Digital Democracy: Political Systems

Kathy E. Gill11 October 2010

Preliminaries• 3x5 cards – jot down a question or two that

might be used to focus small group discussion. Please put your name on the card, but I won’t reveal your name if I use your question.

• After Alex’s talk, we may have more discussion about digital democracy and technologies before discussing issues raised in our readings

• After lecture/discussion, focus on discussion leaders and project

Warm Up! How A Bill Becomes Law

More Schoolhouse Rock

Lecture/Discussion

• Some Framing Statistics• Digital Democracy (revisit)• Technologies/Terms• Politics (or government) as “business”• Message Customization• Policy Issues• Summary

Then And Now: Web Site Growth

Source: isc.org/solutions/survey

Then And Now: Who’s Online, 1995

• 28.8 million people in the U.S. who are 16 years and older had access to the Internet

• 16.4 million used the Internet• 11.5 million used the Web• 1.51 million had used the Web to buy

something.

Source: ACM

Then And Now: Who’s Online, 2001

Source: Vint Cerf, 20 May 2002

Then And Now: Who’s Online, 2010

Then and Now: Summary

• 1995: 16.4M USA• 2001 : 181M North Americans; ~700M

globally• 2010 : 266M North Americans; 2B globally

In Moving Pictures:

Why These Data Are Relevant:

• “The fragmentation of culture and the recurrent circularity of the hypertext leads to the individualization of cultural meaning in the communication networks. The … decentring of power, and the individualization of experience, are reflected, amplified, and codified by the fragmentation of meaning in the broken mirror of the electronic hypertext—where the only shared meaning is the meaning of sharing the network…”

Manuel Castells as quoted in A new agenda for e-democracy, Oxford Internet Institute, Forum Discussion Paper No. 4, January 2005

Digital Democracy

• “Digital democracy is a kind of political culture, a political variant that must be treated as a complexly coded system for organizing and acting on public and private preferences.” – Howard, p 71

“Coded System”

• Social code• Software code• Legal code

Another Take:

• Democracy is defined by Webster’s as ‘a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation.’ Electronic democracy is simply the use of technology tools to facilitate democratic activities.

• Source: A new agenda for e-democracy, Oxford Internet Institute, Forum Discussion Paper No. 4, January 2005

Electronic Democracy• “E-democracy (…) covers those arrangements by which

electronic communications are used by those with power and the citizens they serve to interact with each other in order to inform and modify the way that power is used. e-Democracy is NOT about paying speeding fines over the Internet (that is e-government); it IS about consulting on whether the speed limit on a particular stretch of road should be raised, lowered or left as it is. It may, one day, be used as a way of empowering citizens in the process of making major national decisions.”

• Source: A new agenda for e-democracy, Oxford Internet Institute, Forum Discussion Paper No. 4, January 2005

Why These Issues Are Important

“The new art or science which the electronic or post-mechanical age has to invent concerns the alchemy of social change…When information moves instantly to all parts of the globe it is chemically explosive.”

- Marshall McLuhan

“Burningly Explosive”

• International Burn A Koran Day• “Ground Zero Mosque”• Links:– Twitter and the IBAKD– Burning the Qur’an: Literally and Figuratively– NYT Profile of Pamela Geller, who ignited the GZM

controversy

• Where is the public sphere in this context?

Technologies/Terms

• Relational Database• Data Mining• Hypermedia• Viral• Gatekeeper• Technological Determinism

Politics As A “Business”

• Discuss:What comes to mind when you hear this phrase? What judgments are you making?

Accenture/Arthur Anderson

• My-Democracy.com (Howard, p38) “Scam”• Current Homepage• “Public Service” Industry• Site purged of “my-democracy” references

(screenshot)

Howard: Customized Web Sites

• What was your reaction to the concept of web site customization: e.g., different views for a woman from Georgia than a woman from Washington?

• Personalization: pluses and minuses?

Customization, Privacy

• Discuss:When and under what conditions should a commercial, private or governmental organization be allowed to gather electronic information about an individual? How can they use that information? What digital rights should reside with the individual?

• Let’s look at McCain and Obama 2008

McCain: Splash = Video

Obama: Spash = $

McCain: One-Step Sign Up

Obama: Two-Step Sign Up

McCain: Post-Sign Up

Obama: Post-Sign Up

Obama: Now See Dashboard

McCain: Not Logged In

McCain: Logged In

Obama: First Page, Not Logged In

Obama: First Page (Initial Account)

Policy Issues

• Lots of issues:– Net Neutrality– Privacy/Security/Digital Signatures– Cryptography– Trademarks, Copyright, Domain Names– Regulatory Framework– Censorship/Filtering

• See InterPlanetary Internet, Internet Society

Summary

• “Digital Democracy” is an evolving concept – elaborate to make sure you’re being understood

• Technology matters. So does law. Disruptive technologies lead to pushback from the powerful.

• Don’t Be Evil should be our motto and the rubric we use to measure others’ efforts.

Going Forward

• Discussion Leader Sign Up– Week 6 : Betsy (TeaParty), Paolo– Week 7 : Gary, Dan – Week 8 : Shane – Week 9 : Andrea, Thor

• Remember: three weekly essays – you should have the first one done no later than week 4 (to pace yourself)

Project

• FactCheckWa.org• Possible tools (check your email for invite

codes)– Storify.com– Curated.by

Blog Action Day: Water

• Consider becoming part of Blog Action Day on 15 October.

• It’s the fourth annual nonprofit event designed to unite the world's bloggers, podcasters and videocasters to discuss the same issue on the same day.

• Bloggers from 116 countries signed on