The Art of Politics, or how we learned to stop worring and love the net.
The use of the internet to further political education and discussion can be seen to be divided into arenas defined by their ammount and type interactivity; they are defined by the degree to which user have access to infomation and controll over the discourse. These three sites that I use as examples are each distinct in the way in which they empower and inform the user and each would bolster a different stye of democracy as defined by van Dijk in the chapter Models of Democracy and Concepts of Communication.
City of SeattleIf you live in or around the municipality of Seattle this site will tell you every thing you need to know about your local government. From the city council, to the city services like the fire department, arts and cultural affairs, the mayors office, this portal gives you the contact info for any thing you might need any the corrct proceedure for taking advantage of some of them. For example, if you feel your civil rights have been violated by unfair hiring practices or any other reason, the correct way to file a complain and take advantage of the bureauracray is laid out for you. In this way the site tries to make the complicated proceedings more transparent.
This site is a prime example of consultation as a mode of ICT, it provides much infomation in an easy to use manner in the style of the contained center as the source of the supplied information and the information that shared and distributed is under the controll of the center but the individule user choose what information to access.
e.thePeopleThis site is a great support for individules wishing to get involved in participatory democracy, the style where the state of democracy is brought about by debates and conversations. Here user have the opportunity to get involved in discussions, take polls, sign petitions and letters, access infomation about their representatives and how to contact them. The site doesn't seem to be large enought yet to include many features about local politics but it is concievable that it will expand to have more local options.
This site follows the information exchange pattern of conversation, in that while they share a medium the user also controlls most of the subject matter, time and speed of the information. The online discussion are user driven, the poles are created by the user, the petitions and letter were written by the users. The only way in which this site falls short is that it isn't completely interactivve, the medium is not in the hands of the users. Say someone wanted to iradically change some format, the only way they could do so would be to go through the owners of the site. While they may or may not be amenable to the change, the complete controll isn't there. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing, it just differentiats the site from our next example.
Demosphere Wiki ProjectThe goal of the demosphere project is to develop a system of global democracy from the ground up. The core of the project is the development, implementation and use of the Demosphere software - a tangible vehicle that enables citizens to connect with and impact their society in revolutionary ways. -from the
While this site is still a work in progress the essential idea seems to be rebuilding the concept of democracy and organization and creating (opensource!) software that will help build and maintain that democracy. The main features that set this off from other sites willl most likely be the ammount of controll users have over the medium. The discussion boards that support the project to date are run on wiki, and while the normative nature of social interaction prevents them from doing so in theory any user can make drastic and major changes to te wiki. This site asks the users to help construct it (free labor style) and help monitor it. It's information exchange is conversational and I think it hits the las level of interactivity, that of intelligence of contexts and shared understanding. But I'm not ready to defend that with a concrete argument.
Politics on Lineanother political portalthis might be nicepolitical Portal (called speak out?)http://www.politicalresources.net/http://etches.net/http://democracy.mkolar.org/WebActivism.htmlVirtual Activist 2.0 guide to action on the net ( a little dated)access2democracyPoliical Science Degrees
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