Archive for the ‘E-democracy & Participation’ Category
The Numa Numa Guy
Monday, August 4th, 2008
A presentation to the Library of Congress by the Digital Ethnography group of Kansas State University doesn’t immediately sound like a bundle of fun, but the video below is a fascinating lecture about culture and anthropology on Youtube.
Not only are the statistics amazing - there are over 9,000 hours of video uploaded every day - the lecture tells a compelling story about how Youtube is changing culture and community. For example, the “Numa Numa Guy” video has not only been watched millions of times, but 58,000 people have made their own versions in response. There is also a good story about how they made a video that beat all the Superbowl ads.
Just compare this to what was on TV tonight. (via psfk).
Guest blogging
Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
I’m guest blogging over at Connecting Bristol this week. Connecting Bristol describes itself as follows:
Connecting Bristol is a vision for bridging the divides that hold back the city from achieving its full potential. Digital literacy is the key to social inclusion.
Our intention is that Bristol become a recognised national and international showcase for digital inclusion and innovation. Through the local to global connections that we establish, Connecting Bristol will make a difference, not only to local communities but also to the sustainable future of the planet.
So naturally, this week I am rambling on about, amongst other topics, social lending and football in Ghana, start up bookshops and online petitions as well as the connections between education campaigning and cute cats.
In my defence, they did ask.
Chuck Norris approved
Saturday, December 1st, 2007
You’re running a (relatively) low-budget campaign for Republican presidential nominee. Your support is running below 3 per cent.
Two words. Chuck Norris.
With one of the strangest, genuinely funny, most effective political ads ever made, Mike Huckabee is now second in the polls behind Rudy Giuliani. If this is the first Youtube campaign, Huckabee seems to have a good idea of the rules.
Voting intention v Myspace Usage
Wednesday, April 11th, 2007
Great chart from Heather Hopkins who says:
It seems that the groups most highly represented on MySpace are also those that are most likely not to vote, based on offline statistics compiled by Experian
So if this shows you where the voters aren’t, then what are the websites used by swing voters? I haven’t found anything online about who the swing voters are, but I’d guess that if they are predominantly female, suburban and 35+ (I think that was true in the last election), then I’d be looking for an endorsement from eBay.
Monkeys on the NHS?
Thursday, January 11th, 2007
The government will apparently not be providing monkeys on the NHS, according to the Prime Minister.
Prime Minsterial Petitions
Thursday, November 16th, 2006
MySociety have launched an official Prime Ministerial Petition website.
Taking a look some of the petitions, it struck me that I’d quite like to sign up in direct opposition to some of the proposals. I wonder if this is functionality that could be added.
It’s also interesting to see how many of the petitions are environmental.
(As an aside, I know that petitioning the Prime Minister has always happened offline, but it really does hammer home how presidential politics has become. From what I remember of my degree, we are still supposed to have Cabinet Government (you know, ‘the hyphen that joins, buckle that fastens‘ etc etc) but the reality is, no-one would even look at a ‘petition the cabinet’ site.)
Political Opinion Test
Wednesday, November 15th, 2006
I’ve been doing some work with a group that’s trying to encourage participation in politics and democracy.
The group has won a small grant from Unltd so we can get on with some work (as well as call ourselves, officially, Social Entrepreneurs …whatever that means).
The first thing the group is working on is a ‘political calibration test‘ to see how people’s views tend to cluster around issues. You can take the test here, as well as register for more information here.
Bristol Campaigning Guide now licensed under Creative Commons
Friday, September 8th, 2006
Version 2 of the Bristol Campaigning Guide has now been produced.
It has guidance and examples of how any community group can start and run a campaign.
After some gentle lobbying inspired by a lunch I had with Duane at Fairsay they agreed to release this version of the guide under a creative commons licence, so other people can use the content to suit their own needs.
This is very progressive of them. Not many public sector organisations think to use CC, but there is a compelling idea here that public information, paid for by public money, needs to be “open” in a way that normal copyright doesn’t allow.
Hopefully it will encourage others to do the same.
At the moment, I only have hard copies of the new guide, but I will post up links to the electronic guide as soon as it is available.
UPDATE: The new guide is available for download on this site.
The Internet is not a truck
Friday, July 21st, 2006
It’s a great strength of any democratic system that experts are held accountable by interested and engaged non-experts, who represent the community at large.
But it’s a bit troubling that a senior senator, debating a complex issue like ‘net neutrality’ can seriously say, when describing the Internet - “It’s not a truck. It’s a series of tubes.”
Chunky policy issues like stem cells, GM foods, serious fraud, climate change and the Middle East all seem to demand at least some baseline understanding of what’s going on.
Yet the final decisions are in the hands of people who do not need to demonstrate any competence, ability, expertise or even basic literacy.
To even consider applying such standards would be seen as profoundly anti-democratic.
But there has to be point when we as citizens are we allowed to say “Sorry, you’re actually not the guy we want to make the decision on this” when you can’t demonstrate even a passing acquaintance with the complexities of the issue.
In other words, how stupid does a politician have to be before we’re allowed to call them on it?
Banksy
Friday, June 23rd, 2006
Bristol City Council are using their askBristol website to canvas views on whether the new Banksy that has appeared on a wall in the city is art or graffiti.
They’ve put both sides on the argument and are giving every opportunity for “late-thirties local government IT consultants” (and everyone else) to have their say.
I can’t think of anywhere else that would do this.
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