Abstract:  Conflicts may arise between democratic politics and political equality in the era of network media. The causes of the conflicts lie in the fact that network media as a type of democratic technology contains two logics simultaneously: politics and market. The market logic is likely to erode and substitute the political logic, thus damaging political equality. Based on the empirical analysis of the data collected from the two cases: network media influence on public opinion and the rumor involving Red Crosses spread by web hypers, the paper expounds the possibilities that netizens be misled by network media which is manipulated by certain interest groups. Finally, strategies are proposed to ward off pitfalls of democratic politics in aspects of the relationships between political logic and market logic, between democratic technology and democratic values, between democratic value and political process.

Key words:  political process, political equality, network media, political logic, market logic, interest groups