Archive for March, 2009
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4. March 2009 – 11:15 by E-Voting.CC
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This is a reply to the post: “Recommendation on E-democracy – adopted by the COE”.
It shall clarify the critiques on the CAHDE working-group, posted here earlier, which – in our opinion – missed out some details about the project.
The Council of Europe (CoE) established in 2002 the Ad-Hoc Committee on Electronic Democracy (CAHDE) aiming at creating a legal document suggesting standards of E-Democracy, formulating principles for introduction and providing generic definitions and analyses of tools and policies to facilitate the introduction of E-Democracy. The goals were challenging and manifold: they span from the general reaffirmation of essentials of democracy and the extension of democracy by using ICTs to facilitate information and deliberation of political issues and until the increase of transparency and accountability of democratic institutions and processes. The Committee of Ministers adopted the recommendation on February 18th, 2009.
A critical discussion of results and outcomes is important and necessary. Especially if we are aiming at giving advice on upcoming developments and technologies, that are not mainstream in the near future. Let us clarify some important points in advance and sketch the framework for discussion.
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Posted in News, Projects, Tools | No Comments »
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3. March 2009 – 22:33 by Rolf Luehrs
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The eParticipation Day will physically take place in Brussels and live streamed here. Speakers are – among others – the PEP-NET partners Jeremy Millard, Dan Jellinek and Chuck Hirt. The conference programm is availbale here. PEP-NET is also exhibitor and Bengt and I will attend the conference. We will also try to twitter about the event using the hashtag #epartday09.
Look forward to seeing quite a lot of colleagues and friends and to an exciting eParticipation day.
Posted in TuTech | 2 Comments »
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2. March 2009 – 16:52 by Julia Glidden
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At a recent gala dinner for the Labour Party (long story why I was there), I was heartened and yet still suprised to hear the former UK Deputy Prime Minister extollling the virtues of Blackberries, Facebook and Twitter. ’I talk to Alistair (Cambell) all the time with this!’ – he says waving his Blackberry. ‘And, yesterday 6,000 people joined my petition on Facebook. 6,000!!!!! Do you know how long it would take to knock on 6,000 doors?’
I was heartened because he did so with the gusto of a real convert. Surprised because the power of the technology seemed so genuinely new to him, along with many others in a room full of party activists. James Crabtree gave an excellent analysis (at last year’s London’s eParticipation Symposium) on the reasons why technology has taken off so much more slowly amongst British political parties than American ones. But I still wonder how any politician or political group anywhere can only now be waking up to the power of technology to mobilize opinion. After all, politicians spend their lives trying to communicate with the electorate and the Internet is nothing but the ultimate communication tool…. Only recently I spoke with a young local Councilor who told me that social networking ‘and other such things really had no value for him….’
I wonder if now that that the US has a YouTubing, Blackberry toting President things will change…. And if they do, whether politics will be changed by the medium, or the medium absorbed into a new form of ‘business as usual.’
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2. March 2009 – 09:52 by Danish Technological Institute
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Dan Jellinek’s rather despairing piece on “something sick at the heart of eDemocracy” must be seen, methinks, in the context of his overall enthusiasm for online debate. But he highlights a real and pressing issue. There is, indeed, evidence that online engagement can coarsen the debate. Especially when individuals are anonymous (or even pseudonymous), there is a possibility that some participants (particularly males?) will use more aggressive language and become more extreme in their statements, because their identities are not known. However, the reverse can also be true as there are many examples of serious, thoughtful policy blogs and web-sites where real and valuable debate takes place. Also, compared to some other media like TV, social networking sites can provide opportunities for more in-depth engagement between politicians and the electorate. When Barack Obama last year put up his 40 minute speech on race it was down-loaded by millions of individuals – an opportunity to address a serious issue in depth which would hardly be possible on TV where one minute sound-bites are the rule.
Aggressive online behaviour can be mitigated to some extent by careful moderation, especially in the context of transparent community standards and guidelines. But, as Dan points out, it also reflects our personal levels of tolerance, which only better education can improve. We are still getting used to this new form of engagement, and I remain an optimist and am committed to seeing the bottle at least half full. Moreover, anonymity can be useful in some contexts, for example to protect the identity of vulnerable individuals in sensitive situations, or to assist ‘whistle-blowers’. In all such cases, however, independent validation is probably necessary to ensure that such anonymity is justified.
The behaviour Dan describes can be seen to be a constant feature across society and history, and wasn’t invented by the Internet. I have heard as much, nay worse, in many pub (so-called) discussions, and Dan wouldn’t believe the language used (normally behind closed doors) between members of the same political party. (Been there, done that.) Any new medium of expression is bound to be used for the same outbursts. So what’s new?
Interesting questions: how indeed is eParticipation (eDemocracy or whatever) new – what does it change, if anything, how, and what can we do to maximise the positive?
PEP-NET together with the European eParticipation study are at 10.00 TODAY launching a 12 day online consultation where we don’t expect foul language nor anonymity. But we do expect something of value to emerge, as the consultation is designed to lead to concrete, considered and useful outputs addressing the above questions, and synthesised from your wisdom. So, please join us on: http://www.internet-discourse.eu.
Jeremy Millard
Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »
