Simonsays

Sao Paulo, risotto and anarchism

So I'm here in Sao Paulo for a couple of days doing some social media training for Brazil's PR trade body, Aberje, as mentioned in my previous post and while I'm here I've been catching up my Edel-colleagues.

Yesterday I had a fantasic lunch with our Digital Manager, Thiane Loureiro at a restaurant where you can buy everything in the place. We had a great discussion over risotto and beer about social media, PR, relationship building, sustainable communications and anarchism - but despite having many shared interests I'm sure I keep mis-pronouncing her name! I think it's pro: Tee-arn-uh. Thiane - am I right?

And then today I visited Edelman's rapidly expanding Sao Paulo office to meet the rest of the digital team. Our office is on the twentieth floor so you get quite a view from the window:

Anyway, I sat with the team and we talked about monitoring brands online, the difference between digital advertising and digital PR, the added value of relationship building in the online space and they took me through a couple of case studies - all of which were really cool, well thought-out and executed programmes.

I think it is really cool to see that even in another (pretty different) market that the fundamental ideas behind delivering online PR campaigns remain the same  - and more importantly are successful.

The reason for this - I decided today - is that aside from a few cultural differences, people are people throughout the world. They are largely driven by the same desires, needs, likes and dislikes.

By putting them (indeed, us!) at the heart of our work then we can finally start to make meaningful connections with society on a global scale. And that can only be a good thing, can it not?

I'll end this post with a top quality Brazilian tune, Sex-O-Matic by Edu K. The Amazonian natural world video is amazing too. Check it, as they say:

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

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

What anarchism can teach us about organisations in the internet age

I’m reading one of those great Very Short Introductions to… from Oxford University Press at the moment about Anarchism. I cannot recommend it highly enough as a thought-provoking bridge between political theory and changes the internet is creating for business and society.

For example, it's fascinating to learn that at the core of anarchist thinking about healthcare, education, business etc is the notion of small, self-organising communities with little or no central control. Compare this to how the internet operates and a number of parallels become clear.

Tellingly, the author – noted British anarchist Colin Ward – writes:

“anarchist concepts will be continually reinvented or rediscovered, in fields never envisaged by the propagandists of the past, as people in so many areas of human activity search for alternatives to the crudities and injustices of both free-market capitalism and bureaucratic managerial socialism.”

Building on this drive for an alternative perspective for organisational theory, Ward outlines what he believes would be the four defining pillers for an anarchist theory of organizations:

1. Voluntary
2. Functional
3. Temporary
4. Small

I find this mind blowing. Every single one of these fits almost perfectly the different types of organising taking place on the internet.

1. Voluntary – read Benkler’s Wealth of Networks: the idea of people giving their time and expertise for free or on a voluntary basis is revolutionisng production – both of knowledge and physical goods.
2. Functional – slightly more vague, but suffice to say that while design is important to an extent, good functionality and usability are key to the success of internet tools. Take for example the basic simplicity of sites like of Wikipedia and del.icio.us – they might not be pretty but they do the job successfully.
3. Temporary – While this may seem an odd choice of criteria at first fi you clarify what Ward means then it makes perfect sense. Rather than meaning short-lived, Ward uses the term to indicate a willingness to change; to be shaped by the ends of the user or community. This is a key proponent of web 2.0 tools. All ‘social’ websites by their definition are open to the requirements of the community.
4. Small - again this criteria needs further clarification. As Ward suggests in the quotation about, the ideas of anarchists are perpetually being re-shaped to meet current social, political and economical conditions. Ward specifies small as a key criteria as he talks only of the offline world where anarchist initaitves need to remain small in order to be sustainable. The internet reduces all barriers to scalability and supports many small-scale communities or one large one.

So what does this all mean for us as digital strategists...? I haven’t yet worked that out (and would welcome any suggestions) but ultimately I think this starts to offer us ways of applying established political (anarchist) theories to the online world.

Perhaps we can even use this information to guide our clients more successfully through the social and  business changes they are experiencing. Maybe not mention that it is based on anarchist theory, eh?

Technorati tags: anarchism, political theory, internet, organisational change

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

Downing Street's digital guru: an interesting choice?

This week’s PR Week reports [paywalled] that Prime Minister Gordon Brown has hired former MD of the London-based commercial radio station LBC as:

“head of digital comms, with a brief to overhaul Prime Minister Gordon Brown's lacklustre web strategy. It is understood more hires could be on the way as the Government prepares for the first general election to be fought largely over the internet.”

Interesting choice.

A quick Google trawl turns up nothing much. Mark has no Wikipedia entry - although there’s an interesting Iain Dale blog post from 2006 that suggests Mark was nearly parachuted in for Labour as the Bromley by-election candidate.

Apparently he was already advising “Downing Street and the Labour Party on new media (that's the Interweb to you and me)” back then.

I look forward to seeing what developments emerge.

Technorati tags: Downing Street, Mark Flanagan, digital strategy

*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

The internet and ideology - introduction

Apologies in advance to those who work with me for I am about to post briefly about post-modernism; more specifically I’m going to write a post about modernity and what comes afterwards.

A lot of people – IMHO – talk about the specific changes taking place in business or education or politics as a result of the internet and social web; they may even highlight specific changes that seem to be taking place in, for example, consumer behaviour. But what about the changes taking place at the level above – at the level of the cultural and social ideologies that shape our wider political, economic and public sphere?

I only ask because I’m reading John Schwarzmantel’s Age of Ideologies which argues that the ‘ideologies’ – political, social etc – that have largely shaped our business, poltics, social behaviour etc are a product of a very specific phase of history: modernity.

As we’re now in the age of post-modernity these ideologies (arising directly from the American/French revolutions) need re-shaping. Schwarzmantel also suggests the concept of ideology itself may need to be revised wholesale to accommodate the fragmented world of post-modernity.

So let’s hold it there. The reason I’m blogging this is because Schwarzmantel’s view of the rise of modernity struck some chords with what’s happening now as the internet impacts on politics, economics, society etc. So I thought I’d look at the origins of modernity as outlined by Schwarzmantel and see if his conclusions about the transition from the pre-modern into the modern 200 years ago can be applied to what’s happening in our internet-enabled world now and spot parallels or patterns.

Schwarzmantel discusses the effects of modernity on three areas: society, politics and economics. Over a series of forthcoming posts I’ll look at each of these areas in-depth.

More to follow….

Technorati tags: Age of Ideologies, Ideology, John Schwarzmantel, Internet, Theory

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

Some official and personal Trust Barometer highlights

Following today's highly successful trust barometer launch I thought I'd stick some of the official - and unofficial - key insights into a post and share it with you - although you definitely have a look at the Trust Barometer site which has a pdf of the main findings as well as a video of the full launch event.

So official highlights of the report (which is released in full next week) include:

1. Trust in business is higher than government in 14 of 18 countries. The US is experiencing the widest divide.
2. Twenty-five-to-34-year-old opinion elite, surveyed for the first time this year, tend to trust business even more than their older counterparts.
3. Trust in media as an institution is at a high point in the study's history.
4. Mainstream media are the most widely used sources of information about a company.
5. Social media is on the rise, particularly in the BRIC countries.

My personal highlights were:

1. The top three global *media* brands were.... BBC, CNN and Google
2. Wikipedia was the second most trusted source of information
3. High levels of trust in NGOs across the board

I'm sure there's more coverage of the findings on Technorati and our European President and CEO, David Brain has a fuller round-up over at Sixty Second View.

I also had a good discussion with Neville Hobson about how the concept of 'trust' is changing/has changed. It's a fluid concept and personally I'm certain that what trust means to younger elites is very different than older elites.

On top of that I've been thinking of late about what the media and the social web means for civil society and democracy. Some of these thoughts have been co-agulating and spurred on by the NGO findings - especially in BRIC countries.

I'll hopefully have some more thoughts about these issues soon.

Technorati tags: Edelman, Edelman Trust Barometer, NGOs, civil society

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

Another web 2.0 coup for the ad industry

I've just seen Colin Byrne's post on the main UK political parties plans for online campaigning.

Derpessingly, it seems that Labour and the Tories will be turning to ad agencies for their digital work. No digital PR work on the cards... for yet, at least.

Authenticity and trust are set to be major themes for online political campaigns which is interesting as it is starting to look as if the ad and marekting industries are turning their reputations around through their "authentic" online work. Meanwhile many in the UK's PR industry still struggle to shake their reputation as 'spinners'.

Technorati tags: politics, advertising, public relations

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

Imagine a world where everybody can write the news

There's an interesting post on the BBC Editor's blog at the moment in which BBC News website editor, Steve Herrmann, explains the editing decisions which led to a moment in which the late Benazir Bhutto told Sir David Frost that Osama Bin Laden had been killed being edited out of footage used.

Herrmann explains:

"Under time pressure, the item producer responsible for publishing the video on the BBC website edited out the comment, with the intention of avoiding confusion. The claim appeared so unexpected that it seemed she had simply mis-spoken. However, editing out her comment was clearly a mistake, for which we apologise, and it should not have happened. There was no intention on our part to distort the meaning of the interview, and we will endeavour to replace the edited version currently available via our website, with the original interview as broadcast by Al-Jazeera, which, in the meantime, you can find on YouTube here."

Personally, I think their explanation is insufficient but that's not what interests me here.

What is fascinating is a suggestion by one of the commenters (someone called Kendrick Curtis if you;re interested) who suggests the BBC publish a 'page history' for news stories on their site.

Curtis suggests that if:

"every published version of an article was available via a link from the page (and each revision had hardlinks for deep-linking purposes) then it would be thoroughly obvious when a revision was made. New revisions could even carry a tagline to indicate what had changed between the previous version and this one."

Now that strikes me as a brilliant and hugely radical thing to do. Except it's not that radical as it sounds to me like the edits History page on Wikipedia. Add to that a Discussion section on BBC news stories like Wikipedia's Discussion and you have a near perfect system for improving the authority of news stories.

You do so through building the news round social knowledge. I won't go into a deep definition of 'social knowledge here and now but David Weinberger's intention for the phrase is the way in which Wikipedia accepts up front that there is no definitive version of the truth in the same way there's no definitive version of the news.

Social knowledge allows a record of the multifarious voices in any situation (news story) to be heard and mapped out, ultimately providing us a slightly messy if not better and more accurate version of reality. See pp. 140-147 in Weinberger's Everything is Miscellaneous.

However, I don't know how likely the BBC - or any other 'traditional' media outlet would be to implement the idea. As Weinberger points out:

"A similar delaminating of authority and knowledge would have serious consequences fo traditional sources of information because their economic value rests on us believing them."

Technorati tags: BBC Editors, censorship, social knowledge, David Weinberger

*UPDATED* Goldsmiths Futures of the News Part 2

The second panel of the afternoon featured political bloggers, Guido Fawkes and Recess Monkey, Guardian Associate Editor, Michael White and freelance journalist, Nick Jones.

This was far and away the best panel of the afternoon in terms of quality of debate. And admissions by bloggers that journalists now tipped them off about unpublishable stories shows just how far the Goldsmiths programme needs to go with its research to catch-up with the new media.

Nick Jones’ presentation also gave the audience a sharp wake-up call. Nick challenged Ofcom research findings delivered in one of the morning sessions as “complacent” and warned that the regulator and media industry in general that they risked utterly losing out in a rapidly changing media world.

Nick’s argument ran along the lines of Ofcom doing little to adapt its position as regulator of media silos in world where convergence is happening at a frightening pace. Citing

18 Doughty Street

as an example, Nick asked how Ofcom could deal with a world where TV delivered via the internet is entirely outside of the regulator’s remit?

This was all very interesting, as I overheard the conference chair tell Mr Ofcom that his findings were very important and would be quoted a lot in the future! Or maybe not…