Comments on: Social media and democracy

By: Humaniform » How to Blog about your employer: let me count the ways: Civil Serf

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:02:29 +0000

[...] probably stay with the topic of Civil Serf for a few days – as there’s an interesting debate [...]

By: How to Blog about your employer: let me count the ways: Civil Serf | The Wardman Wire

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 15:02:04 +0000

[...] probably stay with the topic of Civil Serf for a few days – as there’s an interesting debate [...]

By: Rest in Peace Civil Serf « Simon McManus

Rest in Peace Civil Serf « Simon McManus — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:44:53 +0000

[...] blogs can improve collaboration within businesses. The same can surely be said for Government. As Emma Mulqueeny Says [...]

By: Mine’s a coComment #3 | content to be different

Mine’s a coComment #3 | content to be different — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:07:12 +0000

[...] Emma’s: Are we in danger of seeing the noo meeja through Old Media and Old Political eyes. [...]

By: Mulqueeny

Mulqueeny — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:10:25 +0000

Thank you for your kind words and encouragement, Simon. You are very right about big ‘P’ politics and social media assumptions – will be v interesting to see what happens in this space over the next 12 months (watching the mayoral campaign too – think that will get quite fun!)

By: simonmcmanus

simonmcmanus — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 15:42:31 +0000

I really like this post, I have also subscribed to your blog.

Its really interesting how politicians always talk about engaging with the public and reducing apathy but when given such an amazing opportunity manage to get it so wrong.

As with all this kind of things I suspect adoption will only kick in when politicians can see the opposition reaping the benefits.

keep up the good work.

Simon

By: Paul Caplan

Paul Caplan — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 08:56:06 +0000

Are we in danger of seeing the noo meeja through Old Media and Old Political eyes. e-petitions, online consultations et al are just politics, comms and pr in shiny new clothes. even leaving aside any cynicism that might suggest that nothing’ll happen, it is still at its heart a top-down, Oliver Twistish set of relations.

The real power of all this lies in the wiki-effect where politics is taken out of the hands of the politicians and reworked at the local (or local-virtual levels). Then politicians, policy makers and thinkers have to come to the people who are networking and delivering networked services, rather thgan inviting them for tea and biscuits in Whitehall.

As more and more communities use these tools to empower them to develop and deliver innovative and powerful network-effect solutions and strategies – with or without Political support, the more Government (big and small g) will have to run to catch up.

People with wikified, wisdom of crowds, opens source content power to reframe debates, create new ideologies and cultural practices will not passively accept ‘consultations’ with an ‘e’ tagged on the front. They’ll be too busy changing politics and society from below.

This of course does not mean that a Government cannot impose law from above, it just changes the legitimacy of that law and its political or electoral base. Hegemony, Gramsci called it. If only he had put an ‘e’ in front of it.

By: Mike Harmon

Mike Harmon — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 17:00:20 +0000

I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you.

Mike Harmon