In a new article posted at AlterNet journalist Christopher Hedges, citing the disturbing and widespread trends of falling newspaper revenues and the subsequent cutbacks in these “old” media institutions, argues that the internet will never be a sufficient replacement when it comes to addressing issues of civic life and social and political engagement. Such a belief may run counter to the discourse that has been repeated over the last few years that these new media, driven by the internet, will foster a more participatory and democratic society. But inevitably these near-utopian points have been most forcefully argued by those making the greatest profits from the new digitalized paradigm. So, we have a typical statement in 2000 from behemoth Microsoft predicting, “Today, candidates and elected officials of every political persuasion are tapping the power of the Internet to interact with citizens in ways that one day may rival the impact of radio and television combined.”

Yet according to Microsoft’s own argument this so called “interaction” amounts to little more than soccer moms being able to voice their opinions, parents organizing PTA meetings, and politicians providing the same PR-crafted information to those constituents who are online as to those offline. Nothing very transformative in that. But that was 2000 you say, today things are actually different.

Well now we have Barack Obama, running perhaps the most internet savvy campaign in America’s relatively short digital history, with his participatory My.BarackObama.com site fashioned after hugely popular social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace, where members can start their own blogs and connect with fellow Obamans (as they like to term themselves). Yet at a time when this medium had the potential to sway the erstwhile progressive Democratic presidential nominee, the tremendously transformative powers of the internet proved little more than a fizzle. Despite the fact that thousands of his supporters (24000 at last count) started a group on My.BarackObama pleading with the Senator to vote against and filibuster (as he had promised to do on the campaign trail) the new FISA regulations legalizing warrentless wiretaps and granting immunity to those that had participated in the illegal program, Obama voted for the bill allowing its most controversial aspects to pass.

The online campaigners were swept aside, their voices ignored. Social networking may help friends stay in contact and have a laugh about this or that photo or video, but it has proven a sorry substitute for real political activism and engagement – other than reinforcing well-crafted political slogans or raising some money for one particular candidate or another.

Despite my strong criticisms of the mainstream news media – print in particular – and the corporate-friendly, free market-praising direction they has taken over the years, Hedges makes some important points about their role in a democratic society that I have to agree with:

Newspapers, when well run, are a public trust. They provide, at their best, the means for citizens to examine themselves, to ferret out lies and the abuse of power by elected officials and corrupt businesses, to give a voice to those who would, without the press, have no voice, and to follow, in ways a private citizen cannot, the daily workings of local, state and federal government. Newspapers hire people to write about city hall, the state capital, political campaigns, sports, music, art and theater. They keep citizens engaged with their cultural, civic and political life. When I began as a foreign correspondent 25 years ago, most major city papers had bureaus in Latin America, the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Moscow. Reporters and photographers showed Americans how the world beyond our borders looked, thought and believed. Most of this is vanishing or has vanished.

Many people believe that new technologies will simply replace the old in better, new and improved ways. As if some law of nature. Perhaps this comes from decades of sophisticated product advertising making pretty much the same arguments. But regardless of its roots this ideology is borne from a belief that technologies are neutral (or positive) tools that will merely allow ostensibly democratic societies, which have the necessary checks and balances, to flourish in ever greater degrees of citizen participation.

But what is always absent such theses is the reality of power. Maybe one person, maybe thousands, even millions can blog, rant and rave about this issue or that. Finding a shared concern, they might even organize a protest here or there or actually get a candidate for political office elected. But the question remains, how will that kind of soft power, however important or welcome, compete with the very hard power of military and monopoly interests? Rupert Murdoch’s resources for propagandizing are infinitely more powerful than those wielded by the disembodied relationships of blog networks. The Pentagon has far more resources to spread its message than you or me, more than we could dream of. No, apathy is their friend, and it’s an easy sale in such a short attentions span medium as this. The message is clear and they are winning: we should keep buying things and shut up.

With all that being said, I have no doubt the internet will likely play an important role in organizing resistance and other activities in the future. But the point I’m making is that it will never be the source of that activity. No, other non-digital aspects of reality will take care of that: old fashioned things like hunger, inflation, inequality, class conflict and the like.

The more things change, the more they always stay the same.