances are those possibilities that are projected by the user onto the environment (e.g., online social media create a more fulfilling social life) perhaps revealing more about the user than the environment itself. Imagined democratic affordances, as proposed in this paper, are the imagined affordances of an online media environment whose users believe can be exploited to democratize politics. This paper empirically analyzes online communication that pertains to the 2016 and 2020 Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns. Specifically, it examines online and offline activity at key moments of both campaigns by Sanders supporters and activists, on one hand, and campaign staffers, on the other, with regard to their perceptions of how the turn to social media can help democratize the electoral process. Both groups were comprised of many who regarded the US traditional media as heavily biased against the Sanders campaigns. This phenomenon is captured in the 2020 notion of the "Bernie Blackout"—namely, the frequent omission of the Sanders candidacy from mainstream news reports in the months leading up to the 2020 Iowa caucus. In response, this paper suggests, some staffers and supporters invested democratic capabilities in online technologies with the perception that through these technologies mass democracy can be promoted. In addition, this paper engages with populist theory and scholarly work about the populist characteristics of online social media. A populist dichotomy between the idea of mainstream media in the service of political elites and the idea of online social media platforms as elevating the voice of "the people" creates the framework with which to understand the imagined democratic affordances described above. Through this populist lens, this paper argues that when a mainstream media landscape is perceived to suffer from democratic deficiencies, imagined democratic affordances of alternative online media may proliferate. Evidence to the contrary, which points to limited democratic affordances, if not major obstacles to the advancement of democracy online, is also discussed, as well as implications for online political campaigning in light of the findings of this study.