Access to Dialogue and the Voice of Affected Peoples; A Communications Revolution?

Does the 'Communications Revolution' really present a revolution in the dynamics of human dialogue?

This question leads out of my overarching research interest - Why in today's world do we still give voice to those with the power to effect and not to those affected by our actions? This interest motivates much of my current academic research, and expressive work.

Current research focuses on the question of whether the Communications Revolution enables a deeper communicative interaction between the spheres of post-state human community, enabling access to dialogue for the rights based validity claims of affected peoples.

Excerpt from this project:

The new dawn of the "Information Age of Hyper-connectivity" (Cisco, 2010) has arrived in a fanfare of promise; a technological solution to cut through traditional geographical, socio-economic, cultural, linguistic and ability boundaries, offering systemic openness as never before. This "Communications Revolution" (Boyce, 1999) has made connection between peoples possible on an unprecedented scale, stretched the "Lifeworld" (Habermas, 1990) to epic proportions, and created so many portholes to state bureaucracy as to begin a reversal of the "parasitic trend of the system on human experience" (Habermas, 1990). Even the most authoritarian states are struggling to contain the communication of their citizens who are determined to broadcast news of human rights abuses regardless of state controlsâ from Burma and Iran, YouTube videos of bloody demonstrations enter the global consciousness, bypassing the state to achieve salience at the UN (Markoff, 2009). The experience of 'progress'â in communication enabled society is certainly impressiveâ not least the "scientific renaissance" (EC: 2009) of Kantian collaboration in education and research, in which Europe declares "delight that Pakistan's scientists and academics are now connected to the global research and education community" (Reding, quoted in Europa, 2008), and which connects the first ever sub-Saharan African and Afghani research networks this year.

Does this describe an emancipated global communication community in inclusive dialogue, providing a communicative identity for affected people, where economic, legal and political spheres are accessible to all and moral consensus is possible?