Twitter’s Role in Digital Democracy (Internet Revolution)
Twitter is providing an open dialogue for the presidential candidates to not only spread their message, but to also communicate in a two-way conversation with their supporters.
How Much is YouTube Worth to Obama and McCain? (Tech President)
Micah L. Sifry examines how future political candidates may not be able to ignore the power of YouTube following Senator Obama’s success with the video site.
Crossposted on Mediafuturenow.com.
Twitter is not a broadcasting medium. Much has been written about Twitter as the first “true” realization of the power of real-time social media. Twitter is an advocacy medium. Just ask Shaun Dakin.
Dakin is a former FedEx executive and, among other things, a big Twitter advocate. He’s done something kind of amazing. Dakin is CEO and founder of The National Political Do Not Contact Registry, a campaign to restrict “robo” calling and other less automated telephone calls for political and advocacy campaigns.
Perhaps not a particularly glamorous grassroots campaign, the Registry is exactly the kind of political “process” campaign that seeks to better participatory democracy in this country. It’s the nuts and bolts of the workings of elections and advocacy campaigns, and it is worth both the attention of political professionals and (for our purposes) good study by the media and technology communities. It is effective. READ MORE »
In 2006, with less money and less name recognition than his opponent for Senate, incumbent Orrin Hatch, Pete Ashdown took an innovative approach to his campaign website. Harking back to a tradition of elected representatives being delegates of their constitutents will (rather than trustees), Ashdown included a wiki on his website where voters could edit and develop his campaign platform. This collaborative process, made easy by the web, foreshadowed a growing practice of letting large groups of citizens to collaborate on developing political messages and policy platforms.
But why should we let the crowd do this? According to James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds, large groups of people are simply smarter than small groups and individuals, on average. For example, Elizabeth Noelle-Neumann, in The Spiral of Silence, shows that long before asking people in surveys “who they will vote for” can effectively predict an upcoming election, asking them “who they think will win” will get the prediction right.
On Thursday, October 16, 2008, from 3:00 pm to 5:00 pm at 1225 I (Eye) Street, NW, 3rd Floor, the Internet Advocacy Roundtable focuses on crowdsourcing message and policy platforms with a panel of speakers who have managed crowdsourcing programs and developed new software to make these programs more effective.
Speakers include Brian Young, who has been working with the TruthFightsBack.com project, which relies on citizens to help identify smears in the current presidential campaign; Michael Yaki, who crowdsourced language and ideas for the 2008 Democratics Party platform; and David Stern, co-founder of MixedInk, a startup that has created an online collaborative writing tool that allows large groups to weave their ideas together democratically to express a collective viewpoint.
The exciting thing about crowdsourcing’s impact on politics and governance is that it creates new opportunities to further democratize the process. As alluded to above, these tools allow elected officials to more effectively represent the will of their constituents, or as Edmund Burke wrote in the 1770’s, they can be delegates. This is in sharp contrast to elected officials who see themselves as trustees of their constituents. Trustees do what they think is best for their constituents, even if that is in opposition to their will. Delegates work to reflect their constituents’ will; a far more democratic approach.
Cross-posted on e.politics
Even in the Early Days of epolitics.com, back when we powered the servers with wood, coal and fuel-grade mummies, plenty of people were already predicting the demise of email as a marketing/communications tool. More than two years later, it’s still a popular hobby among online experts (hi, Jeff!). I understand the logic behind the idea of a slow fade for electronic mail, and I’m sure that those predicting it are at least partially correct — as a communications channel, email’s gained so much competition over the past few years that any other trend would be hailed as an online miracle.
Rather than respond in the comments to a question from JK on my last post, Millennials at the Gates, asking for evidence of the reshaping of American politics, I will respond here.
I understand JK’s hesitation about waiting for the evidence. After all, I was a full-time academic for many years. I remember back in 1992 when I was on the Political Science conference circuit talking up Rock the Vote’s voter registration drive. I kept getting comments like, “We hope we are wrong, but young voter turnout programs never work,” from political scientists. Well, they were wrong. Rock the Vote register a million first time voters and for the first time since the 18 year olds got the vote, turnout in the 18-24 group went up.
I also like to remind people that many who waited until the evidence for television’s impact on politics found themselves on the losing end of a TV campaign by their opponent. If we wait for the evidence to arrive, we will always be behind the curve. READ MORE »
When I graduated from journalism school, I never envisioned being the editor of a think tank’s website. For nearly the past year, though, I’ve been overseeing Heritage.org. The experience has been interesting and educational — similar in some respects to running a news website and also challenging in its own unique ways.
My first few posts at K Street Café this week will examine the various ways think tanks can spread their message more effectively online.
I’d like to start at the top — literally. Writing a good headline or title can make a huge difference in the number of eyeballs on your research. READ MORE »
I’m cross-posting today to a blog I wrote the other day for Media Future Now about mainstream radio using streaming video. (As if that makes any kind of sense.)
What amazed me is the power of interactivity actually realized by video coverage of the Democratic and Republic National Conventions last month. I’ll simply refer for the immediate moment to coverage of KCRW radio in Santa Monica, reported on by Anne Eisenberg last week in the New York Times. Eisenberg’s story in the Times ogled at 124,000 views of 67 convention clips shot by KCRW staffers the Democratic Convention last month in Denver. READ MORE »
It all started with a conversation.
A few months ago I was chatting with some colleagues about the lack of a comprehensive resource online for public affairs professionals to keep up to speed on with the latest trends, tactics and strategies in our industry. There are certainly plenty of resources for political pros on how technology is shaping campaigns and elections, but relatively few on how the Internet and social media is changing the way public policy is formed and shaped.
We called on some of the best and the brightest – practitioners and observers in the public affairs realm — who are known for staying on top of the major transformations taking place in our industry to engage in an ongoing dialogue about how the nature of advocacy is changing. It is essential that all of the stakeholder groups in the issue advocacy world are involved - so we invited representatives from associations, think tanks, corporate goverment affairs offices, interest groups, the media, and from some of the key industry organizations in Washington DC including the Congressional Management Foundation and the Sunlight Foundation.
The result is K Street Cafe - a collaborative blog made up of expert contributors who can provide context and analysis of the changing nature of advocacy, and the difference these changes make in the formation of public policy.
So you might ask - why the name K Street Cafe? Doesn’t K Street conjure up some of the negative images we have about how public policy is formed? Yes. But we intend this blog to be conversation about how K Street is changing - away from images of fat cats, smoke filled rooms and back room deals toward a K Street that is open, transparent and with a much broader participation from the public.
Of course, cafes have long been centers of spirited dialogue. We trust this blog will host vigorous conversations on a variety of subjects. And we hope you will join us in the conversation.
Will Obama’s Transparent Gov’t Make Advocacy Org’s Obsolete?
Tweeting for Dollars: A New Way for Nonprofits to Raise Money Online?
K Street Café is a blog where experts from a variety of backgrounds share new and novel ways technology, the Internet and social media are being used to shape public policies.
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