[1] It has been likened to the democratic system of ancient Greece in the sense that people could publicly participate as much or as little as they please, although a form of representation exists which is based on personal trust networks instead of party affiliations.
[3] In the paper that first drew attention to the term,[4] Joi Ito said that the Internet, as a large and decentralized network, will enable innovative responses by citizens to highly complex problems.
[5] From its outset, emergent democracy has been seen arising most clearly among bloggers who, as a decentralized network of writers, can provide a fuller airing and development of ideas than can the relatively limited resources of traditional media.
The canonical example of emergent democracy was the December 2002 resignation of Trent Lott as Senate majority leader after bloggers publicized his praising of Strom Thurmond's 1948 segregationist campaign for the presidency.
[10] The conversation resulted in Ito's online article that generated discussions about the potential for weblogs and other social software tools to influence participation in governance.