Simonsays

PresidentialWatch08 - visualing the US political blogosphere

PresidentialWatch08 is a really nifty website that represents all the US political blogs visually and organised by political persuasion.

I've not had a real play with it yet but you can zoom into the network and see which blogs link to others, get an idea of blog size/popularity (based on links) and see screenshots of the each site. Pretty damn cool.

I recall Antony Mayfield had something similar around the this time last year, but this would be a great tool come the next UK general election. Any offers?

[via my Edelman/Spook colleague, Marcus Dyer.]

Technorati tags: PresidentialWatch08, Politics, US Presidential Elections,

Conservative party set to launch Torypedia

ConservativeHome, the grassroots Conservative website is set to launch a Tory version of Wikipedia.

According to an article on the site, the people behind ConservativeHome are using MediaWiki to

"produce our own online encyclopedia for the Conservative Party and the wider conservative movement in Britain.  It will cover people and events that Wikipedia wouldn't deem 'notable', and by harnessing the wisdom of the ConservativeHome crowd we hope that any pages that do overlap will be better."

I think this is a great idea that will offer the party's grassroots and its future wannabe MPs an invaluable resource to get up to speed with and contribute the party's collective knowledge. The wiki plans to have specific sections covering off:

• Conservative history - e.g. timeline of Cameron's leadership, defining events in Tory history
• Resources - e.g. key Tory party figures, How to become a Tory MP
• Policy - existing Tory policy, debates on key issues

I don't know how exactly the wiki will function, but one challenge I can foresee is how to ensure the site avoids being vandalised or used for political point scoring a la David Miliband's Environmental Contract wiki which was hijacked by Guido and the right a couple of years back.

Great idea, though, really great idea reinforcing the Tories keeping one step ahead of the competition.

Technorati tags: Conservative Party, ConservativeHome, Wiki

Public sector goes Twitter crazy

There was a flurry of activity on the UK & Ireland E-Democracy mailing list today with a Dave Briggs flagging a number of local authorities embracing Twitter.

Dave's list includes

• St Helens
• Southend
• Barnet
• Hillingdon
• Stratford-on-Avon

It's interesting to see how each authority is using Twitter. St Helens is using it to announce news stories; Southend seems to have used it to update the count during the local elections; Stratford-on-Avon are using it in a fully conversational way while Barnet seem to have registered their profile and not much else.

Another and interesting recent addition to Twitter is UK Parliament who seems to be someone behind the scenes at the Houses of Parliament website. This will be really interesting to follow as the HoP website provides a wealth of information from the day's activities in the house and having someone interpreting some of the day's parliamentary news is a great idea.

However, my main bugbear is that there isn't RSS on the HoP website. Given the amount, variety of info and frequency of updates is the perfect site to use RSS. That'll be my first question via Twitter!

Technorati tags: Twitter, Local Government, UK Parliament, Edemocracy

*UPDATED* Bloggers, Tory MEPs and why political parties should be worried

One of the findings from my research into agenda-setting and political bloggers in the UK earlier this year was that there is a distinct blurring of the roles between infuential journalists/media and influential bloggers.

To reinforce this, Mark Hanson has blogged about how two top political blogs drove last week's high-profile campaign to unseat a number of corrupt Tory MEPs.

Both Guido Fawkes and Conservative Home were "swapping research, swapping sources, [and] referencing each other" according to Mark.

Two things strike me as interesting and significant here. Firstly, the timeline of this bears hallmarks of previous political blog campaigns - specifically Guido's hounding of the Smith Institute which was closely followed/suported by the Daily Telegraph.

However, in this instance the sharing of material and sources came primarily from online sources - ie. without support from a mainstream publication (although I acknowledge this may have happened covertly).

Secondly - and as Mark points out - this was a Tory/libertarian attack on Tory MEPs. Antony Mayfield suggests it may be "right-wing bloggers cleaning their own house" but equally it suggests two further things:

1. a concerted online campaign around a specific issue - significant because the internet allows people to aggregate around single issues, something traditional political party structures are unable to foster
2. these single issue campaigns and campaigners are becoming more and more powerful. So potentially powerful in fact that parties ought to be extremely wary of their disruptive force in the future.

This campaign is fascinating because it is a 'ritual cleansing' (to adapt Antony's idea) of the Tory party in Europe - but one conducted by those on the periphery of the party and even beyond (as Antony Mayfield points out: "Guido Fawkes is *not* a Tory").

Traditional political party structures are becoming increasingly redundant and threatened by highly influential and super connected individuals driven by single issues. If was in charge of the Tories, Labour or the Lib Dems I would be investing heavily in understanding the major changes the internet is having not just on communications but on an organisational level as well.

*UPDATED* Political consultant and blogger Tim Pendry gives his very expert analysis on what this online encounter means for the UK's wider political scene.

Technorati tags: Politics, Guido Fawkes, Conservative Home, Mark Hanson

Paddick's a Qwitter

I blogged back during the London Mayoral elections about Lib Dem candidate Brian Paddick using Twitter as a tool for a virtual Q&A session with the electorate.

Well it seems that his dalliance with the tool has ended pretty soon after the election happened.

Personally I think it is slightly worse that he is signing off with a "I'm winding down now" message which kind of implies that he has been a regular user of Twitter rather than what was essentially a engagement-initiative-as-PR-stunt.

Maybe that is a bit of an extreme take on it, but wouldn;t it be more authentic to just say: "I tried this during the election to engage with voters and now the election is over I'm signing out."?

Hat tip: Dominic Campbell

Technorati tags: Twitter, Brian Paddick, Politics, Mayoral Elections

Royal Holloway keynotes - Micah Sifry: Open source politics

I spoke at Royal Holloway University's Web 2.0 Politics conference on 18 April and had planned to live-blog the two keynotes by Micah Sifry and Michael Turk but unfortunately didn't manage to. But I did make notes and have now re-worked them so they are sort of a deferred live-blogging stream-of-consciousness.

First up is the keynote by Micah Sifry, titled Open Source Politics:

Micah began by stating that political communications must move from being egocentric to network centric. That is, becoming less about individuals and more about loosely connected networks of supporters that coalesce and self-organise around specific issues.

This allows voters to become co-creators of the candidate’s political campaign and network effects, Micah argued, are the key to this.

Funding – we are seeing small, but significant revolutions in political funding taking place:

• For example Ron Paul opened up his funds by putting all his campaign donations online

• The database of donations was entirely searchable

• Building on this, supporters started building useful tools that displayed fundsina useful and meaningful way

• For example, they started making graphs that displayed funding from specific places, organisations or people – they then set-up the website ronpaulgraphs.com where you can view the most interesting results [Edit: think of that resource as a journalist as well as a supporter!]

• Apparently Obama is considering running an online to raise $1m in 1min – which may or may not be a good/successful idea!

• Micah’s concluding point was that with micro-economics emerging on the web, big money doesn’t go away – but now there is a counter-veiling force. People can now say if that if the party does follow this or that route with policy or selection etc then they will donate cash to a rivel candidate etc. The micro-funding revolution makes parties/candidates etc more accountable

Micah also addressed, what he termed as, the Economy of Abundance:

• This arises – in essence - from the easy and cheap availability of storage on the web.

• Micah says that – politically, at least - the sound bite is being challenged by abundance of space online to have upload, store and search etc other messages, speeches, communications material etc

• The media presentation format of 20 or 30 second glib or catchy but meaningless snapshots is being onverted

• As an example: Barack Obama has approximately 900 videos on YouTube, and most of these videos are about 13mins long

• The Race Video has had 4m views and as YouTube only counts a full play-through of a video as a view then there’s a lot of people who are hungry for quality, in-depth content that they can’t get from MSM. Where do they go to find it? Online.

Micah’s three conclusions were particularly insightful:

Conclusions

• The network is more powerful than the list

• Networks are resilient, but not nimble
  • If you have a network of 5,000 bloggers and one says something stupid then it’s not the end of world. However, if you take away the central point then they’re that not easily corralled

• Networks and campaigns can be allies, but they ultimately have cross-purposes
  • Campaigns share tasks but not authority with their supporters
  • To get to a position of open source politics we need to give supporters authority
  • Micah asks can we ever get there? Ron Paul supporters were given full authority to shape his campaign, but then they raised money to spend on a branded blimp – was a good idea and use of funds?

For Micah, the big (and most interesting) question is where will the balance of power lie in the future and what happens to the networks once the elections are over. Once you have given supporters/voters a sense of power, they probably won’t let it go so easily.

Technorati tags: Royal Holloway University, Politics 2.0, Micah Sifry, Open Source Politics

Lord of the Blogs - corny name but great blog

I thought Lord of the Blogs was a spoof at first… but a closer look reveals it is a group blog authored by 10 peers from the UK’s upper chamber, the House of Lords.

Despite the corny name and lacklustre design the site’s content is really, really good. Take for instance a recent post from Lord Norton. Responding to requests from commenters who want to know more about the bloggers, Lord Norton posts 10 interesting things about himself in turn achieving two really important things.

Firstly, he is responding to requests from users – creating a genuine dialogue. Ok, it’s not exactly about major policy issues at this stage, but if you set the foundations up right then it's only a matter of time before we get to that stage, surely?

Secondly, he is talking about himself, a member of the UK parliament’s upper (and traditionally most aloof and esoteric) chamber in an informal way.

To give Lord Norton his due he *attempts* to tell us 10 things about himself, but fails. He can only find nine – and one of these is: ‘trains’!

The other interesting thing is that the blog is part of a project being co-ordinated by the independent democracy think-tank, the Hansard Society. I intitially presumed that this would be part of their ongoing Digital Dialogues initiative, but a closer inspection of the DD website shows that it is a separate project.

More info about Lord of the Blogs can be found at the Hansard Society's website or in today's Guardian

Technorati tags: Lord of the Blogs, House of Lords, Hansard Society

I thought Lord of the Blogs was a spoof at first… but a closer look reveals it is a group blog authored by 10 peers from the UK’s upper chamber, the House of Lords.

Despite the corny name and lacklustre design the site’s content is really, really good. Take for instance a recent post from Lord Norton. Responding to requests from commenters who want to know more about the bloggers, Lord Norton posts 10 interesting things about himself in turn achieving two really important things.

Firstly, he is responding to requests from users – creating a genuine dialogue. Ok, it’s not exactly about major policy issues at this stage, but if you set the foundations up right then it's only a matter of time before we get to that stage, surely?

Secondly, he is talking about himself, a member of the UK parliament’s upper (and traditionally most aloof and esoteric) chamber in an informal way.

To give Lord Norton his due he *attempts* to tell us 10 things about himself, but fails. He can only find nine – and one of these is: ‘trains’!

The other interesting thing is that the blog is part of a project being co-ordinated by the independent democracy think-tank, the Hansard Society. I intitially presumed that this would be part of their ongoing Digital Dialogues initiative, but a closer inspection of the DD website shows that it is a separate project.

More info about Lord of the Blogs can be found at the Hansard Society's website or in today's Guardian

Technorati tags: Lord of the Blogs, House of Lords, Hansard Society

*UPDATED* Brian Paddick reaches out to Londerners via Twitter

Hot on the heels of Lynne Feathestone MP and No 10 Downing Street twittering I received an email last night from the Lib dem's Head of Innovation, Mark Pack, telling me that the Lib Dem mayoral candidate, Brian Paddick, is holding the world's first interview using Twitter.

Mark's email told me:

"Liberal Democrat Mayoral Candidate Brian Paddick is taking part in an exclusive interview on Twitter, the popular text messaging service, the first time this has been done by a UK politician.

Brian Paddick will be offering an exclusive interview to all of his ‘followers’ on Twitter.  Users who have signed up to follow Brian Paddick on Twitter will be able to text a question and answers will then be sent to the questioners and posted on his official website."

I was struck by two things:

1. the emphasis of Twitter as a text messaging service
2. the offer of an exclusive interview with brian via Twitter

I wondered why Twitter was being sold as a text messaging service when it is soooo much more. I suspected it was due to sell the idea of Twitter to a wide audience. Alan Johnson's deputy leadership campaign manager, Stuart Bruce, confirmed as much to me via Twitter this morning.

The second point is more subtle and seems to indicate the Paddick team's lack of understanding that Twitter, like other social web tools, are shifting the balance between organisations and their stakeholders.

The simple fact that Paddick is on Twitter means he is open to conversation with his 'followers' - so why set up a specific 'exclusive interview'? Or perhaps they are using the story as a neat media hook!

Either way, Ken Livingstone isn't on Twitter and despite the Tories new media savvy Boris and his team consider online debates as not involving "real people". At least Paddick is opening up a new front for direct engagement with his followers/supporters.

*UPDATE* Stephen Waddington reports back via Twitter that he posed a question 20 hours ago and is still awaiting a response.

Technorati tags: Brian Paddick,  London mayoral elections,  Lib Dems, Twitter

Can UK political bloggers influence the MSM?

I posted a few months back about the completion of a research project for my CIPR Diploma which investigated the ability of political bloggers in the UK to affect the MSM agenda of broadsheet newspapers.

I promised that once I had the final result I'd post up a version to share. Well, I'm pleased to say that the research project was awarded a distinction and so for your enlightenment here's a pdf version of New media democracy or pain in the RSS? An examination of political bloggers and media agenda setting
in the UK. [Download simoncollisterdiplomaresearchproject2008.pdf (383.8K)]

I'll also be presenting an updated version of the paper at Politics & Web 2.0: an international conference in April if anyone's interested.

Technorati tags: political blogging, research, CIPR

David Miliband, British foreign policy and the internet

I posted about this over at my other blog, eDemocracy Update, the other week but have only just got around to linking it here.

I've published the first in a series of essays about British foreign policy under David Milband, his progressive interventionist ideology and the internet over at e-International Relations.

The essay, The Civilian Surge: Liberal Foreign Policy, Intervention and the Internet, attempts to put Miliband's idea of what he calls the 'civilian surge' being created by the internet's empowering effects on global society into a theoretical framework. It then assess its impact on global democracy.

Technorati tags: politics, theory, David Miliband, british foreign policy

A YouTube? On the Interweb?

Once more parliament is reeling from the power of the internet, the BBC reports.

Children's Secretary, Ed Balls, is alleged to have uttered the rather scornful "So what" to David Cameron's budget response yesterday.

However, Hansard records Balls' comment as "So weak". This has all sparked a debate about Ball's alleged 'childishness' according to Cameron.

However, the best quotation comes from Conservative MP, Andrew Robothan, who - showing the Tories cutting edge credentials - told BBC Online that:

"There is a site called YouTube on the net and you can listen to the video. "I reckon I can hear 'what' being said."

Bless. Read the full story via the BBC.

Internet and Ideology Part 1 - Politics

Yesterday I posted about the ideological shift in politics, economics and society that occurred during the transition to modernity 200 years ago and comparing them with changes occurring now as we entered a period of post-modernity.

This post will specifically take a look at the changes to political ideologies in our internet society and examining what we can learn. These are not fully formed ideas; consider these blog posts as a note pad where I attempt to work out some of my thoughts in public.

The “politics of modernity” according to John Schwarzmantel is marked by

“the malleability of human nature. In contrast to the religious argument of the time that individuals were irredeemably marked by original sin … [modernity] took a more optimistic view of human nature and suggested the possibility of cooperation.”

Furthermore:

“These more positive attributes of human nature could be fostered by political or social institutions designed to encourage the cooperative spirits of human nature.”

I would argue that this view has prevailed pretty much unchanged for the past 200 years – at least until the coming of the social web.

While civil society has played a key part in fostering human cooperation, society’s endeavours were always dependent on institutions providing support, funds, direction and often a voice to facilitate change. Admittedly there are exceptions throughout history, but as a rule I would agree with Schwarzmantel’s suggestion.

Compare that with civil society in an internet age. Institutions are being disintermediated; individuals are organising themselves, membership organisations (political parties, charities etc) are losing out as barriers to participation and scalability are removed.

People no longer need – nor want - a rigid, hierarchically structured institution, they want  a ‘join in’ type of organisation operating as a flat network, not a ‘join us’ top-down one - as identified by David Wilcox. This is made possible and happening thanks to the internet and IMHO marks a key developmental stage of civil society in a post-modern world.

In short, when we entered modernity the political and social focus moved from a pre-determined world where lives were pre-determined according to religion and towards a world where individual rights came into existence: for the first time people’s lives could be self-determined.

However, that this vision of the modern civil society was dependent largely – if not entirely – on civil society institutions. In essence, people could recognise their individual liberty, but only through wider groups or institutions.

I would argue that it has taken until now and the rise of the social web for people truly to be able to shape civil society as individuals liberated from the traditional membership organisations the grew up 200 years ago.

Technorati tags: ideology, post-modernism, modernity, John Schwarzmantel, civil society, politics

Interview with The Pakistan Spectator

Here's a bit of 'me time'. The people from The Pakistan Spectator - part of the Global Voices project mentioned in yesterday's post about Iranian bloggers - interviewed me for their site.

If anyone's interested you can read it here.

Technorati tags: Pakistan Spectator, Global Voices

Unheard voices: Election blogging in Iran

Fascinating article in yesterday's FT about Iranian bloggers.

Key take-aways for me include:

• There are now about 800,000 blogs in Iran
• Iran is second only to China in the ranks of top blogging countries
• Roughly 15m internet connections in a country of 70m - making Iranian Internet access high compared to the rest of the region
• Blogs are faciliatating debates left uncovered by the (heavily censored) mainstream media
• Iran is ranked 166th out of 169 countries in Reporters Without Borders worldwide press freedom index  – ahead of Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea
• President Ahmadinejad blogs at www.ahmadinejad.ir - and is getting addicted to it as well!

What is really interesting is while blogs offer a debating platform for discussion about reformist candidates in the forthcoming elections being barred, they internet looks like it may well play a much bigger part in the subsequent campaign as well:

"It is still possible that the Guardian Council will allow more of the reformist candidates to run on March 14, but analysts say it is likely to leave such decisions to the last minute – giving an advantage to conservatives, who will have time to print posters and leaflets ahead of the seven days of official campaigning. This means the internet could take on an even greater role for reformists, becoming an important lobbying tool for last-minute candidates."

Seriously fascinating. And I would definitely add that if you want to hear more from traditionally unheard voices around the world then defintiely have a look at the Global Voices project at Harvard's Berkman Center

Technorati tags: FT, Iran, blogging, elections, Global Voices

New pamphlet: Politics, Policy and the Internet

Daily Telegraph journalist and blogger, Robert Colvile has produced a new pamphlet on behalf of the think-tank, Centre for Policy Studies.

Politics, Policy and the Internet is available online (as you'd expect!) and has already caused some buzz.

I plan to take a look and blog about it in due course.

Technorati tags: politics, policy, Robert Colvile, Centre for Policy Studies

Media, community and humanity - call for papers

Charlie Beckett from the LSE's Polis think-tank has a post calling for abstracts for a forthcoming conference: Media, Communication and Humanity.

The conference is about how the media is "mediating human values, actions and social relations" and paper proposals should offer "theoretical insight and/or empirical work on this theme". In particular:

• Communication and difference
• Democracy, politics and journalism ethics
• Globalisation and comparative studies
• Innovation, governence and policy
• Media and new media literacies

Funnily enough I've been thinking about a few of these themes recently. More specifically whether democracy building/public diplomacy is being changed by citizens using social media to by-pass traditional media gate-keepers.

If so, whether these changes support greater diplomatic/democratic transparency or whether they are open to greater, more subtle (and thus more dangerous) exploitation by special interests.

And also, if the traditional media are being made obsloete, what's the role for NGOs or independent organisations that aggregate and/or curate digital news content. A good example of this may be the Berkman Center's Global Voices project.

Hopefully more of this to come.

Abstracts/papers can be submitted by going here.

Technorati tags: Charlie Beckett, Polis, London School of Economics, democracy, public diplomacy,
Berkman Center, Global Voices

Will.I.Am remixes Obama on YouTube and gets 1m+ views in two days

It's not often you see the name of Black-Eyed Peas front-man Will.I.Am appear in the subject line of an email from the UK and Ireland E-Democracy mailing list.

But tonight, there he is..... courtesy of a YouTube video he put together. The video features footage of Barack Obama's New Hampshire Primary "Yes We Can" speech cut up and put to music.

Good example of mixing celebrity, pop culture and politics. It's not the *best* track in the world but it's a succeeded in getting 1m+ views in two days. See for yourself:

Technorati tags: US Elections, Barack Obama, Black-Eyed Peas, Will.I.Am, politics, edemocracy

First MP to liveblog during parliamentary debate

The Deputy Editor of ConservativeHome, Sam Coates, sent me a fascinatng email this week telling me about possily the first example of liveblogging from the backbenches of Parliament!

Sam told me that the Tory MP for Harwich, Douglas Carswell, posted live to the ConservativeHome CentreRight blog while waiting to be called during a debate on the need to review the parliamentary calling procedures. He posted via his Blackberry.

Douglas reports:

"I write this sitting in the chamber of the House of Commons listening to a "debate" on education and skills.  It is now so utterly plodding and pedestrian that the gaggle of Italian tourists up in the visitors gallery got up and left after five minutes."

I bet liveblogging wasn't proposed in the review on making Parliament more accessible to the public.Maybe that's because live reports would be as damning as this one!

Douglas then offers us some constructive thoughts on reform:

"Rather than the current 15 minute time limit on backbench speeches, why not have 3 minute limits, but allow speakers to make several contributions?  That might force Honourable Members to say what they mean, and allow points to be developed."

Well, he may have hit on something there. His proposed changes would certainly make the debates more conversational, rather than a series of broadcast speeches from Members.

Another change that would be great for parlimentary democracy (maybe) would be to screen a live Twitter backchannel during debates.

How much fun would that be? During grand ministerial speeches you could see tweets scrolling across the Chamber reading:

• "Ask him where the money for his second house came from!"
• "Those statistics are used out of context."
• "Your flies are undone!"

I think it would be great.

Technotrati tags: ConservativeHome, Douglas Carswell, Parliament, democracy, Twitter

Daily Telegraph's Robert Colvile gives further insight into blogging and media agenda-setting

The Daily Telegraph's Robert Colvile has picked up on my post about the key findings from my thesis into whether political bloggers can impact the MSM agenda. He gives his own perspective on the issues involved at the paper's Three Line Whip blog.

Robert starts by pointing out that:

"The fact is that, from the outside, the mainstream media (or 'MSM', as it is referred to in the blogosphere, often as a term of abuse) looks quite monolithic. But inside, it's made up of hundreds of editors and writers and reporters, all casting around for things to fill their pages with."

This is a very important point to bear in mind. We (bloggers and social media types) do tend to talk about the MSM as a monolithic institution  when in reality - while this is perhaps true at the organisational level -  like all vast organisms there are undoubtedly sub-layers and networks of real, human activity which are easily overlooked.

To this I would say of course MSM institutions are built up of networks in the same way the blogosphere is. The main difference is that the blogosphere is designed in a way that allows it to be open and facilitate the opportunities and benefits available to those within the network. I would argue that the reverse is generally true of institutional organisations. They tend to want to close down unchecked and living networks - whether consciously (at a personal level) or sub-consciously (the inherent bureaucracy present).

Robert also writes:

"The technology makes this process [news gathering] easier for online material, but as far as I can see the basic approach is the same as usual. Trying to theorise about it in terms of the formal influence of the blogosphere on the mainstream media might be, as the great Boris said in another context, 'like trying to pin jelly to a wall'."

Again he is raises another important point that my research hopefully makes clear, but which may well not have been made cyrstal clear in my previous post. The problem with trying to theorise formally is that most - if not all - formal media theories were created around traditional channels, whether TV, radio or print media. In fact there are plenty of journal articles that deal with online media but through the theoretical form and function of traditional media... I digress.

In my full conclusion I point to the fact that while there is some evidence to suggest agenda-setting by bloggers, the models used in the study are all fairly linear - ie. broadcast. I recommend that further study is necessary to examine the flow of information in a networked world, possibly through a revised Two-Step Flow theory which is built around the flow of information to and from the media and public via 'opinion leaders' - which in this case are be represented by bloggers.

Anyway. This is all fascinating stuff and hopefully I'll get the chance to explore some of these ideas further.

Robert also has a book coming out shortly on the internet and politics.

Technorati tags: Daily Telegraph, research, politics, media theory

Social media: The death of spin has been greatly exaggerated

Wendy from Liberate Media has posted on their blog about the fundamental forces within social media require any PR to be as transparent as possible. In particular she cites political communications as a potentially huge beneficiary of this.

Her starting point for the discussion is Gordon Brown’s appointment of former “spin doctor” (as the Telegraph calls him) Stephen Carter to be his principal advisor.

Wendy observes:

“Politics is one subject in particular that is becoming harder and harder to 'control', with so many opinions and arguments being voiced across social media networks. The influence that spin doctors can have on political matters is rapidly being diminished, and in my mind will very soon be a thing of the past. There is no pulling the wool over the public's eyes, when social media offers so much opportunity for the truth to come to light”

I left her a comment saying I totally agree but while this is ostensibly good news for democracy/civil society I had two major concerns.

These are:

1) PR in the UK is still not getting social media. There's little or no industry leadership from the CIPR & PRCA and just look at my previous post on how some of the industry is engaging with the online space by artificially manipulating search rankings - this is still spin, albeit online spin with Google becoming the regulator.

2) Political parties seem to be recognising the value of this transparent medium, but they're turning to advertising to roll out online campaigns. I think this is partly due to tradition but also because PR in the UK is far behind the curve on understanding and implementing social media strategies. What we could then end up with are creative, engaging digital campaigns devised by advertising and marketing firms which look good but aren’t planned or implemented with long-term relationship building in mind.

This is leads us to a potentially dangerous situation where the public (and worse the media) thinking political parties are giving the people a voice, when in fact they disenfranchising them by paying lip-service to participatory democracy.

If this happens then traditional, hard political power hardens at the centre while the public play with digital toys that keep them entertained but no closer to (argubly even further away from) democratic engagement.

That would be a very bad thing indeed.

Technorati tags: public relations, social media, politics, Gordon Brown, Stephen Carter, hard-power, democracy

Does the social web socialise politics?

I had an email from a friend on Friday telling me she was backing Obama in the US elections. She’s not American but said that British politics was boring at the moment - although perhaps it is fairer to stay stagnant when compared to the thrill of an election.

Dave Winer and Doc Searls have some great insights about how US – and by extension, UK – politics could empower the citizen through a change in politicians’ attitudes towards the collective electorate.

Doc suggests that just as in commercial markets, politics is built around three areas:

1.    Transaction
2.    Conversation
3.    Relationship

Again, just as in business the links between all three are disproportionately weighted towards what Doc calls “big money” and away from (disenfranchising) the public/citizens.

The socialisation of the internet, disintermediation of business/politics and empowerment of individuals clearly has the potential to change this.

It all sounds good, however I’m conscious about not equating ‘socialisation’ with ‘socialism’ – although there are strong arguments for taking that line.

Read more from Doc here and Dave here.

There’s so much great political campaign work being pioneered in the US at the moment, but I wonder how much of it will cross the Atlantic in 2009?

Technorati tags: US elections, politics

Research review: Do UK political blogs influence broadsheet newspapers?

I submitted my PR Diploma dissertation at long last this week. It examined whether political bloggers in the UK have an influence on the media agenda of broadsheet newspapers.

I won’t go into the findings in depth as I plan to upload a pdf of the full thesis in due course.

But the findings were interesting and I’ve summarised the main points below.

• The study undertook a longitudinal evaluation of three case studies where it appeared UK political bloggers had influenced the broadsheet’s media agenda. These findings were then compared with data from interviews carried out with key journalists writing about the case studies issues in the MSM.

• The case studies were: the Charity Commission investigation into the Smith Institute; the Labour Party auctioning a copy of the Hutton Report signed by Cherie Blair and Iraqi translators’ asylum status.

• Results suggested that all three case studies displayed some evidence of media agenda-setting. All three cases appeared to act as trigger events (Dear and Rogers, 1996). That is online media events that occurred before the issues in question were picked up by the MSM – thus triggering media coverage.

• It also appeared that in all the case studies influential, high-traffic blogs – or networks of lower-traffic ones – acted as framing devices (Drezner and Farrell, 2004) around the story, pulling together key information and interpreting/analysing issues. This was reinforced by one journalists who admitted in an interview that he used blogs as sources of “comment” and “insight” for stories.

• Despite the above findings, 100% of the journalists interviewed claimed they did not use material from blogs when writing stories, while 50% of journalists said they did not even read blogs.

• Interestingly of the remaining 50% that did read blogs, one journalist indicated that he used blogs for insight into political parties’ grassroots members while another admitted “cross-fertilisation” between an influential blog and his stories.

• The general conclusion was that although on paper there appears – at least – theoretical evidence for media agenda-setting by UK political blogs results from the newsdesk indicate that for the majority, blogs are not a trusted source of news.

• The conclusion speculates this could be either the journalists interviewed are not being entirely open in their answers and that blogs play a bigger role in the newsgathering process or that there is agenda-setting going on but that this agenda-setting process in not linear, direct from blogs to the newsdesk. Instead it may flow indirect to the media agenda through either the policy agenda or public agenda or perhaps through an entirely unknown channel being opened up by the networked world of the internet.

• The thesis suggests further research – particularly from the critical perspective of Two-Step Flow  theory - is necessary to investigate these issues.

I’m hoping to tweak the thesis slightly and submit it as a conference paper in 2008, so if anyone has any feedback I’d love to hear it!

Technorati tags: PR, public relations, research, theory, agenda-setting, newspapers, blogging, politics

Barack Obama is king of the long-tail donations

Interesting to see that Barack Obama is tapping into the long-tail of political donations on the 2008 presidential campaign trail, according to the The Times's Danny Finkelstein.

Via the Demos Greenhouse blog

Can you tell I'm spending Saturday frantically catching up on feeds?

Technorati tags: Barack Obama, political fundraising, long-tail,

Chertoff and Leavitt become US cabinet bloggers

It's not just the British Government who have senior ministers blogging. Rubel reports that "(Michael) Chertoff and (Mike) Leavitt discuss issues facing their departments and occasionally sound off on criticism of their policies."

For a change the US is taking our lead on edemocracy ;)

Study examines political internet campaigning in the UK and US

Apologies for the dearth of new posts around these parts - loads of great stuff happening but work too busy to let me check my feeds regularly!

But I thought I'd definitely flag up a working paper by Nick Anstead and Andrew Chadwick from Royal Holloway University's New Political Communication Unit.

The paper, Parties, Election Campaigning and the Internet: Toward A Comparative Institutional Approach [downloadable here as a pdf] examines the use of the internet comparatively between political institutions in the UK and US.

The description reads:

"This paper argues that a comparative approach to analysing the relationship between technology and political institutions has the potential to offer renewed understanding of the development of the Internet in election campaigning. Taking the different characteristics of political parties and the norms and rules of the electoral environment in the United States and the United Kingdom as an illustration, it suggests that the relationship between technology and political institutions is dialectical. Technologies can reshape institutions, but institutions will mediate eventual outcomes. This approach has the potential to generate a theoretical framework for explaining differences in the impact of the Internet on election campaigning across liberal democracies."

I'm particualrly interested in the author's suggestion that the relationship between technology and institutions is dialectical - and that they are working towards a theory for understanding the relationship.

I haven't read the paper yet (although at 16 pages, it's not a lengthy read) but as far as I know it looks like a valuable study of what the UK can learn from the US in terms of political campaigning on the internet.

Anecdotally I don't think anyone could argue that the US is streets ahead of the UK in this sphere (just look to Labour's poor record) - what the paper hopefully offers is some reasons why and how.

Technorati tags: politics, internet, UK, US, New Political Communications Unit, comparative study

More CampaignTV

There was an article in yesterday's Media Guardian which gives more of an insight into Campaign TV [paywalled] - the left-leaning online video site which I blogged about at the weekend.

Gez Sagar, one of the founders, tells Meg Carter:

"The Labour Party and trades unions make many films ... some of these have recently been made available to a wider audience via YouTube but the quality isn't great and you can't guarantee what other pieces of content you might end up next to."

Uh-oh. Two things spring to mind which Gez might want to consider:

1. 'what demand is there for high-quality campaign videos?' - Webcameron and 18 Doughty Street by Gez's own admission are the most successful british politics video sites and do they offer 'high-quality', party endorsing video content? Erm. No, they're successful because they contain genuine, engaging and interesting content.
    
2. 'you can't guarantee what other pieces of content you might end up next to' - And that is a problem because.... essentially YouTube's ability to distribute its content is a major benefit to anyone wishing to empower its audience rather than a drawback. By giving people the ability to use and personalise your content you're allowing them to evangelise and advocate the cause on your behalf.

Still it's early days and Gez, you know where you can get hold of me.

Technorati tags: Media Guardian, CampaignTV, Gez Sagar

CampaignTV - how long before the left gets the internet?

Following Simon Dickson's tip-off I took a look at Campaign TV -"the first free to view, independently-owned Labour-supporting internet TV channel."

I say took a look, but it was more of a glance to be honest. I completely agree with Simon's thoughts on the new site:

"They’ve clearly got good connections, given the one-to-one interviews with senior Labour figures including the PM, and footage from official events. Most of it, sadly, is standard corporate-video fare: smiling faces, snappy soundbites, muzak.

Will it engage me as a voter? No. ... when we [have] stuff like this, clearly over-edited and over-produced, we automatically disengage. People only create material like this when they’re trying to preach at you. And nobody wants to be preached at."

Simon also points out the site doesn't work in Firefox - oops!

I might be being a bit too picky but I think it shows how much this site in particular doesn't get it. The 'about section' declares proudly:

"CAMPAIGNTV meets the urgent need for a progressive challenge to the dominance of right-leaning political content on the internet. It's the place to find films making a case for the Labour Party, for trade unions and for other progressive campaigns."

I can understand the need for a good left-leaning site to match the Right's 18Doughtystreet
and Webcameron but simply putting up content for the sake of it misses the point that makes Webcameron and 18DS successful: they build dialogue, engage and empower users.

One of the people behind the site is Gez Sagar who is "a former chief press officer for the Labour Party who has worked in PR and campaigning for 20 years." The thing is, those traditionally strong credentials may not help if he isn't up to speed on what is happening in the political online space; how the public expect to be communicated with and what political parties must do to get it right.

Technorati tags: CampaignTV, Labour,  18 Doughty Street, Webcameron, politics

Miliband's blog is back... this time with some friends

Work is manic as per and as a resutl I haven't logged into my personal bloglines account in days.

However, I have just come across the news that Foreign Secretary, David Miliband is back blogging - which is great news.

Even better news is the fact that the site is caleld 'FCO Bloggers' which to me indicates that there is more than one FCO blog. So I has me a little look around.... and lo and behold there's a link to 'All FCO blogs'.

Nice one, Dave! The page declares:

"This blog space provides a place for Ministers and officials to engage in a dialogue with you about international affairs and the work of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. We want these personal blogs to be a genuine sharing of ideas, so we will try to read the comments you post here and respond to the debate."

So it's all starting to look like a really good effort to help open up the FCO to a wider world.

In case you can't read the profiles, the FCO bloggers are:

• David Miliband, Foreign Secretary
• Lindsay Appleby, First Secretary, Brussels
• Sarah Russell, new entrant
• Jim Murphy, Minister for Europe
• Maria Pia Gazzella, Trade Officer, Santiago
• Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, Ambassador to Afghanistan

Hopefully we'll get some really good material from across the FCO's global remit. There's also an FCO YouTube channel and Flickr stream

Technorati tags: FCO, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, David Miliband, blogging, government