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Howard Rheingold on Using the Internet in Politics
Roland Piquepaille writes "The latest issue of BusinessWeek Magazine, dated March 29, 2004, contains a special report, 'Click The Vote,' which states that 'in the age of Internet politics, the Web can make or break a candidate.' The online version of this report includes an interview of Howard Rheingold, 'A Major Change in the Political Equation.' This overview contains selected excerpts about what is the essential impact of the Internet on politics today or what are the benefits to using the Internet in politics. Finally, if you want to discover the universe of Smart Mobs, be sure to visit regularly the Smart Mobs collective weblog."
Like the German cannibal who met and ate a willing victim he found on the net?
"If you think nobody cares if you're alive, try missing a couple of car payments." Earl Wilson
"Social theorist Howard Rheingold predicts that power in the Information Age will coalesce around groups of networked people who organize behind a single idea, from politics to fashion, and connect using the Internet and cell phones. He calls them Smart Mobs, and he sees them starting to take shape." Sounds a bit like /.'ers /.'ing
Given how fast bogus rumours such as the teddy bear virus move around the internet, and how hard they are to kill, the internet represents and easy way to anonymously disseminiate dis-information about a candidate. Imagine the same crowd who thump forward buttons without reading the message sending a bogus picture of a presidential candidate in a photoshopped picture. Oh, wait, that really happened..
It would seem that the internet's anonymity, lack of authentication, and high-susceptibility to automation makes it easy for groups or issues to appear more poular and populous than they really are. There is no gaurantee that the "thousands" writing in support of some position aren't one person or even one non-U.S. citizen.
I wonder when some pressure group will use spammer's tricks (zombie machines and scripts that spew thousands of automated messages) to flood political forums, blogs, write-in campaigns etc.
I'm not saying that the internet is not a wonderous medium for publishing ideas and sharing insights into pressing issues, only that it represents a potentially corruptible, biased sample on popular opinion.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
I think the benefits of integrating the internet into political campaigns have always been pretty simple and obvious. For one thing, it gives voters the opportunity to get a much more detailed look into candidates. Televised debates are always limited by time (and censors) and printed information is always limited by space (and censors), but in the online world people can really dig in to the nitty-gritty.
There are also times when a candidate doesn't answer all the questions voters have in their minds. Online campaign sites give them opportunities to really interact back and forth. Potential voters can ask questions and candidates (or their PR people) can answer back quickly.
Online sites also allow for much larger forums of debate and collaboration for campaigns. Rallies can quickly be arranged or mini-campaign fundraisers can be held across town or across the country without having direct contact with the campaign staff.
And these are just the obvious benefits-- most of which, I've already seen put to good use.
KappaStone
For those who don't remember President Truman (probably 99% of the people here), he was an incumbent underdog running for reelection against Thomas Dewey in 1948. The polls showed Dewey winning by a large margin, to the point that one of the New York papers preprinted their post-Election Day issue with the now-infamous headline Dewey Beats Truman. Truman won the election. It turned out the pollsters were doing their work by telephone, at a time when a significant number of voters still didn't have them. Because their polling methodology was flawed, the results were, as well.
What does this have to do with Dean? Simply this: the people who get out and vote, especially in primaries, are not the high tech Meet Upsters that drew so much attention. While the techsters are more than willing to contribute online (just another form of online shopping), fewer are willing to get out and talk to their neighbors and fellow voters (as opposed to taking a field trip to another state for a day or two), much less actually do the grunt work involved in actually going out and voting.
How many of you who email Congress at the drop of a hat have taken the time and postage to mail a letter to your local Congresscritter (snail mail is taken more seriously by Congressional staffers)? How many of you who went to a Meet Up actually went to the polls and voted?
Until folks understand that technology is an enabling tool, not a magic bullet, politics as usual will continue to be the norm. And, until folks understand that the vast majority of voters in this country are not looking at who's using the sexiest technology, but who's pushing the right buttons, the techogeeks will continue to be confined to the infrastructure, rather than the policy making area.
That brings the unique capability of the Internet to connect people with shared interests, together with the ability to perform some kind of action in the face-to-face world...
One of the problems with this mirrors the real world scenario, except that it allows for it to happen much faster. Being that people tend to gravitate towards others who share their beliefs and ideals more easily. Doing this gives them bolsters their opinion that "They are Right", and they tend to shut out opposing views.
Of course, it can be argued that the opposite is also true. That the internet allows people to more easily find other viewpoints and expand their knowledge. Nevertheless, it is much harder (perhaps by subconscious choice) to find opposing viewpoints, and give a requisite amount of credibility to them - one must be trying to prove themselves wrong, or at least see if they can, and a great number of people do not like to be proven wrong - no matter how far fetched or unfounded their ideas may seem.
If you ask me, the press and major political parties still have that power.
This is true right now. However, this will eventually begin to change. Just because the article overstated things abit does not change the validity of the point it is trying to make.
Eventually, paper publication and television broadcast popularity will begin to dwindle as people can more effectly replace those media forms with internet content (of many different types).
In addition to changing how candidates market themselves, it inernet also might change who is electable. Because it is easier to create and distribute online content to the masses, third/obscure partie members and independents will (hopefully) have a better chance in the US government.
Back-in-the-day the dot-coms had an amazing array of metrics: it's hits - no, it's page-views, no - it's eyeballs, it's stickyness, it's repeat visitors, it's burn-rate...
Of course we look back and find it amusing that profit was never a metric.
This conference was more of the same. Lots of metrics and requirements tossed about (money raised, page views, video clips on your site, etc.) but the currency of politics is a vote and votes didn't seem to be dicussed much as a metric.
The hype was there. Once again I heard that "the iinternet changes everything" and about the need to be a "first-mover". We heard repeated comments about how the great Dean and his sidekick Trippi had come down from the mount to show us to the promised internet land and stories about the amazing internet campaign to get Clark to run. But where are they now? Clark merely dropped out but following a butt-kicking up and down the campaign trail, Dean's head was handed to him on a platter. This is the advantage of using the internet??
In fact, it was almost as instructive to see who was not well represented: people from the Bush and Kerry campaigns. I guess they are too busy getting actual votes.
Sure, the internet is becoming a more important tool in politics and it was fun meeting the techies but at the end of the conference my colleagues and I had exactly the same reaction: we've been here before.
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"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
Dean launched an unprecedented internet-based effort to recruit and mobilize supporters around the country. It really showcased the power of the net and helped to quickly push Dean to front-runner status. But even with all that support and publicity, Dean didn't win a single primary.
Well before the "I have a scream" speech, Dean's fate was sealed in large part due to the excessive publicity and daily coverage he received as the front-runner. It seems unlikely that any candidate can hold up for months on end prior to the elections under that kind of scrutiny without taking a few missteps.
The internet can certainly be a powerful promotional tool, but too much publicity can be a bad thing.
-kgj
Compare and contrast: CBS, New York Times, LA Times, Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, Al-Jazari... take your pick. Do you see unbiased news on these outlets?
The only problem that I see is that the Internet speeds up the trend that more and more people can find whatever isolated niche they like, where they won't have to be bothered by the uncomfortable reality that others don't think they way they do.
Don't worry, I think most politicians already send your emails straight to the bit bucket.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.