New Media Technologies: Online Politics COM 300 Kathy E. Gill 08 May 2007

Agenda  Recap last week  Community and Online Politics  Discussion Leaders  Lab

Recap  Online news: (mostly) repurposed electrons  Anatomy of a blog Blogroll Outbound links (attribution) Date-stamp, permalink RSS feed (which is what?)  Blogging impact on news Low cost of entry Can shape the news (social system impact)

Community Defined  Dyson: the unit in which people live, work and play Esther’s website, Release 1.0Release 1.0  Sardar: communities are shaped by a sense of belonging – to a place, common struggle, tradition, and history, in other words, it’s more than just having common interests

Example: Traditional  Geographic: neighborhood, city, county, state, nation  Issue: Non-Government Organizations (NGO)  Affiliative: church, book club, sewing circle, professional association …  Examples from your lives?

Example: Electronic  Electronic Information Exchange System (EIES), 1976  Bulletin Boards  Multi-User Dungeons/Domains (MUDDs)  Listserv, Online Forums, Blogosphere, Wikis  Examples from your lives?

Example: Political Communities  Political parties  Political interest organizations NRA v Sierra Club NRASierra Club  Political blogosphere DailyKos v RedState DailyKosRedState  Others? Has the internet influenced your perception of a specific political party or organization?

Characteristics  Self-selecting May be contingent May be transient  Questions to consider: How important are personal ties, stability in political communities?  Can meaningful personal ties be developed without personal interaction? Explain.  How can we foster a stable community online when members can have multiple identities?

Types of Political Info  Government documents Tax forms Legislator contact Legislation, regulation  Party or issue-related 520 expansion, Sound Transit path  Campaign-related Primaries – WA and FL  Other?

Candidate Info  Outlining positions – press, voters  Rebuttal statements  Bio  Getting elected, re-elected Raising $ Anything else?  Is any part of this mix served particularly well by Net technologies?

Political Info – Your Experience (1/2)  Who has looked for political info online? Candidate? Issue? Other?  When political campaigns come around in our area, which medium is more likely to get your attention? Television? Picket signs? Street-side supporters? Newspapers? The internet? Why?  Which do you trust more? Why?

Candidate Communication  RSS makes it easy to read blogs/sources that support and reiterate your own opinions. How might this affect the ability of candidates to tap into the theoretical "reach" the internet opens up to them?

Types of action  Mobilizing action – MoveOn.orgMoveOn.org Write congressional letters Write letters-to-the-editor Organize protest (Akon)  Raising money Google Ads  Anything else?

Connectivity - US  About 60% of all homes have computers  US – about half of all adults who are online at home connect via broadband – that’s about 1/3 of all adults Note about FCC data  Implications? How might people who do not have internet access be at a disadvantage in terms of political knowledge?

Discussion Leaders  Divide into groups – each leader will share site/info with two groups  Then we’ll regroup and continue larger discussion

Assignments  Thursday – newspaper exercise Thursday we’ll discuss the media project  Final project reminder NOTE: I will review draft scripts if submitted early. First come, first served.