Democracy, innovation and digital culture

The impact of digitalisation and of the internet affects not only society and the economy. Politics, too, is beginning to be transformed. Alongside many other initiatives, the Brazilian Digital Culture Forum, held in Brazil in 2009, provides an example of how democracy can benefit from innovation. By means of a digital social network, the public continually interacts, proposing and reviewing public policies. This is not the only example: Brazil is experiencing a proliferation of the use of the net for social and cultural ends. The changes are profound, but the intellectual and macro-political worlds have not yet realised their potential.