Why I hope that the internet will be good for politics

Charlie Beckett reports from Demos and the reasons why he believes that the internet is good for politics.

1. It reduces the barriers to getting involved in political activism and political media - either independently or through political parties

2. It enables political parties or movements to mobilise support (eg Barrack Obama) much more efficiently

3. It allows political parties and activists to start to escape from mainstream media agenda setting

4. It allows much quicker and more open reform of political parties themselves

5. It allows Government to open itself up to the public and so become more transparent and therefore, both more democratic and efficient

I have just left a post in the comments section

I think that all the five points are valid but it worries me as to whether this is really happening in the world of politics.
The test will be next year’s election.I hope sincerely that the internet allows the majority of people to re connect with the political process and that we can have informed debate about our future options.
I think though that it will take more than a pure platform to do that.Politics needs to be seen as being transparent,democratic,open sourced for the internet to play an important role

Objectivity,subjectivity and transparency

Objective journalism is what it is all about.The Journalist should remain impartial,attempt to give a balance view and give all sides the chance to respond.

I was interested to read this article by Gina Chen over at Nieman and she raises a good point

Objectivity is unattainable in my mind unless robots begin to replace journalists But I think it’s a goal worth shooting for. Journalists should, I believe, try with all their might to show all sides (not just two) of a story, to be fair, to be accurate, to hold their own opinions in check in the telling. Even viewpoints we disagree with should get the airing of open discourse.

However she talks of the link between subjectivity and transparency

By not telling people what I thought or felt or believed, I may have been avoiding the near occasion of subjectivity, but I wasn’t being a better journalist. I wasn’t building trust with readers. Refraining to tell readers where I was coming from didn’t make me objective. It just failed to make me transparent.

Is transparency always a good thing?

Transparency is not always the best olution for government.Not something that journalists necessarily want to hear.

Lawrence Lessig writes in New Republic recounts that

In 2006, the Sunlight Foundation launched a campaign to get members of Congress to post their daily calendars on the Internet. "The Punch-Clock Campaign" collected pledges from ninety-two candidates for Congress, and one of them was elected.

but he considers that

We are not thinking critically enough about where and when transparency works, and where and when it may lead to confusion, or to worse. And I fear that the inevitable success of this movement--if pursued alone, without any sensitivity to the full complexity of the idea of perfect openness--will inspire not reform, but disgust. The "naked transparency movement," as I will call it here, is not going to inspire change. It will simply push any faith in our political system over the cliff.

Lessons for home perhaps?

Ht-Robin Hamman