6 Dec 2006
Summary
Is the internet fuelling a crisis in the relationship between politics and voters? blogging: an uncontrollable medium, tradition of governments wanting to manage the media, messiness of blogosphere and its relation to democracy, managing of ‘the message’, freedom of speech, politicians using blogs to manage their own messages, steering of blog conversations, blogs to manage agendas / messages, legislation to control hate speech, do blogs reflect society or only other bloggers? is blogging influencing the mainstream media? blogs as ‘small democracy’: will they ever steer ‘big democracy’? terrestrial and internet governance, internet regulatory bodies / commercial interests, transparency of elected representatives, ‘messy’ democracy and uncertain outcomes, managed democracy and on / off-message, public / private becoming one.