When viral campaigns catch a cold

Greenpeace’s recent viral campaign highlights some of the risks of eDemocracy. Creating a website to let the public instantly email 57 Labour MPs opposing the new Heathrow runway might seem like a good idea - but it demonstrates the risks associated with the over-enthusiastic use of digital media and how bringing old-style campaign strategies into the new digital era can be fraught with potential pitfalls.

The network effect

The internet is a network. It is the viral, multiplier effect, reaching out to many quickly that is its true power. It is the sum of the parts, not individuals, that can transform. The power of the network was seen yesterday as a factor in the government’s climb-down on MP’s expenses and is inherent in President Obama’s clarion cry for greater individual and civic responsibility.

The Ministry of Truth?

Time was that countries at war could use the idea of national security as a justification for media censorship: ‘careless talk costs lives’ they would claim, suggesting that decisions about how to impart information should be left to the professionals. Until the advent of 24-hour rolling news coverage, this status was more-or-less preserved: Al Jazeera amongst other networks have challenged this orthodoxy during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, enabling viewers to submit video and commentary from behind armistice lines while more traditional journalists are embedded in army units, or required to submit their stories to military scrutiny before broadcast.

A Bad Start to the Year?

What happens when one of the government luminaries driving eDemocracy initiatives decides to call it a day? Those who remain start to assess the implications. Emerging from their discussion is a sense of frustration – albeit that this has been expressed in muted terms. Big Brother is Watching You.

Post election engagement - Can the administration match the campaign?

2008 will surely be remembered as a landmark year for politics. When ‘change’ and the simple phrase ‘yes we can’ were repeated via every means possible by Barrack Obama and his supporters to great effect. The potential of new technology to drive political campaigning, not just complement traditional avenues for mobilising the electorate, became clear. The campaign used viral networks, small, dispersed donations, and regular communications with supporters, via virtually every kind of technology – old and new – to spread the word. The questions now being asked are how engagement and transparency using technology can work in government. It is great for politics that people want to hear from politicians but can this momentum continue indefinitely?

Rebuilding engagement requires motivation, access and trust

The Governance of Britain review is about "renewing the relationships that we have with each other as citizens and with the Government". This necessarily involves consideration of the mechanisms of citizen engagement and it is hard to imagine anyone brave enough to argue that these are currently in a health state. If the challenge is to engage (or re-engage) the democratically distant and disinterested then we must consider the nature of engagement and, as this article argues, issues of individual motivation to get involved, trust at a civic level and barriers to effective access.

Third Digital Dialogues report released

Digital Dialogues is an independent review into the use of online technologies to enhance engagement between central government and the public.This third report in the Digital Dialogues series from the Hansard Society shows that government can successfully use the internet to engage, consult and build public trust, providing that it follows a few simple rules.

Not the Obama Girl!

The No. 10 website’s latest initiative – Number10TV  - has been criticised by the press before it has even been re-launched. The basic premise is that it is a publicity stunt – designed to shore up Gordon Brown’s appeal rather than to engage citizens in any meaningful way.

Newsnight carried the story in its programme last night (I was a talking head – it can be downloaded via the previous link), suggesting that even when British politicians use new technologies, they don’t do as well as their American counterparts.

Political blogging - just for the Opposition?

A recent article in the Guardian reported that New Statesman co-owner Mike Danson has invested in LabourHome. His aim is to mobilise grass roots activism on the left which, until now, has not managed to gain the kind of online traction that popular rightwing/anti-establishment blogs such as Iain Dale, ConservativeHome and Guido Fawkes have achieved.

It would appear to be a lot easier to run a successful blog in opposition than when your party is in government. It is harder still when your party is an unpopular government. Talking up those in power doesn’t seem to be a successful recipe to attract readers, viewers or listeners. If the blog is a tool most successfully used in opposition then it will be interesting to see what impact the injection of new capital, resources and energy into LabourHome has on its popularity and reach.

e-Petitions planned for the House of Commons

The Leader of the House of Commons, Rt Hon Harriet Harman MP has announced plans to develop a Parliamentary e-Petitions system. The popularity of the 10 Downing Street e-Petitions site highlights a public appetite for political participation, despite the fact that disengagement is increasingly becoming the norm. The Hansard Society has long argued that public disconnection stems from government's failure to develop suitable processes for participation.