Another government minister steps up to blogging as a democratic tool

Secretary of State for Education, Alan Johnson, has made a speech about the need to include blogging and social media into democracy. His comments were made in a speech entitled, Education and Democracy, which he delivered to the UK Youth Parliament this Monday (24 July).

According to the DfES website, Alan "next Prime Minister?" Johnson argued:

"for a new personalised approach in the way we communicate, interact and operate as politicians, teachers and citizens."

It's good to see the government addressing the issues of blogging and social media to the electorate of the future. It is certainly a step in the right direction followjng the government's recent anti-blogging stance. Will this mean democracy through UGC?

You can view or download the speech here.

HAT TIP: Stuart Bruce

Cross-posted to: eDemocracy Update

Comments

[Serge Cornelus]

And: happy with it? I had some hickups with Qumana (fonts changing, pictures not getting through), but perhaps the latest version is OK? Looks ok, though.

[Simon Collister]

Hi Serge

I take it you mean my Qumana test?

Well, I like it - easy tags and I can upload decent sized pics.

But.... you're right about the fonts. It defaults to Times New Roman which I don't like.

The biggest problem and I'd like to know if anyone can help me here... when I shut down my computer when I log in next I have to reinstall Qumana from the desktop shortcut. But when it finally loads up it already has my blogs pre-loaded so it can't have uninstalled itself. It's just a bit of a pain... so much so that although I really like it I haven't used it much.