Like many governments around the world, the US Department of State are dabbling in citizen interaction with a new blog called DIPNOTE. There was a woman from the State Department at the conference I was at last week, who said they “even have young people blogging” for it. But this isn’t something they’ve slapped together with interns. It’s slick and contains carefully edited (and approved) first-person narrative from a range of State Department workers.
As a means of communication and public relations, it’s pretty genius. But as the woman at the conference said, “people can comment all they want, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to change anything”. Okay, so maybe it’s not e-democracy, but they deserve kudos for leaving up the negative comments. While it seems the people whose names are on the posts mostly really are the ones writing them, I think we can expect about as realistic an image of what goes on in the State Department and the countries they operate in as this video shows of America.
Yikes, I’ve just now noticed there’s a link to Global Voices in their sidebar under some very high profile establishment publications (a result of the conference?). How cool that Global Voices has snuck in there right under the Council of Foreign Relations. Talk about influence! Our content belies it, but I hope no one thinks we have anything to do with the US government. Double-kudos to the State Department for reaching out to bloggers of the world and hopefully reading their comments.
When the Nobel Peace Prize committee discovered they had already given the award to Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991 they had to come up with something quick and decided to give it to Al Gore for making a really great slideshow about climate change… (actually, Al Gore only got half of the prize – the other half went to the IPCC).
The environment is important and Al Gore and his team have done great work to raise awareness. But why give the award to someone who is already on the up and up? Giving it to Shirin Ebadi in 2003 at least had the effect of putting Iranian women on the map. Last year’s award to the guy from the Grameen Bank really brought micro-lending to everyone’s attention.
Although Gore is a politician, his campaign for the environment is remarkably void of political recommendations, policy activism, or even awareness-building about the biggest human environmental crises in the developing world. Surely, there must be someone fighting for human rights at the risk of death or imprisonment who could use the Nobel fame and prize money better?
While there doesn’t seem to be outrage at the nomination, an early survey of the global blogosphere on Global Voices doesn’t seem to indicate much cheering going on either. Gore winning the Nobel Peace prize is even sillier than him winning the Oscar (over these films) for a film with very few cinematic qualities. How boring. Yes, I believe he won the presidential election in 2004. No, I don’t believe he will run in 2007.
Here’s one more election related post, since the Danish prime minister is expected to call elections any day now. In 2006, I got together with two other net-savvy gals, Mary Joyce and Zephyr Teachout to write a short guide to blogging elections. It’s probably due for an update by now, but Mary recently sent me an email with a new link to the guide so I thought I would share. Anybody who’s thinking about blogging effectively about elections may find inspiration here.
Yesterday, I wrote a short post on Blogbyblog about the new online efforts of two Danish members of parliament, and was happy to see a direct response from one of them within 24 hours of writing the post. I guess it’s one of the benefits of coming from a small country – all I ever got from Hillary Clinton in the United States was a standard email written by someone else.
The commenting politician is Ellen Trane Nørby. She is the media spokesperson for the Danish liberal party (Venstre), and she is on Flickr, Skype, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube, and also has her own blog. Ellen says she agrees with me that using services like this will get more exciting when they are used to involve citizens actively in the political process rather than as tools for simple self promotion. Political comparisons aside, she’s no Segolene Royal. Yet.
The other politician I mentioned is social democrat Mogens Lykketoft. He has a new website, which he introduces with the following video. You don’t have to speak Danish to see that the level of ambition for what he expects citizen to do with his website is pretty limited. I don’t know why he writes down words like YouTube on cardboard cards while he says them. Cute? Or patronizing?
I don’t really mean to criticize the effort, but it would be nice for politicians to speak to citizens like thinking adults with useful views (Here’s one idea: better microphone). His next videos are much better, but only because he sticks with the politics.
See Dan Rather interview a young Karl Rove (the kid with the sideburns) in this piece on the Nixon campaign of 1972. The machine that automatically opens letters with campaign contributions is pretty nifty. I suppose today’s day equivalent would be online contributions. (Thanks to VSL)
Hugo Chavez has just won the Venezuelan election (again), and I predict tomorrow’s newspapers will be filled with more of the same superficialities used to describe him on both sides of the Chavista divide.
He’s not an angel, and certainly not the devil (Bush holds that title), but you’d think he was the messiah reading most journalists on the Left.
openDemocracy has a fantastic article about the disastrous inaccuracies produced by “solidarity journalism” about Chavez. Read it, in case you’ve ever wondered who to trust.
My own view is tainted by my visit to Caracas during the World Social Forum earlier this year. The cult-mentality surrounding Chavez was overwhelming.
I met people who said he was the reincarnation of Simón Bolívar. And one guy really did suggest he was the messiah.
No politician deserves that kind of blind admiration.
Our job as activists and journalists is to keep politicians on their toes, no matter what colour shirt they wear (red), and how right they are to stick it to Bush at the UN. Solidarity journalism needs to be about solidarity with “the people” not the politicians.
“Chavez is the people,” read the graffitti on the wall… “Chavez is the social movements,” a community radio journalist explained to me in Caracas.
Well OK, that’s very convenient. I’ll just call his press secretary to have that view confirmed.
