Is the Internet influencing UK Politics.....

...was a very interesting question asked by the BBC's Rory Cellan Jones on his Facebook group.

(Don't know what the convention to linking to a Facebook group is, so I'll keep it unlinked and encourage readers to join Facebook to find Rory's group - and Broadstuff is on Facebook too, so come be our friends as well

We know that the 'Net has made huge impacts in developing countries, in repressive regimes, and in the US you're just not a player without a blog (and a blogger) attached. But the UK?

After a bit of thought I wrote this:

In our view it is, but there has been no great "tipping point" to bring it into focus - yet. But there is a huge political conversation going on across the blogs, pods and egroups that was nonexistent a few years ago.

Here are some swallows before the summer - not in any order, nor properly thought through:

1. It is far easier to get "real" information in many arenas now, so the 'Net makes it harder to spin - fool all the people - without challenge. In teh UK this is still at the detail phase, but in more repressed countries this is having huge effects already.

2. Many voices were unable to access mainstream media to make their point, but these voices now are published online - this moves any debate by definition.

3. Ability to rapidly "group up" to do things - the internet allows rapid deployment, eg flashmobs, organising point campaigns and so on.

4. A corollary - the ability to seek like minds and get critical mass - rapidly

5. Surveys like YouGov are allowing realtime monitoring of public views - not perfect, but a big step forward

6. Theyworkforyou.com - ability to vent concern, and to feel a direct interaction is possible. (A local campaign to stop traffic wardens ticketing expired meters outside a doctor's surgery was a success for eg)

7. The discussion boards for eg on BBC Question Time...finally one can get one's say somewhere

8. Allows participation from where one is, rather than from within the formal structures

9. In my view the rise of the 'net is creating an alternative channel to the owners of the media - who are a small, concentrated set of people. By definition this shift in power must change the nature of politics.

10. The mere fact the politicians are having to interact with the medium changes things

I thought about what a "tipping point" might be that made it clear, I can see 4 main ones.

(i) When an attempt to drive a policy that relies on false information is stopped by exposure of the right data

(ii) When a major party is forced to change a policy via an internet based protest campaign

(iii) When mainstream media starts to feature the voices of internet players - eg on Question Time - so far all the main media are just repurposing their own journos into bloggers.

(iv) When a net recruited "new party" wins a local election against main parties.

Certainly there is a lot of opportunity at all levels of "e-Government" (we have been involved in some work for the EC in there areas) in terms of increasing efficiency / reducing cost, and in co-ordinating or re-allocating resources.

However, it seems that the major issue all democracies need to solve is low voter turnout, as without a high level of representation the risk is that the process is seen as at best overtaken by minority interests, or at worst of little relevance. It is also not clear if it can benefit from a "wisdom of crowds" effect if it not reaching across a representative population set.

From a Social Networking topology viewpoint, one could argue that a democracy can be seen as a type of weak scale-free net with voters attached to local representatives who are then attached to regional representatives who are then attached to national, then supranational etc etc. The nodes at the top draw their influence from the supporting smaller nodes. All well and good, but how valid is this network if the base at the bottom is massively reduced...those "lost" people will form other networks, even if not recognisably political as such, and by doing so grant them equal "real" validity. This is exacerbated if a whole host of formal structures have grown around that initial network, as they - in theory - work for "the people" but in practice "the people" are now elsewhere.

(And in corollary, propping up the existing networks - ie political parties - with state funding is likely to be counterproductive under the above thesis - if anything its a tacit admission that they no longer represent "the people" in any meaningful way)

Can the internet help...well, websites, wikis, blogging and various other tools have opened up a far more diverse conversation - for good and ill - so if this could be harnessed to enhance and expand debate it would probably help, as there is a perception in many quarters (not just in the UK) that the mainstream media is at best representative of only certain segments of the population. At the very least, getting more of the "vox populi" into the democratic process can only help, even if one does not necessarily like what the Vox is saying!

For example - assume a particular particular blog "reaches" 1m people, and then signs them all up as members. If it were a political blog, it would have a larger membership than any of the main political parties - yet it would have no formal voice in the structure, especially if it was espousing ideas that were not in tune with the existing orthodoxy.

The concept of User Generated Politics is quite intriguing, as in theory thats what it is all supposed to be about anyway - isn't it?

But as usual, there is nothing new here.....

Going back in history one finds that the role of the Blogs were taken by (scandalous) broadsheets, soapbox speakers, fifth column activists, dreaming revolutionaries and so on. If these movements caught on, they eventually became part of the mainstream process - but the independent media was critical to that voice being heard.

And the prevailing powers of the day usually did their best to shut it up.....

But today its not so much les Miserables on the Barricades, but les Bloggeurs on the Barristas - never mind the absinthe, mine's a latte

Views ?

(Postscript.....Seth Godin also weighs in on the 'Net and potential impact on politics over here)