The electronic state: Estonia’s new media revolution

Abstract

This article examines the case of Estonia as one of Europe’s fastest growing informational economies, and asks whether its furious development of new media technologies, as industrial products, commercial resources and political instruments, has necessarily proven as beneficial to society at large as some domestic and international commentators have anticipated. After mapping Estonia’s unique development in embracing new technologies since the mid-1990s, the article concludes with a study of Estonia’s recent experiments in electronic voting: in 2007, Estonia was lauded as the first country in the world to afford voters at national parliamentary elections the opportunity to vote online from their homes. The article is based on a series of interviews conducted by the author with a number of prominent figures in Estonia’s IT industry, private and voluntary sectors, government service and politics. It addresses issues arising out of academic literature relating to the ethical, social and political aspects of the proliferation of new media, within the context of related surveys and reports produced by governmental and transnational organisations.