An oft-repeated assumption pushed the past few years by techno-utopians has been the idea that new media such as blogs, internet social networking, and other online political sites will fundamentally change politics and democratize culture. A way to test this prediction is to actually examine the impact new media has had on the 2008 US presidential election.

In his latest article in the Independent Andrew Keen points out the obvious: thus far, the internet has played little or no role in influencing the election’s unfolding.

As Keen writes, “2008 was supposed to be the year that traditional mainstream media would take a back seat to new media as the decisive force in shaping American public opinion about the election.” Instead “it’s been traditional blood-and-guts politics — whether it’s John McCain attending more than a hundred town-hall meetings in New Hampshire, or Barack Obama’s uplifting oratorical skills in Iowa — that is determining the election’s outcome.”

It remains unlikely social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook will play an important role either, claims notwithstanding. Not only are the vast majority that inhabit these spaces not old enough to vote, they’re also unlikely to vote if of age anyway.

Even Republican Ron Paul, the nominee with the strongest internet following, has been a disappointment, winning only “10 per cent of the votes in the Iowa caucus, 8 per cent of the votes in the New Hampshire primary and only 6 per cent in the Michigan primary.”

And what of the blogosphere? Wasn’t it supposed to be the new, pure public sphere, where democracy would flourish and citizen journalists would challenge the status quo? The problem is, the blogosphere hasn’t materialized as an effective realm of democratic debate and discussion, instead it has become “an echo-chamber of either uncompromisingly left- or right-wing opinion, and there’s little evidence that bloggers have had a decisive impact on public opinion about the candidates.”