Introduction

In 1974 Raymond Williams wrote an essay about the impact of television on society, “Television: Technology and Cultural Form.” In it, he expressed concern that while television had the ability to offer “extreme social choices” and could potentially lead to a “more educated and participatory democracy,” it also has the ability to further limit and regionalize the way we think and interact with one another to the few choices offered to us by large corporations and institutions.

In today’s reading, “The Lo(n)g Revolution: the Blogosphere as an alternative Public Sphere?”, Anna Notaro begins with this excerpt from Williams’ article in order to put her own into context. While Williams’ assertions are seemingly out-of-date, they can be reapplied to the technology of today, which is the Internet. Her goal for this essay is to explore the political implications of the Internet and she wonders whether the Internet will remain a delimited public arena in which intellectual exchange freely flows between ordinary people, or become highly monitored and limited by potentially anti-democratic values. She concentrates on the “blogosphere” in particular (a term coined by William Quick in 2001 to refer to the “intellectual cyperspace” that bloggers inhabit), and its role in relation to “the intersection between technological change and a reformulation of the public sphere.”

Notaro goes on to explain Williams’ idea from his 1961 article “The Long Revolution,” that there are three long, simultaneous revolutions occurring—the democratic revolution, the industrial (technological) revolution, and the cultural revolution. Williams had an optimistic view of these revolutions, arguing that the public’s desire to govern themselves was directly related to the development of industrial organization (or in more modern terms, the development of new technologies), and that the cultural revolution then, reflected the public’s desire to allow everyone to actively learn and participate in culture as opposed to a small group of people. The link between these three revolutions is less obvious today, and Notaro wonders whether it is possible to continue to be optimistic about this relationship. Is this democratic desire still relevant in a time when large companies are all fighting to be the ultimate controllers of our consumption?

Habermas’s Public Sphere

Notaro next explores Jurgen Habermas’s idea of the public sphere, and how much of it has changed or remained the same in today’s technological world. Habermas’s idea, in “The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere written in 1962,” was that in 18th century Europe, the public sphere emerged as a forum for critical discussion amongst the public, which would allow for the free sharing of ideas, ultimately serving as a check to state power. In the more modern times of the Internet, the public sphere has evolved. Notaro is skeptical about applying a concept that was formulated in a different media world to the current media environment, especially due to one aspect of Habermas’s idea of the public sphere—discussion strictly as a form of rational debate, ignoring any sort of emotive language that could be used in a free flow of ideas. He believed that everyone should have “a common interest in truth, no matter their status.”

This idea has been critiqued due to its narrow-minded nature. Modern theorists argue that this idea implies a “public” only open to the elite and educated, while more realistically in today’s technological world, there are many publics that include anyone and everyone, in the form of list-servs, chat rooms, blogs, and gaming communities. Many media scholars seek to discard Habermas’s view of the public sphere completely. Others believe that there are still modern implications of his theory. Notaro is hesitant to discard Harbermas’s idea of the public sphere as being completely irrelevant to the modern media world, however she argues that even if it can be applied, Habermas’s public is only a small component of the numerous publics that exist on the Internet today.

Internet and Electronic Democracy

Many scholars believe that computer-mediated communication opens the doors for democratic progress by enabling widespread discussion and the ability to make each and every voice heard. Rheingold, one scholar, among many others, who believes in this newfound democracy, strongly believes that technology, “if properly understood and defended by enough citizens, does have democratizing potential in the way that alphabets and printing presses had democratizing potential.” These scholars see the Internet as a utopian, electronic agora (public forum of ancient Greece). In line, to some extent, with Habermas’s public sphere, blogs and news groups engage people in discussions of public and political relevance, promoting a more widespread democracy.

However, there are also many media scholars who lack this optimistic view of an electronic democracy. Benjamin Barber conjured three different scenarios of what could happen with the relationship between technology and democracy: the Pangloss scenario, the Pandora scenario, and the Jeffersonian scenario. The Pangloss scenario refers to the ability of technology to serve corporate agendas. The Pandora scenario refers to the idea of the government utilizing technologies in order to control the public and create an “invisible tyranny” which takes away freedoms and limits privacy. The Jeffersonian scenario is refreshingly optimistic compared to the first two, and refers to a society in which the government and its citizens use technology in order to promote active participation in democracy online and elsewhere.

Backtracking for a moment, Barber’s Pandora scenario directly ties in to the second reading of the day, “Scroogled” by Cory Doctorow. In this highly imagined story, a Google employee comes back from a long vacation in Mexico to find that the Department of Homeland Security, along with the entire American government, has partnered with Google to gain access to the search histories of citizens in order to monitor their actions online as a way to eliminate any sort of threats to the security of the nation. I won’t get into too many details of the story, but the main character, Greg, is interrogated by the DHS on his way home for some completely innocent, yet seemingly threatening searches he made while he was away. His friend and fellow Google employee, Maya, explains to him exactly what happened while he was gone and informs him that once the government gain access to a person’s Google identity, it monitors it forever. There is no more privacy whatsoever. Maya tells Greg she has created a software capable of completely wiping out and masking online identities so that the government can no longer track them. Chaos ensues, and by the end of the story, the software is used by Google as a form of political corruption, in order to erase the questionable histories of certain political candidates.

This whole scenario seems completely fantastical, but at the same time it is unsettling to realize that this sort of government control is completely possible with today’s technology. This story, combined with many of the ideas I will discuss shortly, brings up my own questions about the democratic value of the Internet as well as ties back to questions of freedom in the use of the computer due to interfaces. But I will come back to that at the end.

Now, back to Barber’s last scenario (Jeffersonian), which envisions a more democratic society. This scenario again reflects people’s tendency to think that new technology allows for some democratic utopia to form. Rheingold, while he advocates this utopia, still realizes that the Internet can be easily commodified and while it seems like the Internet allows the public to break free from traditional media’s monopoly over their attention, in reality it is just another means for companies and the government influence public discourse. Carl Boggs is one scholar who seriously doubts the Internet’s democratic capabilities, saying that it does not in fact “empower ordinary people,” but rather “the global village…operates at the expense of real communities.”

At the end of this section Notaro leaves us with a paradox: the online public sphere will always lack a certain democratic value due to the inequality and irrationality of certain online discourse, but at the same time, the Internet draws in many different people, enables many new connections and allows for democratic discussion. She concludes that our understanding of democracy and the Internet need to be reworked and continuously developed on a “glocal” scale, and that this democracy is worth fighting for in order to protect ourselves from media conglomerates.

The Blogosphere

Notaro briefly outlines the development of weblogs by referring to Rebecca Blood’s Weblogs: a history and perspective (2000). Blogs began as a way to discuss specific scholarly topics to a more personal diary, that transformed consumers into creators of information.

Blood stresses the importance of blogs today in a world where we are exposed to so much information so frequently that it is difficult to stop and reflect on any given piece of information anymore. She claims that modern blogs are one remedy. Notaro notes that since Blood’s article in 2000, blogs—both directly political in nature and simply reflective—have contributed to national and international political dialogue, especially after September 11th. One example she gives is that of Salam Pax from Baghdad. He wrote a blog about the mood of the city as it awaited the U.S. bombing, which created a buzz around the world. These random, unprofessional blogs have begun to have a real impact on the journalistic world. Notaro argues that bloggers and journalists are all part of the same family of writers, and that all blogs have some journalistic aspect, whether or not they live up to professional standards.

Notaro then defines the blogosphere. She explains how blogs are collective in nature and foster ongoing active participation—through comments—by tons of people anywhere in the world. The computer language is a common one that eliminates certain political and cultural divisions between different regions of the world. She says that this transcendence of physical and cultural borders “presents a case of interactivity in a local/global public sphere that may re-energize democratic values.” Despite this, Notaro questions the novelty of such a public sphere. She thinks that perhaps the idea of ordinary people discussing in the public sphere is old news, and connects it back to Habermas’s idea of the public sphere emerging way back in the 18th century.

Andrew Baoill sets out to find this connection between Habermas and the blogosphere. He identified three factors of Habermas’s theories: inclusivity, disregard of external rank, and rational debate. He claims that while the blogosphere is somewhat inclusive in that anyone can start a blog, it cannot help but favor certain blogs over others, failing to disregard rank. Further, the fact that there are so many blogs out there, very few of them will be given a chance for rational discussion. Therefore, the blogosphere does not live up to Habermas’s ideal public sphere. Notaro concludes that the blogosphere is just a “constellation of intellectual space” where people can freely express themselves, as they feel necessary, without much order to it.

One problem is that because there is so much information out there, people begin to filter out only the things they want to hear without listening to what other people have to say. It creates “echo chambers” where the individual becomes important and the public sphere begins to decline. This divide between the individual and the public is becoming more and more apparent.

Notaro then describes a report done by the Hansard Society, which assessed the state of political blogging in the UK. These are some of the findings:

• Blogging has the potential to significantly impact on political engagement and political processes as they provide an opportunity for alternative informal voices to enter into the political debate without a great deal of cost or effort.

• Blogging breaks down the barriers between public and privates spaces and allows elected representatives to put across their individuality and personality.

• The availability of low-cost, low maintenance authoring software means blogs are far easier to construct and update than conventional websites.

• The most appealing blogs are those which provide genuine debate between bloggers and visitors to the blog. Blogs that do not offer this facility give visitors little reason to return.

• At the moment, political blogging is still regarded as the pursuit of internet connoisseurs rather than ordinary members of the public. While our jury found blogs easy to navigate, they found the tone of content unappealing.

• Blogging has the potential to be of enormous benefit to MPs and other elected representatives who use it as a listening post rather than another tool to broadcast their ideas, achievements or party dogma.

Notaro notes a paradox in these findings: while politicians are needed in order to represent the diversity of the public, blogs wind up eliminating the need of individuals to be spoken for by someone else. This feeling of individualism provides a great sense of democracy in that individuals no longer feel the need to have their opinions represented by others, but instead people want to express their own opinions for themselves. Notaro celebrates the death of one ideology and the birth of a “digital nation” full of individuals. She calls them Digital Citizens. 

I would like to connect parts of this reading back to our discussion of the desktop interface. In my last post on the reading by Steven Johnson, I mentioned that the original desktop released by Apple was considered revolutionary in that it enabled the ordinary person to be able to use the computer and “understand” its functions. Apple advertised the interface as providing a sort of freedom, which would allow people to have an equal understanding and ability to use the computer. We discussed, however, that in reality this understanding is false and that while we think we are being given choices and freedom within the interface, we are actually being completely influenced by the designs of the interface designers and only know and understand what they allow us to. This ties back to the skepticism of scholars like Benjamin Barber about the true freedom that the Internet allows us. Perhaps we believe that we have complete freedom on the web, but in reality the Internet is filled with advertisements and agenda of all sorts, so that the content we see is in fact regulated to some extent, whether we realize it or not. Do you think that the Internet is limiting or is it truly free? Further, do you think that something like “Scroogled,” where we literally have no freedom whatsoever, could actually happen? Are we heading in that direction?

UPDATE (19-11-2009) Το Πάρτυ με την Καταστολή του Ελληνικού Διαδικτύου Άρχισε (κυνηγιέται ΧΩΡΙΣ ΛΟΓΟ ο καλλιτέχνης Πάνος Μιχαήλ…)

Δυσάρεστα νέα για τις Ελευθερίες μας στο διαδίκτυο από το νέο ΕυρωΚΥΝΟβούλιο, που στις 21 Οκτωβρίου άνοιξε το δρόμο στον Ανελεύθερο Νόμο HADOPI του Σαρκοζί – όχι μόνο για τη Γαλλία αλλά και για όλη την Ε.Ε.

Διαβάστε το ποστ του inloveinlife, τα λέει όλα:

• Απόρριψη της Τροπολογίας 138 από το Ευρωκοινοβούλιο

Όπως ήταν αναμενόμενο, στις 21 Οκτωβρίου 2009 το νέο υπερσυντηρητικό μετά τις Ευρωεκλογές του Ιουνίου Ευρωκοινοβούλιο απέρριψε την τροπολογία 138 του επερχόμενου πακέτου μέτρων της ΕΕ για τις ηλεκτρονικές επικοινωνίες…

ΚΑΠΩΣ μετριάζεται το κακό, όμως… κατά το BBC (5η Νοεμβρίου):

• EU offers hope to file-sharers (news.bbc.co.uk)

Δηλαδή… δεν θα μας κόβουν αμέσως την πρόσβαση στο διαδίκτυο όταν… πειράζουμε κλόπυράϊτ, αλλά θα μας σέρνουν πρώτα στα δικαστήρια και μετά…

…θα μας κόβουν τον κώλο κανονικά, όχι αστεία!

Λοιπόν… προτείνω τα εξής:

1) Να στηρίξουμε ΟΛΟΙ (στο μέλλον) το Πειρατικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας (http://piratikogr.blogspot.com = ένα blog που το στηρίζει)

2) Να ετοιμάσουμε ΜΑΥΡΗ ΛΙΣΤΑ με όλους τους Ευρω-βολευτές που καταψήφισαν την τροπολογία 138, που… (εκτός από χαραμοφάηδες) αποδείχτηκαν τσιράκια …ΟΧΙ απλώς “τσιράκια”, ΡΟΥΦΙΑΝΟΙ και ευρω-χαφιεδάκια των μεγάλων Εταιρειών Παραγωγής… ΣΚΟΥΠΙΔΙΩΝ (με κλόπυράϊτ) και να τους… φακελλώσουμε δημόσια, ώστε κανείς να μην τους ξαναψηφίσει.

3) Να μποϋκοτάρουμε ΟΛΕΣ τις Εταιρείες που ευθύνονται για αυτά τα μαύρα χάλια (τις εταιρείες που λάδωσαν -προφανώς- τους Ευρω- ρουφιάνους βολευτές, ή χρησιμοποίησαν άλλα μέσα, φανερά και μη-)

ΣΗΜΕΙΩΣΗ: Όσον αφορά το (3), κάποιος “όμιλος εταιρειών” προώθησε μέτρα (αυτόματου) ΕΛΕΓΧΟΥ των ΕΙΔΗΣΕΩΝ, ώστε να εισπράττονται χρήματα, τον περασμένο Ιούλιο:

• European publishers want a law to control online news access

Στο παρελθόν είχα γράψει με… αυταπάτες δημοκρατικής νίκης κι αυτά:

• Χαστούκια στον Ανελεύθερο Νόμο HADOPI (του Σαρκοζί)

• Ο Δεκάλογος της… Ψηφιακής Ανυπακοής των Γάλλων, ΑΝ η Ευρώπη καταψηφίσει το Ανοιχτό Διαδίκτυο αύριο (Voting in EU Parliament 6th of May 2009)

Ο  inLoveWithLife έχει κάνει κι άλλα σημαντικά ποστ για τέτοια θέματα, π.χ.

• Ανακατατάξεις στους Θεσμούς Διακυβέρνησης του Διαδικτύου (ΠΟΛΥ σημαντικό αυτό)

• HADOPI υπ’ αρ. 2

• Απόρρητο Επικοινωνιών & Κράτος “Δικαίου”

UPDATE: Διαβάστε κι αυτά εδώ

• Η Rapidshare καρφώνει πελάτες για… upload μουσικής (Rapidshare Shares Uploader Info with Rights Holders)

• Ο λαός της Ευρώπης είναι αδιάφορος ή σκεπτόμενος; (Πειρατικό Κόμμα Ελλάδας)
  

• Rapidshare Resellers and Other Totally Useless Middle Men (επίσημοι αντιπρόσωποι rapidshare ή του κώλου τα 9-μερα)

• Three strikes vs. three thanks (γράμμα με ευχαριστίες αντί για δίωξη και διακοπή…)
  

After the UK and New Zealand, France is considering a so-called “three strikes” law to fight illegal file-sharing on the internet. Here at jamendo, we of course support free and legal music downloads, which is why we are launching a “Thanks for downloading” campaign!…

(με ευχαριστίες στη Ροδιά - που έφερε το link)

• Ενα καλό άρθρο του Άρη Χατζηστεφάνου για τα πειρατικά κόμματα, με συνέντευξη του εκπροσώπου των γερμανών πειρατών: Πειρατικό ρεσάλτο στην Ευρώπη (28/09/2009)

• Δρακόντεια μέτρα στη Βρετανία για το παράνομο κατέβασμα αρχείων (“E”, Αυγ. 2009)

Και πράξεις… λαϊκής ιντερνετικής αντίστασης:

• Google bombing on Nicolas Sarkozy: (είδηση που είχε φέρει η Enfant de la Haute Mer)

Ενώ.. η μάχη συνεχίζεται:

• Μ.Βρετανία: Ακυρώνεται προσωρινά σχέδιο «Μεγάλου Αδελφού»

Related articles by Zemanta

• France adopts law that lets entertainment goons take your family off the net if one member is accused (without evidence) of violating copyright (boingboing.net)
• France passes harsh anti-P2P three-strikes law (again) (arstechnica.com)
• May I have your votes please? (bordoverview.blogspot.com)
• French President Violates His Own Copyright Law, Again (yro.slashdot.org)
• France OKs Three Strikes… again (theregister.co.uk)
• Spain won’t disconnect illegal file sharers (theregister.co.uk)
• France Passes New 3 Strikes Anti-Piracy Bill (torrentfreak.com)
• European Internet sinking fast under 3-strikes proposals (boingboing.net)
• 3-Strikes For Pirates Makes European Comeback Tour (torrentfreak.com)
• Regulator Blocks BBC DRM Plans (yro.slashdot.org)
• UK Embraces Big Data (arnoldit.com)
• Illegal Downloaders Spend More on Music [File Sharing] (lifehacker.com)

…what do they have in common?  Web-based New Media, that’s what.  It’s time that we asked ourselves: what will be the long-term consequences of our emerging electronic democracy?

Two videos showing a San Francisco Bay Area police officer fatally shooting an unarmed, cooperating 22-year-old man have surfaced, due to the efforts of a vigilant teen and an anonymous videographer.

Both individuals used their cellphones to record the horrific event, and as you can see from the list of related videos in the embedded video above, the story is quickly breaking out across YouTube.  Call it the revenge of the Fifth Estate.

Defenders of civil liberties should rejoice that this horrible — and fatal — violation on the part of the police officer has been brought to light so quickly, raw, and true.  We have technology, coupled with the videographers’ patriotic use of it, to thank.

However, by the same token, can “patriotic New Media” take our nation down an unpatriotic path?  We should all be on the alert about a secret new development occurring within the office of the president e-elect.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the Obama camp is attempting to transform their election campaign into a permanent movement of pollsters, canvassers, activists, and even emergency first response:

As Barack Obama builds his administration and prepares to take power next week, his political team is quietly planning a nationwide hiring binge that would marshal an army of full-time organizers to press the new president’s agenda and lay the foundation for his re-election.

The organization, known internally as “Barack Obama 2.0,” is being designed to sustain a grass-roots network of millions that was mobilized last year to elect Obama and is now widely considered the country’s most potent political machine.

Strategists for both parties say the scope of this permanent campaign structure is unprecedented for a sitting president. People familiar with the plan say Obama’s team would use the network in part to pressure lawmakers — particularly wavering members of the new president’s own party — to help him pass legislation on the economy, health care and energy.

[...] While the plan is still emerging, one source with knowledge of the internal discussion said the organization could have a budget of $75 million per year in privately raised funds, while another said it would deploy hundreds of paid staff members — at least one in every congressional district in certain politically important states and even more in the larger battlegrounds of Florida, Ohio, Colorado, Virginia and North Carolina.

“The only way to keep this thing going is to have boots on the ground,” said a strategist familiar with the plan, who spoke on condition of anonymity because campaign officials have not granted permission to talk about it.

In what would be another unprecedented step, Obama’s political staff is deciding whether to create a service organization that would enlist its grass-roots campaign supporters. As described by one source familiar with the discussions, this non-profit arm would be used to help victims of natural disasters, but would do so under the Obama umbrella while continuing to build the overall network’s vast e-mail database.

On the one hand, “Obama 2.0″ is an innovative way to bring direct democracy into being, perhaps for the first time in American history since Andrew Jackson.  Moreover, perhaps it will be illusory, perhaps not, but whatever the sincerity of the project, not since Ronald Reagan have Americans felt so hopeful and participatory in their own government; truly, then, this is a development worthy of applause.

On the other hand, “Obama 2.0″ is a potentially dangerous side-stepping of the system of checks and balances built into the United States Constitution.  From the perspective of progressivism, there is much to cheer in the policy aims of this as-yet nascent political movement.  But in the long-view of history, who’s to say that Obama’s innovative methods won’t eventually be used for decidely un-American purposes by his successors?

Both the internet and direct democracy are, ultimately, just tools; we would be wise to remember that a hammer is just as useful for bashing heads as for knocking nails into wood, depending upon its wielder.  How much more dangerous could electronic democracy be?

Presentation for tonight. PPT. Slideshare to come!

Videos: Filiz, student project on YouTube.

Remember the hoop-dee-do-dah in 2008 about Congressional use of social media? As the 111th Congress debuts, YouTube has released two hubs, Youtube.com/senatehub and Youtube.com/househub where citizens can check out their Senators or Representatives.

Here’s hoping that sharp eyes keep a lookout for content that crosses the line from governing to electioneering. Remember: it’s not legal to campaign with government resources. And even though this resource is privately offered, it’s endorsed officially and should be used for governance only.

Mark my words: that restriction is going to be hard to enforce. See: FEMA Starts PR Campaign With New Channel on YouTube

Don’t try to find the hubs using YouTube’s search feature. I think of myself as having good Google-Foo, but I came up dry. Thanks to Broadcasting&Cable for the links. Turns out the details are on the YouTube blog, which doesn’t have a top-level link on the YouTube home page. (Google – get a clue and fix the YouTube UI, would ya?)

And thumbs-down to the NYT, which reported the story with nary a link to the source or the hubs. See The War Cry Over Congressional Use of Social Media.

Over at Michelle Malkin’s blog, you can read the result of a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to the General Services Administration, which manages .gov domains, on the process followed to approve “change.gov” as a domain name.

What qualifies for a .gov domain?

• U.S. Governmental departments, programs, and agencies on the federal level
• Federally recognized Indian Tribes (-NSN.gov domain)
• State governmental entities/programs
• Cities and townships represented by an elected body of officials
• Counties and parishes represented by an elected body of officials
• U.S. territories

Rule Restrictions
Sites with .gov domains cannot contain any political or campaign information. Here is the GSA eligibility statement:

The Gov domain is for the operation of government, not the political, political party, or campaign environment. No campaigning can be done using Gov Internet domains. The Gov Internet domain websites may not be directly linked to or refer to websites created or operated by a campaign or any campaign entity or committee. No political sites or party names or acronyms can be used. Separate webites and e-mail on other top-level domains (TLDs), such as .org, will have to be used for political activity.

The naming conventions are clear that “general terms” are “not allowed because they do not represent a specific enough origin and service.” The examples given are “licenses,” “recreation,” and “benefits.” Critics argue that “change” is in this same category.

Change.gov Process
The initial rejection of change.gov (21 October 2008) was based in part because it was deemed “too generic” and in part because it “would be political — the slogan for one candidate’s presidential campaign.” Other examples of rejected generic domain names cited include contracts.gov, hydrogen.gov, innovation.gov, manager.gov, relocate.gov, water.gov and women.gov.

From GSA:

The gov domain policy requires that canonical domain names be easily reconciled with the expected content of a domain. Category or general terms that are more generic than the program coverage are not in compliance with the naming policy.

On 4 November (election day), Obama’s transition director asked for a waiver, writing that “a clear message of CHANGE is required to effect a successful presidential transition and that establishing the www.change.gov domain is a critical component of this message.”

On 5 November, GSA Chief Information Officer Casey Coleman reversed the ruling, writing that “it is in the best interest of the Federal Government to register the subject domain name,” according to the info on Malkin’s site.

The GSA is charged by Congress with providing the President-elect and the Vice-President-elect the services and facilities needed to assume their official duties.

Meeting Accessibility Rules
All federal “agency” websites are required to meet Section 508 accessibility guidelines. When tested with CynthiaSays, the Change.gov home page fails to meet the requirement to use ALT tags on images. It did, however, provide a link to required plugins.

FWIW, the page doesn’t validate as XHTML 1.0 Transitional. Neither does an interior page.

Final Thoughts
I’m not a big fan of “letter of the law” decisions – my personality type sees life as a little more gray than that. It seems clear to me that the regulations were stretched to accommodate change.gov as a domain name, for the reasons stated in the rejection letter.

However it is also clear to me that some rules effect boundaries that should be both solid and transparent. One of those is the separation of electioneering (campaigning) and governance. There’s a reason for “franking” rules — the power of the incumbency is real without adding to it the use of taxpayer funded communication as a sly form of campaigning.

And it’s this blurring of the border between governance and electioneering that troubled me initially, and still does. Recall that the initial launch of Change.gov was almost a complete
copy&paste of the Obama campaign website — campaign content
shoehorned into a new container (design). It then went silent, without
explanation, then returned, also without explanation.

I’m a little surprised that there was as little push-back as there was from those on the right. But I’m not surprised that someone whose career path implies she’s a technology optimist would override the rejection.

Netizens is a relatively recent combination word (from interNET + citIZENS). In this paper, it refers to all Internet users in Korea. Netizens in South Korea have also participated in street demonstrations, not limiting themselves to acquiring information and debating political issue from their personal computers. Although this progress has gradually become imbedded in the South Korean polity, a question remains unanswered: How strong is South Korean Netizens’ influence over politics? And to what extent are politically influential South Korean Netizens losing their vision and inadvertently undermining a democratic society? The unresolved tension in that question needs more attention from leaders and regular or occasional political activists in South Korean protest movements, as well as from others in South Korean civil society.

Please Read Comlete Article HERE

I’ve said this so often I feel like a broken record, but here goes: there is a big difference between electioneering and governing. Those differences extend to constituent communication, in no small part because of the prohibition against using government (public) resources to get elected (or re-elected).

How else to explain the fact that the Barack Obama campaign (notice I did not say “Barack Obama” — I don’t want to perpetuate the idea that he was personally engaged in these spaces) has posted nothing on its Twitter account or its Facebook account since 5 November 2008, the day after the election?

Instead, the electioneering team (the campaign) has morphed into the about-to-be-governing team. They have an outward-focus on Change.gov, but that’s a very controlled space, not unlike My.BarackObama.com.

Another reason for abandoning these social spaces: they’re great for mobilizing but not so great for deliberation.

The campaign used Twitter as a one-way blast medium, anyway. The BarackObama Twitter account is following 151,346 other accounts! That’s mass media, not personal media, no matter what the message “feels” like when it arrives on your phone, in Tweetdeck, via your RSS reader or on the web.

How do you think these tools will evolve or play out in future elections? Or in governance?

The Creative Commons license announcement on Change.gov seems odd. Federal government materials are generally public domain upon creation, thus the CC license makes reuse of the content more restrictive. [See DOL statement, for example.]

It makes sense for Change.gov to spell out copyright for user-generated content, but it should not be a retroactive action. And any CC license should not include info created by Obama and his team. Finally, the CC license should prohibits commercial use of UGC material! But this one doesn’t.

Here’s what I wrote over at Lessig’s blog:

Contrary to some of the statements made in comments, the U.S. taxpayer pays salaries as well as office space and equipment for the President-elect’s transition team. Congress has budgeted $8.52 million for the General Services Administration to carry out the Presidential Transition Act of 1963.

The Presidents-elect have also raised money to supplement the taxpayer funds. The most expensive (in 2008 dollars) transition since 1952 was Clinton’s. However, George W. had a short transition period (starting in December, not November), so his would be the most expensive if calculated on a per day rate.

See http://uspolitics.about.com/od/elections/a/prez_transition.htm

The CC license makes sense for the UGC portion of the Change.gov website. It does not make sense for any material prepared by the transition team, especially since the site specifically cites the Presidential Transition Act of 1963 as its reason for being. Thus, the site is an official part of the U.S. Government. You don’t get a “.gov” domain name unless your material is for an official government purpose!

Moreover, the more appropriate CC license — if they’re not going public domain (and there is a CC Public Domain license) would be attribution + non-commercial!

We don’t know how much of the Change.gov originated-content is being produced on government equipment or in government offices.

We don’t know how much of the President-elect’s transition budget will be supplemented with private donations.

But even if material is produced with private funds, in the spirit of openness the Obama team should be making its material available with a public domain license. And it should be pushing for any purchased assets to be licensed in an attribution/share/non-commercial manner.

Using powerful digital tools not even in alpha four years ago, Americans are documenting election day 2008, with special emphasis on the experience at the polls. We’ve entered the age of Big Brother surveillance, and he is us.

If you don’t know where you polling place is, or if you want to find polling places to monitor, check out the Google polling place finder.

Twitter Vote Report
Twitter Vote Report provides a mechanism for Americans to report on their voting experience, good or bad. It’s the project of a bunch of dedicated volunteers.

To participate, all you need is a cellphone, text-enabled or not, to report live or a web browser to provide a time-lagged report. The website has a map (GoogleAPI) showing current reports (“tweets” — read this if you aren’t familiar with Twitter).

• Call the automated hotline at 567-258-VOTE (8683) or 208-272-9024 with any touch-tone phone.
• Send a text message starting with #votereport to 66937 (MOZES).
• If you have a Twitter Account, post a tweet with the hashtag #votereport.

If you are tweeting, there are some other hashtags to consider:

• Report where you are voting: #[zip code] such as “#12345″
• Report wait times: #wait:[minutes] such as “#wait:120 and I’m coming back later”
• Report registration problems: #reg such as “#reg I wasn’t on the rolls”
• Rate your experience: #good or #bad
• Report a serious problem and that you need help from the Election Protection coalition: #EP[your state] such as #EPWA

Video Your Vote – PBS + YouTube
Shoot a video of your voting experience and upload it to YouTube at VideoYourVote. You can learn what the rules are in your state at the Citizen Media Law Project.

In Washington, state law doesn’t expressly prohibit all recording inside polling places, but public display of your own marked ballot is prohibited. Here’s the list of prohibited acts.

Video The Vote
Video the Vote has been in the works since 2006 and is a project of the Guerrilla News Network, Shoot First, Inc., and ColorOfChange.org.

You can also mark tweets for Video The Vote; just use the hashtag #vtv .

The process is pretty straightforward,like any other social networking site. Create an account; shoot a video; upload to the VideoTheVote. Here’s an example:

Voter Suppression Wiki
The Voter Suppression Wiki project is in part an educational effort to help all voters understand what suppression is. It is also a way to centralize citizen-generated reports of suppression. Because this is a wiki, this isn’t real-time reporting (for most of us, anyway) but more thoughtful and detailed reports; you can also include photos.

Closing Thoughts
I wrote the bit about Big Brother in only partial jest. These monitoring projects were developed for the most idealistic of reasons. But they do give me pause, and provide yet another example of both the erosion of privacy and the merging of offline and online lives. One step closer to the worlds envisioned by William Gibson in Neuromancer, by Orson Scott Card in The Ender’s Game series, by the BBC producers of The Last Enemy. And while I am a firm believer in the open source philosophy of give us enough eyes and we’ll catch the bugs, what happens when the “eyes” have an agenda or when someone skillfully shifts the collective vision in a specific direction.

The NYT Times: “Not since 1960, when John F. Kennedy won in part because of the increasingly popular medium of television, has changing technology had such an impact on the political campaigns and the organizations covering them.”

There’s a widespread clamor for crowdsourced documentation at the polls this election: the NY Times “polling place photo project” … the PBS/YouTube “Video Your Vote” campaign … and the techPresident Twitter #VoteReport. Each project relies on the distributed network of connected and engaged voters.

Not one of these efforts would have been feasible in 2004 — that’s how much technology (ease of use, access) has changed in four short years. Remember, in 2004 there was no YouTube!

Students in the MCDM Digital Democracy class are developing an archive of digital media used on election day; some are also making a video. Feel free to join them!

On Thursday 30 October, five Seattle-area organizations are hosting a forum on youth civic journalism. The event is being held 6.30-8.00pm in Kane Hall 120 on the University of Washington Campus. Featured speakers:

• Joni Balter, Seattle Times
• Anomie Bell, activist
• Ryan Blethen, Seattle Times
• Toby Campbell, musician
• Marissa Chavez, Youth Media Institute
• Cory Haik, Seattle Times
• Sami Kubo, teen activist
• Maile Martinez, Reel Grrls
• Naomi Nelson, teen activist
• Josh Powell, The Vera Project
• Tracy Record, West Seattle Blog
• Eva Walker, teen activist

The event is being moderated by Hanson Hosein, MCDM director, and is sponsored by the UW Department of Communication, The Seattle Times, The City of Seattle, The UW Center for Communications and Civic Engagement, and the Seattle Metro Branch of the YMCA.

Spot.us has almost reached its goal for its first project, to fact-check political ads in San Francisco. David Cohn reports that the “SF Election Truthiness Campaign” is 80% funded!

They need to raise $500 in 10 days. Their goal is 20 additional pledges of $25; no one’s credit card will be charged unless the team meets the $2,500 target. Will you help, San Francisco resident or not?

Spot.us is a Knight-Funded project designed as a proof of concept for “community funded reporting.” Their initial focus is the Bay Area, but the concept is designed to be national.

Distributed production comes to one of the most hide-bound agencies in government: the State Department.

According to the NYT, the State Department has using wiki software since 2006 to facilitate internal diplomatic communication. (tip) The project is known as Diplopedia and can be edited by any State Department employee, not just those folks who normally brief higher-ups before meetings.

In addition to reference material like the 200 biographies of Italian political and business leaders, the more than 4,400 Diplopedia articles reflect the range of the staff’s concerns — among popular articles are high-minded titles like “Foreign Affairs Professional Reading List” and mundane ones like “Building Pass.”

It’s still small potatoes in the overall communication mix, however. The State Department has 1,000 public and internal websites as well as 1.8 million internal cable messages and 1.5 billion e-mail messages annually.

The State Department use of wiki technology was featured at the annual Wikipedia conference held in Alexandria, Egypt last month.

Rep. John Culberson (R-TX) uses Twitter to communicate with constituents (and other folks). But according to TechDirt, he has been using that potent networking tool to “ignite a totally misguided partisan war, pretending (falsely) that Democrats are trying to prevent him from using Twitter.”

Congressmen are prohibited from “posting official content outside of the House.gov domain.” The rules haven’t kept pace with technology (no real surprise here). The last time the rules were changed was July 1998. (Note: Republicans controlled the House from 2001-2007.)

The Bi-Partisan Commission on Congressional Mailing Standards (Franking Commission) governs official constituent communication. It is considering proposals to change the video posting restriction, which would allow posting videos in a channel, for example, on YouTube. Although there is no move to adopt rules for social web sites, Rep. Culberson has charged that the Democrats want to prohibit official Congressional use of social technologies. His charge ran through the Net like … wildfire. Even the Sunshine Foundation is in on the act: Let Our Congress Tweet.

I applaud the use of social media technologies as alternative communication channels with constituents. At the same time, when communications are “official,” there are certain logical and legal requirements, such as maintaining permanent records and avoiding campaign rhetoric while using public equipment. After all, we’re still trying to find missing White House email. If Twitter or Facebook or MySpace are to be official communications channels, we’ll need some way to preserve those electronic records; the alternative is a world of “he said/she said.”

So please, don’t get carried away by forwarding messages that the Democrats are trying to prevent Republicans from using social media as official constituent communications channels. But if you think the rules should be clarified, chime right in with that message. By the way, nothing in the Franking rules prevents the use of these tools for campaigning, which is where most are being used.

And folks, as much as I love Twitter, it doesn’t scale. No Representative with 646,952 members (the average size in 2000) will be able to carry on one-on-one conversations with voting-age constituents.

About the Senate
Documents available at Technosailor suggest that under Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS), the Senate Rules Committee “prohibit[ed] offices from maintaining websites on third party social networking sites.”

About Europe
Given that the courts have granted Viacom the right to access YouTube’s logs, wouldn’t you like to know who gets to see the data records of Congressional video clip views? As the New York Times reported in 2005: “[E]very other Western country has a comprehensive set of national privacy laws and an office of data protection, led by a privacy commissioner. The United States, by contrast, has a patchwork of state and federal laws and agencies responsible for data protection.”

See the 1995 and 2002 legislation passed in Europe: Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC; Directive on Privacy and Electronic Communications 2002/58/EC (pdf). We still have nothing like this; our Congress seems more interested in protecting corporate copyright than individual privacy.

The 233rd Birthday Coming Up
Oh. And the Franking Commission? Bi-partisan: three Democrats, three Republicans. Since November 1775, Congressmen have had “franking” privilege; that is, they can send mail to their constituents for free. No postage stamp required. The Commission governs the use of that privilege.

Why might there be rules on the use of the frank? Because anyone running against an incumbent Representative has to pay the US Post Office for their mailings. That’s why there is a prohibition on mass mailing during the 60 day period prior to an election (USC Title 39).

One more case where “free” (as in “free” services like Twitter or Facebook) is disrupting existing institutions.

McClatchy’s DC office is publishing some presidential campaign conference calls as podcasts. What was once opaque is now transparent. RSS feed. (tip)

The Village Voice reports that the viability of an open source electronic voting system is threatened “the State Board of Elections’ $2 million testing fee.” But Darlene Mealy, a Brooklyn City Council Member, is asking that the fee be waived. She is also pushing for a requirement that the voting equipment be based on accessible software:

Along with a series of resolutions designed to protect voters from intimidation and disenfranchisement in the City, Mealy has put forth City Council Resolution 961, which would seek to place a number of stipulations on the State’s eventual election vendor that none of the three major companies would be likely to meet, such as requiring the use of open-source software for voting machines. …

The questionable histories of the three major voting companies are enough to make anyone look for more transparent options. In August a report by Dan Rather on the HD Network revealed that Election Systems & Software had been knowingly shipping defective machines to its governmental customers. Sequoia’s machines have been found to undercount minority votes. And Diebold so destroyed its reputation through a variety of mistakes in its election division that the company changed its name.

The State Board of Elections, which will review the waiver request at the end of the month, requires companies that want to sell their equipment to pay for the testing. However, Open Voting Solutions is “willing to give [their system] away for free.” From their website:

Open standards are vital for public elections. But that is not enough by themselves. By using open source and off-the-shelf equipment together with open standards we are restoring trust in electronic voting systems and significantly reducing the costs.

The Democratic Party is truly experimenting with citizen media this election cycle. On Wednesday, they held an “online debate” that consisted of Charlie Rose, PBS, asking questions and recording answers. The questions, of course, came from online voters. Sponsors: The Huffington Post, Slate (owned by the Washington Post) and Yahoo! .

Interested voters can now create “mash ups” using Yahoo!’s online video hosting/editing service, Jumpcut (requires Yahoo! ID). Start by reviewing candidate statements on various issues.

1. Use your Yahoo! ID to create an account at Jumpcut.
2. To create your own mash-up, first choose a video from the group.
3. Click the Remix button (bright green button on the bottom right of the video player).
4. You can now add captions, take short clips, add audio, effects and animation. Click the Add Tab and search for other videos to splice into your creation.

Don’t forget to vote for your favorite candidate and other voter mash-ups!

The Sunlight Foundation recruited citizen journalists to evaluate Congressional websites on three criteria:

• Access to basic information on what our elected officials do in Congress (the bills they sponsor, the committees they serve on)
• information from or access to any of the legally-required disclosures they have to file (on personal finances or junkets they take)
• Any additional information that furthers transparency (their daily schedule, lists of earmarks they’ve asked for or gotten).

The results are in — and a quick comparison of my native state of Georgia with my current home of Washington shows that being in a tech-savvy locale does not necessarily translate to thinking of us voters when it comes to a Congressional website. Ugh. Ugly.

Quibble, if you like, with the choice of measurements and “passing” scores — this was a great test of distributed citizen action.

I’m on a panel Wednesday morning with Robert Scoble and Pam Miller: "Blogging: Its power and impact on public affairs and the media" is a panel discussion before an audience of public sector PIOs in Seattle.

What to say, what to say? I could start with my comments from a PRSA workshop earlier this month. Or maybe with this image from EuroBlog 2006? (tip) Or this post by Steve Rubel – DoS hosts webchat with David Kline. Ummm …. let’s start by advising folks to watch EPIC2015 — because blogs are just one part of a larger social ecosystem that will change politics and media. And work.

Back To Europe
Fortunately, the presentations are in English! Dr. Ansgar Zerfass offers a way to think about blogs in terms of communications strategies:

• Sharing: knowledge, information
• Persuading: defining issues, building reputations, supporting contracts
• Argumentation: establishing relationships, resolving conflicts

Just as we may find ourselves stumbling over the fact that "blog" means so many things (the platform, the publication, the unit of publishing, the author) … we may not realize that we

1. Use a blog to enable ease-of-publishing — in other words, the blog is another soapbox (but a really easy-to-assemble one!)
2. Use a blog to develop and maintain relationships — in other words, how we use the blog can connect us with core constituencies (or disconnect us, as the case may be)
3. Use a blog to enable rapid communication in a time of crisis — in other words, this may be the best tool in your kit when you’re faced with your version of Katrina or Valdez …. IF (yes, it’s a big if) you’ve already done #1 and #2.

Let’s take these one-at-at-time:

1. Ease of Publishing
This is what the tool is best-known for. Anyone with a computer and an internet connection can now create compelling content (at least, in appearance).

2. Building and Maintaining Relationships
We do this by enabling RSS feeds and comments as well as cross-linking on our sites … and then by subscribing to (and reading) feeds from others and making appropriate comments (how else to do those cross-links?). Is it time-intensive? Yes – but aren’t all networks?

The best part, though, is that when you enable RSS feeds, your publics most interested in your story are going to hear about your latest news … without your having to do anything more than publish it! That’s because they’ll subscribe to your RSS feed!

3. CrisisComm
With these two key ingredients in place, you have the platform to get the news out as quickly – and as frequently – as you need to. Example: Movable Type with response to pricing change.

This is seismic! However, government (and traditional corporate)communications professionals are going to have an uphill battle. With, if no one else, the lawyers. Because this is the opposite of command-and-control communication.

Let’s see. What else?

• Be conversational. (This is not command-and-control communication!)
• Be honest. (You should not ghost write a blog.)
• Be transparent. (Don’t hide under Internet anonymity when posting elsewhere.)
• Blog yourself. (There’s no substitute for experience!)
• Read blogs with an RSS reader (Bloglines is browser-based and easy) to get a feel for the community.
• Consider a community blog for the organization (Push-button publishing with Drupal - it’s open source! I’m using Bryght’s hosted service for a site my content class is building this spring.) Benefits: a resource of government bloggers who can help one another.
• Learn from practitioners outside of government.

My Stuff

• Blogs, RSS and Media Transformation, July 2005, Agence France-Presse
• Blogs in the Classroom, June 2005, Gnomedex, Seattle
• SeattleBlogs.us, June 2005,
  project for COM300

• Blogging, RSS and the Information Landscape:   A Look At Online News,
  May, WWW2005, Chiba, Japan
• How can we measure the influence of the blogosphere?, May, WWW2004, NYC

Interested in eDemocracy? Then check out the
International Symposium on Local E-Democracy in Minneapolis, MN on
July 26-27.

This is the world’s first international conference focused on local e-democracy. Although it will still be highly relevant to all levels of governance. Plenary panel speakers and small group sessions on the symposium agenda will highlight leading e-democracy activities from all levels of government and society. If you are interested in governance and citizen participation in the information age, this conference is for you.

The conference includes a field trip to “the ‘wired’ chambers of the Minnesota State Legislature and Northfield, Minnesota’s community blogging efforts.” Organizers expect 50 to 100 participants. I predict it will sell-out quickly.

Tags:
eDemocracy,
Government
Politics,
Blogs

CampaignAudit.org, which produces nonpartisan investigative research and reporting on the use of technology in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election, launched today at the University of Washington.