· Politics and Technology forum ·
Today I attended a forum in Canberra, “Politics and Technology”. It was the most inspiring event I have been to this year on the topic of politics and online engagement because we were able to hear so many different points of view in one morning on this important topic.
The keynote speaker was Matt Bai, author and writer for the NY Times. Matt provided a US viewpoint with interesting facts. Did you know the primary demographic for MoveOn is middle-aged (I wonder if it’s the same for GetUp)? Did you know DailyKos has more readers than most US newspapers (I wonder if Crikey will become this popular)? Did you know more people watch YouTube political ads than official broadcasts (I wonder if we will see an Obama Girl in Aus)?
The keynote was followed by two panels; the first panel discussed blogging, social networks, political movements and the media, although the debate really centered around blogging and the media. Some interesting comments from this session came from Prof Peter Black from QUT who summed up what he sees as the four key players in the online politics discussion. My summary:
Bloggers – healthy but small in number, diverse, less partisan than US, focused on policy rather than machinery, struggling to gain mainstream respect from politicians or media because don’t report “breaking news” … focus on commentary.
Politicians – ignorant of new technology, aren’t keen to engage in new technology, ceased to use Facebook once election was over, lots of potential for participatory democracy.
Media – keen to jump on bandwagon, but don’t respect independent bloggers.
Public – apathetic, unengaged generally with politics. This might be changing … we hadn’t seen political alignment in Australia for a long time until the Kevin Rudd stickers on Facebook profiles.
The second panel discussed IT and the future of political campaigning. This session was awesome. While partisan discussion got in the way of the debate about politics and technology somewhat, it was a fantastic opportunity to hear from politicians about how and why they are (or aren’t) engaging constituents online.
We heard from Andrew Bartlett, Kate Lundy and Joe Hockey. Kate and Joe both made it quite clear that politicians are very busy. I have heard from other sources that ALL parliamentary staff work very long hours, and particularly the spokespeople, who are expected to take media calls at all hours of the day and night in addition to their other duties. How do they find time among the phone calls, letters, emails, public meetings and policy work to participate in online conversations? Particularly given that politicians are expected to talk to *all* their constituents, yet not all constituents have access to the internet (and many of those that do have the internet do not participate in politics online). It’s not that I’m excusing politicians for not participating online, I think that as bloggers we have to try to understand *why* they’re not participating so we can find ways to get everybody talking together.
Joe Hockey said the big challenge for politicians is that participating online appears “hugely time-intensive for the reach that you get”. Of course we bloggers would argue that there is a greater possibility to engage with *more* people online. If politicians were to do this, it would be a win-win situation: the public would feel satisfied that their ideas and concerns were being listened to, and the politicians would (hopefully) be confident that they are getting opinions from a cross-section of society.
As Matt Bai said, people will increasingly “expect to be heard and expect to get answers”. He’s right of course … I really think politicians need to move now to engage people online, otherwise they risk being seen as unwilling to listen and irrelevant.
Matt finished his keynote by saying that when leaders lead, the internet will become the central point to organise from. I like this statement, but possibly because it’s something that I want to hear rather than something that’s accurate.
Kudos to Microsoft for holding the event, for making it free so more people could attend, and for presenting it without a big promo. I’m genuinely impressed … more please :)
Wednesday June 25, 2008
Categories: Event Technology
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