Dr. DigiPol

A techPresident comment I posted 5.31.2007

The internet can be used to create global, national, or local campaigns as well as it can be used to create campaigns on any issue or any candidate for any position. Computers have long been called virtual machines. “Virtual” because they can be programmed to do just about anything (except think, so they say). And networked computers are more powerful exponentially raised to the power of the number of computers/nodes/end users connected to it. That is pretty powerful and virtually anything is possible.

The news is buzzing today as Fred Thompson has quit "Law & Order" in order to launch a presidential bid. He has also indicated he plans to use the internet extensively in his campaign. In a blog post to Pajama Media last week, Thompson wrote, "So, I hear you all have been talking about me." And thus begins his online conversation with voters. Clearly, the tone is intimate and personal, just as a blog post should be.

And it seems he really does understand the power of the internet to transform politics.

At the risk of losing my head, I will tumble into the fray with a response to the Queen’s Screed presented in the latest issue of the Turner Report. Though the Queen and I have been friends for more than fifteen years, I submit she often looks at political communications through the lens of the Nixon-Kennedy debate, while I see it through the monitor as I sit clicking in a coat I borrowed from Howard Dean. And the ultimate irony, perhaps, is that my doctoral thesis was on presidential use of television to manipulate public opinion. I know televised politics. Televised politics was a friend of mine. And the internet is no televised politics.

Tom Friedman says the internet is the dial tone of the 21st Century. Really? To me, “dial tone” conjures up images of one-to-one conversations over a dedicated line. But the internet is an omni conversational dynamic platform. One-to-one, sure, but also one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many conversations are also possible. So the use of such a round world metaphor as a dial tone by Mr. Friedman seems most inappropriate.

This has been another instant reflection brought to you from the Personal Democracy Forum by DrDigiPol.

Larry Lessig kicks off the Personal Democracy Forum today. his ultra slick slide show and presentation on the incongruities between tight copyright controls and journalism. we have to ensure our rights to use news footage from news networks in our reporting on politics and how the media covers politcs.
It was a great presentation […]

(Iraq the Casbah, Part Un can be found here)
The shareef dont like it. And apparently neither does the DoD. In a ruling that conjures up shades of the Ayatollah Khomeni’s edicts outlawing rock and roll music in Iran, the Department of Defense has banned soldiers in Iraq from accessing MTV.com and Pandora.com, along […]

In celebration of World Press Freedom Day yesterday, the Bush Administration has made two policy decisions regarding media coverage of the Iraq war that fly squarely in the face of a free press. First, new military rules require soldiers to clear all content with superiors before posting them to their blogs and this rule may be applied to email, as well. Second, the Army’s 1st Information Operations Command new handbook lists journalists alongside al Qaeda as a threat. Add to these the fact that the US continues to hold two photojournalists prisoner without charge and we begin to see a picture of an Administration that is aggressively assaulting our rights to a free press.

A new study reported on MSNBC yesterday, Participation on Web 2.0 sites remains weak, makes the claim that Web 2.0 is not really taking off becuase the contribution rates on YouTube and Flickr are incredibly small. Most of us are voyeurs, rather than contributors.

The study, conducted by Hitwise, I believe misses the mark on several levels. First, and foremost, Web 2.0 is not just about contributing content, it is about sharing content. And sharing requires a contributor and a viewer. So the fact that most of us only view so-called Web 2.0 sites does not mean those people are not an integral part of the Web 2.0 world.