psa 2005 paper

Back from the Easter break, spent coughing in Italy (boy, it was cold and misty).

The PSA paper is now ready for delivery in Leeds. Comments welcome via the blog and email (and of course in person if you make it to Leeds).

psa 2005 in leeds

Getting ready to go to Leeds for the Political Studies Association conference. We will present on the first day, first panel: unprecedented luck. This is the line-up

The Internet and Political Mobilization
Date/Time Tuesday 5 April: Session 1: 14:00 - 15:30

Papers

The Internet, Political Mobilization, and Organizational Hybridity
Author(s) Andrew Chadwick

Old Politics-New Media: Parliament, the Public and Online Participation in the UK
Author(s) Rachel Gibson Stephen Ward Wainer Lusoli

Mixing it in the Matrix: the Poiesis of Heidegger's Hacktivism?
Author(s) Paul Taylor

The paper is almost ready, read the abstract:

Over the past decade considerable concerns have been raised about the health of parliamentary democracy in the UK. Apparently increasing levels of public distrust and cynicism about politicians and representative institutions, along with the dramatic fall in turnout at the 2001 election have prompted a debate about possible means of reconnecting the public with politics. One area which has attracted attention is whether the rise of new media technologies, such as the internet and email, could help facilitate such a re-engagement. So far, however, whilst there has been much criticism of MPs, parties and parliaments online efforts, there has been only limited evidence emerging from a public perspective about their use of new media technologies for political engagement and communication. In order to address this gap this paper reports the findings from a public opinion survey commissioned a from NOP which examines citizen knowledge attitudes and behaviour regarding ICTs as means of connecting with parliament and MPs. The survey confirms that whilst the net has potential to deepen public engagement with our representatives and parliamentary institutions currently it attracts only a small minority of voters who are generally already politically active and privileged. Moreover, such potential will remain untapped if without considerable effort form legislatures and legislators to change the culture of representation.

virtual representation impact

More glowing news, as I was looking at the numberof times the 'Virtual representation report' was downloaded since it was launched, on 24th February. It was downloaded and hopefully read by more than 600 people. Not too bad.

	Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Total 17 March 2005
Full report	63	57	72	184	376
Short report	82	47	37	79	245
					621

2005 online election

I gave a presentation at MMU, last Wednesday, 9th, about the role of the Internet in the forthcoming general election. The main line of argument was about the ubiquity of the Internet in the electoral process, rather than the usual focus on candidates and campaigns.

I tried to argue that the importance of the internet will be seen for online news reporting, local campaigns and electoral manegement. Take a look for yourself at the presentation, nice graphs and not too many numbers (this time). Or peruse the graph here, about the increasing prevalence of digital circulaiton of newspapers...



Thanks to Steve Hurst (here for the corporate feel) for organising the seminar, and the selected few for attending.

17 March update -- Thanks Tom (here for the community service) for pointing out that figures from the BBC look a bit thin. Figures for electronic circulation are from ABCe - April 2004 as concerns the BBC. Anyone from the Corporation with more recent figures?

sunday times article

I said I would post all press coverage of the 'Virtual representation' report to a single location, but alas, this deserves a bit more prominence. Robbie Hudson wrote a feature in today's Sunday Times about e-politics, self-efficacy, political learning online and online campaign.

E-politics wins a vote of confidence

The more people surf the web, the more politically aware they become. But, asks Robbie Hudson, can online campaigns win votes?

Lost amid the sound and fury about political weblogs, e-voting and online policy consultation, there is one little finding, not widely known, not yet fully researched, that is riveting in its implications: the more time people spend online, the more interested in politics they become. [read more]

Yours truly and Stephen Ward are quoted verbatim, and accurately I have to say. The IPOP project looms large. Take a look, it makes for interesting reading in advance of the general election. Or better (anathema) get yourself a printed copy of the ST. Too late now? I have some 50 copies to spare, if you badly want one...

more on the US 2004 election

Working on the presentation for MMU, I unearthed even more coverage of the Hansard Society / Voxpolitix event, last November, about Internet campaigns at the 2004 US election. Which means additional insights, epistemic good.

• Mikel Maron's account
• Slugger O'Toole account [if you have to chose one, read this]
• Tim Ireland's account

My account, and other material, was posted here. I will report on 'hard' sources such as PEW and IE reports sometime over the weekend, I need paper copies, coffee and feet comfortably up to trawl through the figures and stats.

Long day and Hansard event

Now, I should really take a break. I was down again to the University of Surrey today, for a meeting at the Department of Political, International and Policy Studies. Still chilly, train still ahead of schedule, another stimulating session. Must be the place.

On the way back I will attend the Hansard Society / eSociety event in London tonight, 'Will the internet reconnect Britain?'. Though I have seen Catherine Bromley present their results last November, at the eSociety main event, I'm curious about the design of the second wave of the BES Internet module. We've sent on the questionnaire from our 2002 ESRC survey (beware: PDF), hopefully some will be replicated. Here's the line up for this evening:

Tuesday 8 March 2005
5pm till 6:30pm,
Boothroyd Room, Portcullis House.

Speakers:

Can we close the Digital Divide? – Catherine Bromley
(Research Director at the National Centre for Social Research)

New
Technology, New Politics? – John Curtice
(Professor of Politics at Strathclyde University)

A view from the commercial sector – Donna Young
(General Manager, BT Wholesale)

e-Democracy in Parliament – Brian White MP
(Chair, All Party Parliamentary Group on e-Democracy)

As part of the ESRC’s E-society programme this seminar will present initial findings from research by John Curtice, Catherine Bromley and Pippa Norris.

With Derek Wyatt MP (Chair, APPG on the Internet) chairing, the aim is to assess the state of the digital divide and the impact of the internet on political engagement in the UK.

I'll close with a hint: never say heteroskedasticity in public, and if they ask pretend you don't know. Worse than synergy as it happens. Blimey. I'll report on the Hansard event as I have a chance.

good old new media

Ironically, coverage of our 'Virtual representation' survey seem to be slower on the web than through traditional channels. Most probably to do with search engine routines though.

Over the last week I've come across the following:

• A message to the DoWire mailing list, managed by Steven Clift, which reached 2750 interested parties in e-politics; the post include's Steven's commentary (with many thanks).
• An entry on the Involve website.
• An entry in the British Council's Information Society news and developments (now: that's nice).

I will post further developments next week, in case there's any. Please keep on sending material you come across.

seminars, and more seminars

Long, long week behind and longer yet ahead.

I presented a paper to the LSE, MC500 seminar last week (also see the powerpoint presentation). The paper was about the electronic democracy myth, a gloomy, positive discourse about the democratic potential of new media; it is 'rhetorical in nature, and builds on political, structural and semantic dynamics unfolding in the cultural domain, promoted by left-wing political entrepreneurs in strange alliance with ‘dark’ forces of high-tech capitalism'. At least that is what I claimed. It met some approval and criticism, equally shared in the room and at the pub, afterwards. I thought it was a good seminar.

More topical as the election is coming: I will give a presentation to the MMU, Department of Politics and Philosophy, on Wednesday 9th, about the import of the Internet for the next general election. The grand title is

'The ghost in the (electoral) machine: the ubiquity of the Internet and the next general election'

It draws on my current research about the administrative and campaign implication of new media, in the context of increasingly expedient and professional electoral campaigns. Based on data, more data and even more data.

However, I felt the urgent need to incommode Descartes: the res cogitans - campaigns strategies and strategists - should take notice that the res extensa is getting a ghost of its own - distributed intelligence supported by the digitalisation of campaign communications, for that matter (literally). But is the new ghost irreducible, or will it help the redefinition of the electoral nexus?

Even more confusing now, uhm? I'll post the presentation and my notes after the seminar, hopefully it will make more sense then.

ECPR Budapest 2005

Steve, Rachel and I will present a paper on political knowledge and the Internet at the ECPR General Conference, in Budapest (8-10 September 2005). The panel was organised by Kimmo Grönlund (also see research).



Section "Political Knowledge in Comparative Perspective: Explaining Differences and Gauging Consequences", Panel 5-6 --

Isa Ducke and Eun-jeung Lee: "Online deliberation of contested political issues. The case of troop dispatches to Iraq in Japan and South Korea".

Vincent Tiberj and Thierry Vedel: "Political knowledge, media and Internet uses in France".

Kimmo Grönlund and Maija Setälä: "An Analysis of Parliamentary Websites: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives".

Stephen Ward, Wainer Lusoli and Rachel Gibson: "Parliaments, the Public and Online Participation".

If you are planning to attend Budapest, and have an interest in citizen participation and new media, come along to the session and have a chat. Still no schedule though, stay tuned for development.

This way, Dr Who, join the dole queue...

I was down to the University of Surrey today, for a presentation to the new Department of Political, International and Policy Studies.

At the lunch break there was time to comment (among other things) on the large supply but relatively scarce demand for political science / studies PhD graduates, recently. The large supply, I would have thought, depends on the capacity of the British PhD machine to train increasing numbers of national and interntional students(who are fleeing crumbling, underfunded or clientelar academic machines elsewhere). And this I see as a big plus. And from the increasing prevalence of English as a second language in many European and non European countries (as Chris Flood noted). A plus of sorts, as foreign language teachers are not too happy. The scarce demand is more tricky to explain: too many 'Associate Lecturers' and TAs? Too long a time between one's PhD and the first lecturing post (Post-docs, and post-post-docs) Low demand from students for Politics degree (not, it seems)? Open to debate.

The truly unexpected event of the day was my use of the word 'synergy' which until today was in my index verborum proibitorum. It just came out. I should have swallowed my tougue instead. But alas, there's worse words. Uhm, such as?

I told you so

A refreshign expression. Never used before, but the sound of it rings true for once. Thanks to Richanrd Allan, MP, who instigated the following conversation with the Prime Minister.

TRANSCRIPT FROM LIAISON COMMITTEE SESSION: (see report of full session)

Q101 Mr Allan: Prime Minister, do you accept you will not meet your Gershon Review efficiency targets unless Government dramatically improves its ability to purchase the large IT systems it requires?

Mr Blair: The IT systems are a vital part of it, yes.

Q102 Mr Allan: Given the performance to date on systems like the Child Support Agency, is this something which is up there on your public services agenda that you receive regular reports on?

Mr Blair: It is. Some of the IT projects do not go well and some of them do go well. Funnily enough, if you look at the comparison between public and private sector on IT projects it is not very much different.

Q103 Mr Allan: You have something of a reputation of being a technophobe on a personal level, is that fair?

Mr Blair: I am afraid that is fair actually, yes.

Q104 Mr Allan: It is. Have you ever visited the multi-million pound central government website that you have set up to get us all to use these new electronic government facilities?

Mr Blair: I think that is a very unfair question. The answer is no.

Q105 Mr Allan: Do you know the address of this multi-million pound project?

Mr Blair: No.

Q106 Mr Allan: Your head of e.government, Ian Watmore, would be able to tell you all about it.

Mr Blair: That is exactly why delegation is such an important part of the job of a prime minister.

To be fair, the last answer is right on the spot. But lets rewind and replay: Tony Blair is a technophobe. Not big news, you will say. Wait a minute.

P. 29 of my PhD read ‘altohugh Blair is known as a techno-phobe rather than -enthusiast … '. I had to rephrase as it was pointed out that there was not ‘enough evidence’. Too late now I reckon, but the book will read ‘although Blair is admittedly a techno-phobe rather than -enthusiast (Liaison Committee, 2005: q103)’. Much better. And: I told you so.