Computer networks and cyberspace have been utilized as a new and diverse arena for public's political participation and for enlarging their civil rights. In academic realm, many social scientists, including political scholars, have presented their ideas and designs for realizing electronic democracy in their political situation and social context. The purpose of this research is to classify the existing theoretical discussions on electronic democracy discourse and compare them in three criteria which are main relying media for realizing electronic democracy, preferred political institution, and patterns of public's political participation. In result, I classified the existing discussions on electronic democracy discourses into three categories as teledemocracy, cyberdemocracy, electronic democratization. Based on this classification, I described the characteristics and limitations of each perspective and derived the similarity and differences among them from the comparing efforts. From this analysis, I conclude by pointing to the relative lacks of the teledemocracy's and the cyberdemocracy's perspectives. I suggest that a more rigorous analysis of intersection between computer network and electronic democracy would not only be sociologically fruitful but may provide interesting possibilities for enhancing contemporary democratic forms.

特集コミュニケーション課程の諸相
論文