Read this book if you want to be able to speak with your friends about your social and political beliefs with confidence. Striving to maintain a centrist perspective, Tryon presents a tool kit to empower citizen participation in the American political process. Technological changes in the way we present and process information coupled with inherent features of the free press have changed the nature of the individual citizen's engagement with our elected public servants.
Accountability Citizenship explains how we can restore accountability in government by accepting our personal accountability for some simple tasks we must do as individual citizens living in the age of information. The book is non-partisan. Readers are asked only to agree on the very basics-that the government of the United States is supposed to represent the people of the United States.
The author makes a compelling case that changes in our information distribution technologies and business models discourage effective political participation by citizens. In the early days of our republic, information distribution was based on newspapers-subscription-based and geographically aligned with the representative structure of Congress. Over the past forty years, deregulation of television and radio along with the information technology revolution have disrupted this alignment. But we can restore accountability through the three steps of accountability citizenship: being appropriately positive, appropriately informed and appropriately engaged.
