Jon Katz (b. 1949) is a novelist and media critic who has worked for the Boston Globe, Washington Post, CBS News, and Wired magazine. His novels include Death by Station Wagon: A Suburban Detective Mystery (Doubleday, 1993); his nonfiction books include Virtuous Reality (Random House, 1997) and the forthcoming Magnetic North: Journeys of the Soul. This article was the last in a series of essays called "he Netizen," about the impact of network technology on the 1996 U.S. elections, alternately written by Katz and John Heilemann for Wired, a magazine aimed at people interested in emerging electronic technologies.
"Birth of a Digital Nation" text
1. "By focusing so obsessively on Them, "Katz says about media coverage of the 1996 elections, "we were missing a much more dramatic political story -- Us" (¶ 15). How does he define "Them" and "Us"? From these definitions, what can you conclude about the audience Katz intends to address in this article?
2. What are the major failures of the present political system, according to Katz? To what extent do you agree with this assessment of conventional politics?
3. What characteristics are shared by citizens of the Digital Nation, according to Katz? If they are "predominantly male" and "not representative of the population as a whole: they are richer, better educated, and disproportionately white" (¶s 28-29), how is it possible that they compose "a new social class" (¶ 28)? To what extent do you think Katz overgeneralizes about "the digital young"?
4. Review the "postpolitical core values" of the Digital Nation proposed by Katz. How sympathetic are you to these values and beliefs? How consistent do you find them to be? After re-reading the article, how would you answer the rhetorical questions posed by Katz in ¶s 4 and 5, such as, "Can we build a new kind of politics? Can we construct a more civil society with our powerful technologies?"
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