Conservatives Stepping Forward with New Media

[Michael Hardner]

I have been on this forum longer than almost anyone here, and for those of you who know me - you will know that 'new media' and 'media and government' are my favourite topics.

As such, I'm excited to see that the Conservative government is using the web to communicate the important points of its new stimulus package.

Canadian Govt - Stimulus Tracking

Let's discuss the approach the government has used use the 'contact us' link ( ! ) to send them MapleLeafWeb's assessment of their approach.

My two cents to start (I've only browsed it)

1. Mostly it's a brochure about the package, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I would like to see a better breakdown of projects, and what exactly the funds for each project is spent on, along with location and due date per project.

2. I would like a forum whereby we can ask questions about the package.

Add your points here - as I will be adding mine as I examine the site further.

[Michael Hardner]

Some qualities of web-based media that I'd like to see on government sites include:

1. persistent info - present current information, past informationand continue to collect into the future.

Snapshots of how well something worked very recently, or reporting on past successes help no one.

2. understandable -

3. relevant - it makes sense to people's lives

4. clear and understandable

5. detailed

6. accurate

The flashy, fluffy graphics are great, but I want facts. Anyone else ?

[M.Dancer]

Coupons and free passes. Oh..and URLs that aren't 45 characters long.

One last thing...no pictures of Andrea Horwath. What is seen cannot be unseen...ever.

[Michael Hardner]

I offer to consolidate comments on this thread, to distill them and send them to the 'contact us' and interested parties.

I think this is a way to make new media work without reworking the entire system.

[eyeball]

I'm excited to see that the Conservative government is using the web to communicate the important points of its new stimulus package.

I'd be more excited if this was the Canadian government using the web to communicate about our new stimulus package and there were some pictures of Harper shaking hands with Ignatieff and Layton...first impressions really are important.

I'll have a deeper look at this later.

[Michael Hardner]

We can tell them to do that. It's our right, since we "pay their salaries" to quote a hoary right-wing expression.

Edited March 12, 2009 by Michael Hardner

[eyeball]

Its like deja vu, I've seen this before, it sounds very similar to what I saw when logging and fishing collapsed at the same time where I live. I'm not the only person around here who sees a lot of similarities to this economic crisis in terms of its effects, other than the scale its virtually identical. Massive job loss, desperate people, a big official response, a veritable garden of partnerships and stakeholder processes with emergency funding for; re-training/infrastructure/economic development etc etc etc...its all there.

As for the Conservatives responding to some need to consult people and their new media and new approach and new accountability etc at the national scale I see other similarities to our local experience. As I'm sure you'll recall hearing me comment before, local people took the view that many of our problems were the result of having little or no say in the management of those things we relied on the most such as fish and trees. The army of government and NGO consultants that descended on our town seemed interested in some of the consensus-based co-management processes and models that we were proposing and developing but after awhile it started to feel like we were just a case study for academics to write up papers about. It felt like being in a freakshow.

16 years or so later and our resident population is now down from about 1850 people to about 1400 and I'd say half of these are new locals that moved here in the last ten years to try to get in on the tourism 'boom' that followed the collapse. The academics all disapeared once the funding dried up. I suspect they're probably working for the Conservatives or something. Maybe they'll get it right this time but I'm skeptical to say the least.

My daughter had one table on her first shift in a new restaurant today...she sold a coke. Things are looking and feeling pretty bleak around here, again. I'm not the only old-timer who's looking back to sea again. At the end of the day the real world remains our only hope. Somethings will never change I guess.

Edited March 14, 2009 by eyeball

[Michael Hardner]

Louise Elliot on 'The House' yesterday had a piece about the decline of political journalism.

Since the funding model for journalism is failing, something will need to step into the breach very soon.

[M.Dancer]

Since the funding model for journalism is failing, .........

[Michael Hardner]

According to Elliot, news outlets now have one person shooting, editing footage and doing website updates.

But people still aren't interested.

[M.Dancer]

According to Elliot, news outlets now have one person shooting, editing footage and doing website updates.

But people still aren't interested.

Anyone who posits the BoobTube medium for an example of political journalism probably thinks the E Tonight's coverage of Ann Nicole Smith and the Octomom as good examples of the decline in investigative journalism.

It's like holding up Guiness as an example of what is wrong with the Irish Wine industry.

[Michael Hardner]

Newspapers aren't doing well either.

[eyeball]

Louise Elliot on 'The House' yesterday had a piece about the decline of political journalism.

Since the funding model for journalism is failing, something will need to step into the breach very soon.

Or expand into it. There's always the CBC model.

Kimmy's comment in WIP's thead on Business Channel Shows - "why hasn't the mainstream media been reporting this story for months or years?" and more importantly "why does it take a comedian who bills his show as 'fake news' to bring some serious attention to the standards of journalism being applied?" - suggests journalism is collapsing because people don't think they're getting good value for their money or time.

I've seen little reason to mistrust the CBC's political journalism. There is no free press in an economic sense but with no press whatsoever there is no freedom either. I'm sure there are ways of ensuring the CBC is unbiased and accurate without resorting to privatizing it.

Edited March 16, 2009 by eyeball

[Michael Hardner]

Or expand into it. There's always the CBC model.

Kimmy's comment in WIP's thead on Business Channel Shows - "why hasn't the mainstream media been reporting this story for months or years?" and more importantly "why does it take a comedian who bills his show as 'fake news' to bring some serious attention to the standards of journalism being applied?" - suggests journalism is collapsing because people don't think they're getting good value for their money or time.

I've seen little reason to mistrust the CBC's political journalism. There is no free press in an economic sense but with no press whatsoever there is no freedom either. I'm sure there are ways of ensuring the CBC is unbiased and accurate without resorting to privatizing it.

eb,

We can't just say 'The CBC will do it' because it's too much for them to handle. They have their own conservative leanings that hold them back from bold new initiatives. [edited to modify vagueness]

The CBC may (or may not) have more integrity but they're still 'old media'.

Edited March 16, 2009 by Michael Hardner

[M.Dancer]

Newspapers aren't doing well either.

Yet collectively the employ more journalists than the Boobtube in Canada...

[Michael Hardner]

So are you saying the industry isn't in decline ? Or perhaps that this is just a fad ?

[M.Dancer]

So are you saying the industry isn't in decline ? Or perhaps that this is just a fad ?

Definitely a fad. Been through 3 downturns, every time the media (TV, RADIO, NEWSPAPERS) come back stronger than before. The industry is seeing declining revenue just like every other industry....and will see increased revenue as soon the the economy picks up.

Since the funding model for journalism is failing, .........

In the 26 years I've worked in media I have heard at least a dozen times each year the death of newspapers or the transformation of the media model.....every time they have been wrong.

If I remember correctly, TV was the death of the Big Screen Movie, TV would be the Death of Radio...etc etc etc....

The one truism you can take to the bank, media evolves faster than the gurus ideas...The current laugh is the intraweb will be the death of MSM. Take a look at the top info sites....they are all owned and operated by MSM...and the funding model is exactly the same as it always has been...marketers paying to appear before readers.

[Michael Hardner]

Fair enough, and I hope you're right.

That being said, I can't get the information I need to make good decisions about who to vote for. I think the web provides an opportunity to put that information in the hands of the citizens. If we're going to have a complex network of government services, we need a better way to manage them.

As such, I still believe there's an information deficit.

[eyeball]

Fair enough, and I hope you're right.

That being said, I can't get the information I need to make good decisions about who to vote for. I think the web provides an opportunity to put that information in the hands of the citizens. If we're going to have a complex network of government services, we need a better way to manage them.

As such, I still believe there's an information deficit.

We need a better way to manage the government, but on our terms not its own.

[Michael Hardner]

Teams of interested parties could form study groups to provide good suggestions to government, then document what happens to those suggestions. If not successful, it would be at least interesting to see where it goes.

[Michael Hardner]

A few more comments on the stimulus package please !

[eyeball]

I'd like to know what the fall back position or alternative plan is if the stimulus doesn't work. This stimulus should rightly be viewed as an attempt to rescue the economy - recovery is a term usually reserved for the aftermath of a rescue attempt, as in recovering the wreckage of a crash...or worse.

I think there is far too much reliance on the idea that this is just a normal albeit larger recession that will hit a bottom and we'll start digging out in the normal fashion. If we still had a good healthy stock of natural capital I could see where the optimism for a normal economic rescue package would come from but I'm afraid we just don't have that anymore. What we do have lots of however will prove even more important in the future - a still fairly healthy stock of civil rights, social unity and willingness to generally pull together. We need to be able to build on these immediately in case this rescue fails and recession turns to depression then full-blown remorse...or worse.

If there was ever a time for things like citizen assemblies and councils of elders and such, now is it. These are precisely the sort of troubled times when we need to be able to draw on as much experience and insight as possible to lead us out of them. I can't escape the sense that the best thing we can for oue economy and environment is to enhance and expand democracy to the greatest extent possible. I'm afraid this new media doesn't even come close. People need to be talking face to face in their communities about what is happening to them and joining with others around them and making plans for a bad outcome at the local level and I'd like to see some funding put towards creating the capacity to do this. In short, I think we need to increase the capacity for greater local governance. In conjunction with this I think we need to establish really secure means of communicating with one another across the rest of the country and world. I think laying well buried fiber-optic cables around the country and so Canadians can stay connected with one another is probably the most important infrastructure project we should undertake.

I'd like to see some "stimulus" money being spent on figuring out how to pick up the pieces in the event that's all that's left and if so I think the last place we'll be looking to for help is Ottawa.

[tango]

Teams of interested parties could form study groups to provide good suggestions to government, then document what happens to those suggestions. If not successful, it would be at least interesting to see where it goes.

I'm interested in this concept ... more of a grassroots participatory democracy.

We certainly have the means to do it now ... like this discussion board.

I think it would be cool to have local/provincial/national discussion forums (and polls) linked to parliamentary and governance issues, so they can see what we really think and maybe even pay some attention, for a change.

Problem is ... I suspect it would be perverted by the same old party hacks for propaganda purposes. Same goes for local 'teams'.

There has to be a proper selection mechanism ... like for jury duty.

[Michael Hardner]

I think that self-selection would work best. Everyone is invited to participate, and a few will participate more fully than others. That subgroup will organically work out the points of agreement and communicate those.

The hybrid nature of the group would, I think, ensure that some excellent ideas could be produced.

[Michael Hardner]

While we've seen some good input on this thread, we're still far from any kind of quorum that would enable us to say that we had a cross-section of political views on a topic.

But, we need to persist.

My implorations to fellow Netizens, from my blog:

1) Stay Online - keep blogging, keep posting on message boards, keep emailing the government, filling out `Contact Us` forms and letting them know that you exist in Cyberspace.

2) Practice Information Hygene. When posting and discussing, be sure to check your facts, and only use sources with an established record of accuracy and objectivity.

3) Be Proactive - Review the latest information from the source - unbiased studies, government statistics, universities, or independent surveys. Don`t wait for articles to appear on online newspaper or commentary sites first.

4) Look for chances to participate in wider dialogue, and jump in. If there is a chance to take the dialogue into the non-virtual world, then do it.

I would still like to find a way to bridge between old media and new media (number 4 above) but until we have that quorum, we need to continue. Until such a time as we have that, I personally am going to try to participate in 3) and to bypass intermediate sources by using Google, Google News, and other sites to get to the source of information.

(I don't think this is a cross-post, but - rather - a reference to an external article. Moderators, please correct me if I'm wrong.)

Edited April 4, 2009 by Michael Hardner