Jerome Armstrong started a pretty interesting thread over on MyDD by asking “What emerging technology or web-based practice do you think will have the biggest impact in 2008?” Among the answers coming in from participants (many of whom are at the beating heart of the netroots phenomenon):
-OpenID (coming soon at netroots.com, Jerome notes)
-Video blogging where commentary can be added into news clips (I think Viddler may be a useful tool in that regard, by making it possible to tag specific times on a video)
-BlogTalkRadio
-local blogs (helped by platforms like Soapblox).
-cellphones
-Skype
-free municipal Wifi
-widgets
Matt Stoller responds by arguing that technology by itself doesn’t matter; what does is the “interaction of technology and politics.” He adds, “The innovation comes from the unification of the revolutionary technology with a revolutionary idea about how citizens should relate to politics. TV wasn’t just a revolutionary model for communications, it was a statement that communication should be exceptionally powerful and top-down in nature.”
From there he argues then that we have to consider what political idea might be more possible given the technological advances we’re experiencing, and offers “people-powered governance” as his answer. (For some odd reason, he labels this as “Building 300 Million Henry Waxmans,” and while I know what he’s driving at, surely that isn’t the best image we want for a nation of self-starting watchdogs, is it?)
I think it’s too soon to say whether we really will effect a transformation of the political paradigm thanks to new tech+new ideas. We shouldn’t forget that new tech can also be used just to better game the existing system with granular-level targeting of voters (see the 2004 Bush-Cheney campaign and the 2005 Bloomberg campaign as examples).
That said, if I had to bet on one tech factor emerging as the game-changer of 2008, I think I would put it on the rise of networks, ranging from the obvious social hubs to the less visible but equally important, in my view, social media practices like tagging, which are making it easier every day for likeminded people to discover each other. In that respect, I guess I agree with Matt and Jerome, though they come at the question from opposite angles. Tools that make networks work better (like OpenID, for example) may make people-powered networking stronger. More on that thought soon, I hope.
Just an aside on all this…If you dig into the comment threads on Jerome’s post, you’ll see that Josh Koenig (a developer with ChapterThree and a friend and colleague of mine) appears to have caught Jerome engaging in a little post-facto post-rewriting…and if you dig further into the post they engage in some nasty name-calling too. This is really inside baseball stuff guys, is it worth getting worked up over? I know for a fact that Jerome doesn’t go around claiming to have invented OpenID, Josh, and we all think it’s a good thing if the concept gets a strong push into the political blogosphere, so why not take a chill pill and fuggedaboutit?
Technorati Tags: BlogTalkRadio, Jerome Armstrong, Josh Koenig, Matt Stoller, MyDD.com, Open Source Politics, OpenID, Rob Stuart, Skype, Soapblox, Viddler