A reading response on We The Media:
We The Media http://oreilly.com/catalog/wemedia/book/index.csp presents interesting ideas in the way relationships, communication and the ability to have a voice are being dramatically changed. In this blog I will cover some of the most important ones for my world and future work:
- Transparency
- Markets as conversations: different dimensions and perspectives
- The new dynamics of participation and collaboration
- The push pull dynamic
The rise in the understanding of transparency is one shift: the ability for critical parties to control access starts to change with these new tools and not just in the expected ways. Interestingly in the reading we see this with Rumsfeld turning the tables on a journalist by recording their interview and making it public. The incoming Obama administration seems to understand this and is trying to create that quality. Established power structures must recognise that they can no longer control the information flow especially with these new citizen journalists and must instead think about how this flow can and should work.
An intuitive understanding that these new tools imply is a new dialogue, whether between company and customer, political parties and their constituents or the public and government.
The Company perspective
Markets as conversations: these new tools can transform the ability of companies to have new conversations with their customers although sometimes not in the ways they would hope:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/pda/2009/feb/25/ryanair-socialnetworking
Companies can use many ways to change the dialogue with their customers. O’Reilly talks about corporate weblogs although there is a fine line between communication and PR. But he is right when he talks about the need for them to create RSS feeds of their news instead of newsletters; this allows a more active relationship in the transfer of information.
Companies can consider inviting ‘webbloggers’, someone who has become an expert, to participate in the discussion. Interested people will have more rich and complex discussions as they come from a multitude of domains, backgrounds and experiences – more so than a traditional company which will have a language they use and mental models ingrained in the way they think.
The Politics Perspective
Chapter Five of the book talks about citizenship: “This evolution is also about reinforcing citizenship. The emerging form of bottom-up politics is bringing civic activity back into a culture that has long since given up on politics as anything but a hard-edged game for the wealthy and powerful. But a true conversation between a candidate and his public would involve the candidate genuinely learning from the people.”
We can see how people can also get more involved in issues they care about: “I’d be thrilled to see a million blogs sprout to cover, and be part of, campaigns of all sorts. If you care deeply about health care, for example, start a weblog covering the candidates’ views on the subject. Link to their position papers on a page that lets your readers examine those positions. Then link to news articles that a) contain candidates’ statements, b) offer context to the topic, and c) can help your reader understand the overall issue better. Open your comments section both to readers and campaign staffers, and welcome the discussion that brings better information to everyone involved. You will have done a service.”
MoveOn had a direct influence on voter turnout: http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/millennials_moveon
The Public and Government
Firstly new tools are creating this new dialogue, for example the online petitions site at 10 Downing Street: http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/. Although how much notice is taken of this is unsure.
BBC’s ican I found to be fascinating, although I can’t find it on the web: its role was to assist average people in being activists, “the BBC has created a web-based platform that combines data on issues with tools citizens can use to push their own agendas in the public sphere. The journalists then observe what average people are doing and focus some of their coverage on what the activists are reporting.”
In the UK we can also track our MPs voting records, helping us to understand more deeply the public agenda issues: they work for you. And we can also let our local councils know about problems on our street in order to get them fixed: fix my street. For me these tools to create new dialogues and to invite the public in to conversations are a future I find compelling.
This is not to say there aren’t challenges in this new world: authenticity and trust being two. There is still a need for an editorial perspective as we see with the Junior Journalists example the process “fuels a sense of both responsibility and ethics” and is key to trust. With the proliferation of content tapping the power of everyone is the best approach. Blogs necessitate candour.
New spaces are opening up the opportunity for new collaborations and dialogue, something that is very exciting considering my area of interest.
