Internet meets society

New media new politics?“Information is the currency of democracy” Thomas Jefferson

Dr Craig BellamyVeRSI, University of Melbourne , 9 Aug, 2010

Key Issues

Why is the web important for politics (history) What are its political features? How does politics work in a ‘Web 1.0’ and ‘Web

2.0? (case studies)

History

A post apocalyptic command grid The domain name system (DNS)

Internet Governance: DNS and ICANN

What is DNS (Domain Name System) The Domain Name System (abbreviated DNS) is an Internet directory

service. DNS is how domain names are translated into web addresses , and DNS also controls email delivery. If your computer cannot access DNS, your web browser will not be able to find web sites, and you will not be able to receive or send email etc.

What is ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)

Why is the Internet Political?

Interactivity Open publishing Recent developments, RSS feeds, pod casting,

twitter, facebook, open data…

How does the Internet impact upon the politics?

Setting the agenda in other media

Specific Case Studies

www.S11.org (s11 protests sep. 2000) realjeff.com (1999 Victorian State Elections) EngageMedia G20 Protest’s London Major parties

(archived sites can be found on ‘the Wayback Machine” www.archive.org

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/ (Australia)

S11.org

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/parchive/2000/S2000-Sep-14//www.s11.org/

Logistical organisation of protest (important in terms of bringing diverse groups together)

Bypass traditional media gate keeping The communication of alternative political ideas Influenced how the protest was reported Use of tactical media stunts

Realjeff.com

(archived at the National Libraries Pandora Project)

http://pandora.nla.gov.au/nph-arch/1999/Z1999-Sep-24/http://www.realjeff.com/index.htm

Used the tactic of ‘riding on the back’ of the publicity of www.jeff.com

during the 1999 Victorian State Election

The alternative site perhaps gained more publicity than the authentic site

How are the major parties using the Internet?

www.alp.org.au www.liberal.org.au www.greens.org.au

Concluding Comments Internet first true interactive media. Interactivity

all is’ an underlying principle of the Internet (that must be preserved).

The Internet has dramatically opened up access to political information (Hansards, press releases, newspapers, speeches, party policies, etc.)

Arguably the major broadcasting companies and governments have done very little in terms of innovation on the network (government is usually about downloading forms etc.) most political-communication innovation may be coming from non-government groups