Introduction: Hyperdemocracy, the Cognitive Dimension of Democracy, and Democratic Theory

“Hyperdemocracy” is a term already in use by students of politics. It was used, for example, by Jose Ortega y Gasset in The Revolt of the Masses to describe a condition in which “the mass [of people] acts directly, outside the law, imposing its aspirations and its desires by means of material pressure.”1 More recently, “hyper-democracy” has been seen, by communications scholar Brian McNair, as a form of political unpredictability that is an outcome of “cultural chaos” in the media, typified by “ideological competition rather than hegemony [and] increased volatility of news agendas.”2 Neither writer makes the concept central to his analysis or defines it very clearly, and each places it within an ideological framework, respectively conservative and liberal.