Online Reporting, Discussion, Activism and Emerging Democracies :: Internet Blogs Communities Politics

Online Reporting, Discussion, Activism and Emerging Democracies In the rise to prominence of weblogs and other tender software, Jim Moore and Joi Ito see a fundamental transformation in how people act, move and arrive decisions. In essays first produce in 2003 - Jim Moores The sec king Rears Its Beautiful Head1 and Joi Itos rising Democracy2 - they paint hopeful, if roundtimes vague, pictures of how Internet communities can supply us techniques and tactics that could radically change real-world politics. Where Im uncomfortable with both essays is the event that they extrapolate from the behavior of the people currently using the Internet to fall upon generalizations about how a larger world might delectation these tools. My use for the past few years, helping spread information technology in growth nations, has convinced me that technology transfer is much more intricate than bringing tools to people who previously lacked them. I think its worth taking a close look a t what happens when we try to include the developing world in the models Ito and Moore put forward - in other words, Is on that point room for the third world in the second superpower? Moores Second Superpower suggests that a group of people are changing majority rule by using a three-part model for social engagement - bundle information, comment and debate, then act. These three steps are all beingness transformed by novel technologies. succession we continue to be inform by mass media, were also getting information from alternative media, published cheaply on the Net, and from personal accounts in weblogs. Were debating and commenting in entirely new ways, enabled by weblogs, discussion groups, instant messaging and mailing lists. And were discovering that these tools also make some forms of action more efficient fundraising, protesting, and organizing face to face meetups.Itos Emergent Democracy focuses on the third, action phase, and suggests that forms of decision-making emerging from the world of weblogs might fly the coop to a viable form of direct democracy. In the way that ideas energise from personal networks, to social networks, to large, political networks, reinforced by positive feedback loops, Joi sees a possible path for decision-making to move from individual thinking to group action. While Moore and Ito have justifiable enthusiasm about the phenomena were seeing emerge from connect communities - the growth of weblogs as an alternative to mainstream media, the success of grassroots campaigning in the United States - this enthusiasm needs to be tempered by some skepticism about who is currently using social software, and who has potential to use it.