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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."
in the age of Internet politics, the Web can make or break a candidate
If you ask me, the press and major political parties still have that power. When you are in this industry, it may seem the Web is a new world with new rules, but it's just another technology that exists in the status quo world we have always lived in. And 'smart mob' is just another example of an overblown concept.
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.