The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > The Internet and democracy > Comments

The Internet and democracy : Comments

By Trevor Cook, published 18/9/2009

So far Web 2.0 has produced lots of people talking but too few listening: and our politicians seem to be some of the most reluctant to listen.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All
"And our politicians, corporates and non-government organisations seem to be some of the most reluctant to listen."

And why would they want to change to be listeners. They never have listened to letters of complaint or any other kind of letter via snail mail and in fact I am very tired of listening to how important my call is to them. These "leaders" of Australia have never had any real reason to pay any attention to the average blogger or conversationalist. There is nothing so far on the Internet to incent them to change their ways.

Maybe a $1.00 reduction of their annual bonus for each unanswered email............. Nah - that would be just another help desk function.
"press 5 if you would like a response"
Posted by Bruce, Sunday, 20 September 2009 4:53:44 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
There are a couple of important ears of wheat in this particular spread of chaff.

>>mainstream media is well-positioned to use the Internet in just about every way imaginable except to make profits.<<

That's because revenue is critical to the making of profits, and the bulk of participants in web 2.0 capabilities are active because it is - largely - free. The concept of "monetizing eyeballs" was discredited in the first wave of dotcom stupidity, and little has changed.

People will pay for value received. Social networking is predominantly a series of small transactions between private individuals, and the concept of paying a transaction fee - as opposed to the general "access fee" that you pay your ISP - is not very attractive. The content is self-generated, after all.

It is of course ideally suited to activism of all types, from political fundraising through viral campaigns, to religious propaganda from the faithful, to the faithful.

But monetizing Twitter use, for example, is more likely to turn people off, than attract new Twits.

Or whatever users of the service are called.

And this is the key, in my opinion.

>>we’ve also got a lot of inane nonsense, a lot of ugly personal attacks and plenty of echo chambers where people go to have their prejudices confirmed. Too few genuine conversations and too much of people yelling at each other<<

The active externalization process that is involved in broadcasting ones views to the world actually militates against thinking. Instead of cogitating, we react. Instead of ruminating in a quiet corner of our own mind, we shout at the world in the hope of finding an echo.

Too much communication of this nature can only have the effect of trivialising everything it touches.

Critically though, the audience for blogs, or Facebook pages, or tweets, has a finite physical dimension to it. While the urge to publish to the world in these forms is a seductive one, the willingness of the audience to continue indefinitely to consume it all is highly questionable.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 21 September 2009 8:59:03 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Trevor Cook "The Internet and democracy" (Friday, 18 September 2009), but doesn't seem to have looked at the work already done in this area.

Steven Clift has been working on a US flavour of e-democracy for about ten years: http://www.publicus.net/

Steven has visited Australia a few times and dropped in for drinks: http://www.tomw.net.au/irc/irc14.html

In Australia, Senator Kate Lundy has been running a series of "Public Sphere" events, combining online and face-to-face activities for public policy discussion. The second of these was on Government 2.0:
http://www.katelundy.com.au/2009/05/29/public-sphere-2-open-government-policy-and-practice/

This resulted in a federal Government 2.0 Taskforce looking at how to incorporate such techniques in the day-to-day working of government: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2009/08/towards-government-20-issues-paper.html

My view is that we need to teach public officials how to use the tools and demonstrate what benefits they will receive as a result. For several years I have been teaching public servants, as well as people from the private sector, how to communicate effectively online, in courses run by my own company, as well as by the Australian Computer Society and the Australian National University. Individuals and organisations are a lot more comfortable with all the blog/twitter stuff if they have a defined process, rules and training in what to do and what it is for.
Posted by tomw, Monday, 21 September 2009 1:36:20 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
well it might just be me but my political party that i was putting together got stopped by a covet operation by corrupt cops who didn't want me to compete in the last election especially since i wanted J Howard tried for war crimes in relation to his war on drugs which was a war on the victims of drugs .which were an act of treason against his own people which declaring a war on your own people is treason and if convicted i would have beheaded him on the lawns of parliament house .but i was stopped and prevented from sounding the alarm on police pseudo watch as well since then the obvious has happened the police imports of overseas ice from the triads has increased and figures from injecting rooms prove that pseudo watch has pushed harmless speed users into heroin addiction by making locally produced base unavailable so they could boost sales for their monopoly on heroin addiction.so were is my freedom of electronic speech.regards the motorcycle messiah.
Posted by motorcyclemessiah, Monday, 21 September 2009 3:02:44 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yep. It all makes work for the working politician and their drones.

Spending our taxes on pointlessly introspective activities, designed to disguise their own ignorance and hide their apathy.

>>In Australia, Senator Kate Lundy has been running a series of "Public Sphere" events, combining online and face-to-face activities for public policy discussion<<

And what incredible insights they have provided, my word, my goodness...

"One speaker talked about the importance of training Public Servants in online consultation techniques, including how to address complex issues promptly in brief readable postings"

This will of course have to replace the existing training, in which public servants are instructed to avoid consultation of any kind, and to address simple issues in as complex and impenetrable manner as they possibly can, in long, rambling discourse and in jargon as obscure as can be managed...

What has that to do with Web 2.0? Why has this type of training not been considered necessary until now?

What a crock.

But wait! What's this?

>>This resulted in a federal Government 2.0 Taskforce<<

Phew, that's all right then. As long as there as many jobs for the little boys and girls as can be squeezed out of the latest fad, we should be pretty grateful. After all, if the Government doesn't understand the technology, how can we be expected to?

But, just a thought.

How "inclusive" is the concept of allowing only the technologically literate access to policymaking? Sounds more like a plot to disenfranchise oldies.

Oh well, time for the Soylent Green, Granny.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 21 September 2009 5:27:51 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Pericles (21 September 2009 5:27:51 PM) mentioned how someone at Senator Kate Lundy's "Public Sphere" event talked about importance of training Public Servants in online consultation techniques. I have to confess that was me: http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/mgovernment/

I find it very frustrating reading material from the government online which has not been designed for online distribution. Added to the usual bureaucratic language is another layer of difficulty due to public servants tying themselves in knots trying to work out how to use the web.

When I was a public servant I was trained how to write and even how to talk to the media. But writing a web page or a blog entry is a new skill, which I suggest they therefore need to learn.

Pericles also has a dig at the Government 2.0 Taskforce. I must admit this is not my favourite government initiative. It seems to have been created just so the Minister had something to announce. I received a invitation to meet with the task force privately. This was, in parts, like being in an episode of the ABC TV comedy "The Hollowmen": http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2009/08/government-20-task-force-meeting-at.html

But since then the taskforce seems to have come up with some good stuff: http://gov2.net.au/
Perhaps they listened to what I said. ;-)
Posted by tomw, Monday, 21 September 2009 6:05:46 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
It would be impossible to conduct online consultations with the public of the public. There would never be enough staff or politician's to respond to everyone's ideas or queries. Better they be off doing their jobs as they should be.

You would only get a form letter response anyway and a lot of twitter.
Posted by pelican, Monday, 21 September 2009 6:35:49 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
participatory democracy through web 2.0 is a fascinating topic. In traditional surveys bout which professionals we trust the most politicians traditionally rate badly. So how can web 2.0 help politicians become more trustworthy. Easy, through referrals. The strength of Obama's campaign was partly on the back of the 18 - 35 age group 'friending' Obama. Obama's friends then started a conversation with their parents and grandparents and soon everybody was onboard. Democracy and social media is one of the topics that will be discussed at the 2009 iappANZ privacy conference on 14 October 2009. Check out Mozelle Thompson's bio at http:www.iappanz.org
Posted by privacypro1, Tuesday, 29 September 2009 8:32:17 PM
Find out more about this user Visit this user's webpage Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy