MetaDiscussion: Let's Cross the Bridge

Scandal of the day: The New Jersey governor is in trouble because a political appointee of his was able to close lines on a busy bridge, allegedly for reasons of political retribution.

My response to this situation is to ask how the appointee was simply able to order a closure affecting many people, seemingly without a rationale.  This happened in a part of the world that places a high value on accountability, citizen rights and service.

How did the political process allow this to happen ?

MetaDiscussion first:  My curiosity took me to Google News, in order to read the top 10 articles on this matter.

 Google News Search Jan 10, 2014

I looked at the top 10 listed articles on this scandal from: CBC, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Fox, The Economist, The Telegraph, Chicago Tribune, The Globe and Mail, Christian Science Monitor, CNN.

As expected, the focus is on the SCANDAL, and the resulting impact on the Governor's presidential hopes, not on the underlying causes.  This result teaches us a very important basic fact of political coverage: it's usually about the campaigns.  These spectacles are the most exciting things in politics; "political coverage" as it is today tends to revolve around the horse race of campaign strategies and gaffes more than policies.

So the discussion about this scandal, as it is, won't result in any changes to the process.  There isn't enough focus on how the authorities don't have to explain such decisions (well, without a subpoena) And nobody will mention "Open Government" as a possible solution to throwing light on backdoor deals such as this.  Yet.

We need to discuss the discussion first.

Fish Out of Water - Why We Need Political Meta-Discussion NOW

"One thing about which fish know exactly nothing, is water" Marshall McLuhan

As an analogy for us, in today's world, this is not exactly correct in that we know that there is something wrong with the water.  There is, as Jimmy Carter described, a feeling of malaise and that assessment may be the only thing we can agree on.




















So the fish is us, and the water is our collective means for solving problems ie. politics.  So how does a fish find out about water ?  It could evolve to be able to leave the water, or - more easily - it could ask a fish that thinks about things.

 Philosophers are these types of fish:

Michael Warner in his essays 'publics and counterpublics' states that "A public is the social space created by the reflexive circulation of discourse".  He builds on the work of Jurgen Habermas, bringing it into the digital age.  Things that work against creating a public are desituated individuals (individuals who are situated outside the domain of the problem being discussed) and the ascension of the trivial.

I would add that the complexity of our engagements to the world make the discourse difficult to manage.   How can so many disparate groups of people think that they are not being heard ?

The time has come for us to use personalized digital media as a platform to start a meta-discussion so we can replace our failing media institutions with a new, realigned discourse.  The next time you comment on a political issue on facebook, or elsewhere, take the time to add how this issue has arrived in the public sphere - who is commenting on it, how it's being processed, and think a little more like a fish out of water.

Government 2.0 lands in Toronto !

An excellent evening of discussion on Gov 2.0 topics from Wayne Chu and Harvey Low at Toronto City Hall this evening.


Mr. Chu detailed some research regarding the interconnectedness of Twitter networks and the relationships between social media, big media and politics.   Although not directly connected to Government 2.0 initiatives, his informative talk inspired active discussion around how political discussion happens.

Mr. Low gave a sweeping overview of Government 2.0 initiatives, almost a catalogue actually, after his return from the recent Open Govt Partnership conference in Brazil.


There is definitely something coming here, as Mr. Chu pointed out, but when our Arab Spring will arrive is still anyone's guess.  Also unclear is how it will arrive - which audiences will be served first and so on.  While it was explained that many (most ?) Canadians see government in terms of services, it also seemed clear that more "bus apps" aren't what we're waiting for.


Many thanks to organizers of tonight's event.

ReCivilization - CBC Podcast

This is an excellent series from Don Tapscott giving an overview of the new media revolution.    


Episode 5 is an introduction to new media and democratic reform.




Featured Guests:

Thomas Kalil, Deputy Director for Policy, White House Office of Science and TechnologyPolicy
Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, Inc.

Mitchell Baker, Chairperson of the Mozilla Foundation, makers of the Firefox web browser

Sir Tim Berners-Lee,  inventor of the World Wide Web




ReCivilization - CBC Podcast

Our Revolution ?

In 1960, Television arrived in the US as the medium of record for politics with the Nixon - Kennedy debate.  This was the era of television controlled by only 3 networks, the era of the "fairness doctrine".  

That doctrine had its roots in the 1930s, when the US government sought to check the political power of the corporations who held absolute power over the TV airwaves. By the 1980s, Cable News had arrived, and the era of deregulation was well under way.  Ronald Regan vetoed an attempt to put that doctrine into law, and we arrived in the current era.

A spectrum of cable news channels convey news as entertainment, which is necessary to grab the attention of ever-shrinking television audiences.  But something has been lost. Another aspect of the fairness doctrine - the idea that media serves the public interest - is all but forgotten today.

Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves to Death" described the news media of 1985 as Huxley's "Brave New World" - dazzling its citizens as democracy fell apart.  

News as entertainment has pervaded our culture to the point where we have a generation that doesn't know anything different.  Government policy is not as gripping as campaigns, personalities and gaffes are. But as government continues to grow, we are not served by the information sources we have today. 

Electric media (television and radio) and government (based on print) have never had an easy relationship.  They have been drifting apart each other for 50 years now. There is, however, a natural fit between the print-based western political tradition, and the internet. And politics on the web is still a printed-word based medium. 

I continue to look for ways in which new media (such as the Sunlight Foundation) can shine a light on how we govern ourselves. McLuhan explained how new media can rip through old institutions quickly, and upend them. Certainly we have seen that at plan in the Arab Spring revolutions this year. 

When will our revolution arrive, and what will be the nature of it ? 

Is facebook a medium or is it content ?

I'm rereading Understanding Media again. I last read it (for the 2nd or 3rd time) when the web was new. Something hit me in the first chapter that didn't mean as much to me last time: the content for any medium is other media.

The example McLuhan gives is that the content of the printed word is the written word, the content of the written word is speech, and the content of speech is thought.

So... what is facebook ? Medium or content ?

I came up with this so far: the content of the web is the internet, and the content of the internet is the written word and perhaps electronic communication along the lines of the telegraph.

So is facebook 'content' on the web, or is a new medium itself that contains the web ?

Government Complexity

An idea from today:

"Maybe we need a new level of public stakeholder to deal with these problems. Civic volunteers who vote consistently, who are charged with informing themselves in detail about the activities of government - and by extension of business. "

They couldn't have anticipated how economies are managed today when they designed our system of democracy. Maybe we need something new ?