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Internet and Politics A report by Irving Rappaport on the Internet and Politics Conference Munich, 19-21 February 1996 Irving Rappaport is chief executive of UK Citizens Online Democracy (UK COD) (Note 1). His participation in the Munich Conference was supported by the European Telework Development Initiative (ETD). Mr Rappaport has a wide background in the fields of medicine, ecological land management, film, TV production and the performing arts, and was in 1996 a newcomer to the online environment. He is therefore well placed to take a balanced view of the present evolving political perspective on the Information Society. The Conference The Munich "Internet and Politics" conference was straplined: "The modernisation of democracy through the electronic media" . Web sites relating to the conference are: Conference Program http://www.akademie3000.de/overview/conf/politics/e_index.html Conference Coverage - http://focus.de/S/s-e.htm, http://www.heise.de/tp/fpol.htm Conference Discusssion - http://focus.de/S/SP/sp.htm General Impressions 1. Control versus Opportunities There is tension within some governments (most clearly expressed at the conference by representatives of the German government) between the desire to capitalise on the opportunities of the global market on the one hand (which necessarily means encouraging and enabling all citizens to enter the information age) and the desire to control the use of the internet on the other hand. The German TV reporting of the conference didn't help much - of a 30 minute generally positive opening speech by Dr. Edmund Stoiber, President of Bavaria, the only clip they showed featured his comment on the dangers of Internet pornography! Dialogue of the Deaf? This term has been used by John Harvey-Jones to typify the lack of mutual comprehension between those who use and therefore understand techniques such as email discussion and those whose understanding is based on second hand reports. Politicians need to understand the internet much better and the IT community needs to understand politics much better if this tension is to be sensibly addressed. At present, there seems to be an excess of emotion, driven on one side by messianic vision and on the other by fear of the unknown, with too little clear thinking. I have the impression that the internet is developing so fast that neither the political nor the IT communities can cope with the rate of change which therefore tends to drive some of their members even further apart. So, in my view, carefully planned initiatives which bring the politicians in close contact with what online communication can and can't achieve (such as UKCOD's pilots for the European Parliament (UK Office) and the London Borough of Brent) should be continued. (Note 2). The need for Action Research There are an increasing number of online democracy projects worldwide but research into the human process and the technology is currently hard to find. Good action research into online democracy is a priority and should attract funding. Research that accompanies and learns from "real projects and public experimentation" is of much greater value than theorising in a domain for which we have no provably valid historical precedents or experience. Variety of Current Activities No-one in Europe that I could find is doing what UKCOD is attempting in terms of assembling politicians for online debate (Note 3). However, several city web sites encourage public comment and discussion. These are potential partners for initiatives and projects at European level. A good example is the Pericles Project, a network of public "kiosks" (Note 4) currently under construction in Athens which will use an intranet and a very simple touch screen interface to enable citizens to participate in the decision making process. The software enables users to make suggestions and vote on them. This is a project to watch closely. It is developed by Mario Nottas and George Kambourakis (http://147.102.10.16 or telephone 301 995 2466) Links to Ongoing Initiatives About 100 projects were on display at 30 computers in the exhibition area. I have a list of the URLS and titles but only in paper form (might also be on the conference web site but haven't checked). Some of these are existing or potential partners for European initiatives eg http://www.mannheim.de which already includes citizen participation and discussion. (Note 5) The Need of "Offline" Communication and Learning James Fishkin's presentation on his "Deliberative Democracy" experiments was impressive. The experiment was completely off-line and involved bringing together a representative sample of individuals from all over the US to deliberate over political issues by providing them with the benefit of expert advice and a convivial atmosphere. Fascinating how all concerned seemed uplifted by the experience of sharing and participating in a project which felt important and meaningful and also how their political stances changed as a result of being better informed and how consensus was arrived at. This project reminds us that online democracy should not be considered in isolation from conventional methods of enhancing the democratic process. Fishkin's research has inspired and informed Channel Four TV's "The People's Election" broadcasts. (Note 6) The Need for European and International Networking and Information Exchange All interested conference participants should maintain contact via an existing or new mailing list etc. in order to develop the ideas of online democracy, and this should extend to include non-participants and all relevant European initiatives. (Note 7) Getting the Children Connected What actually happens in electronic democracy will largely be determined by younger generations who will vote when a majority or all of our citizens are online. The way children and students learn to use the networks will have a significant impact on this. In the USA, Sun Microsystem's "Net Day" project to get all 120,000 US schools online has had a 70% success rate since March 96!! Just shows what can be done with a well promoted national drive to recruit committed local volunteers - without whom this project could not have been achieved. The central website, (which includes a map of the US from which you can click down to your local school) apparently took three people one month to build... (Note 8) Some Contributions Here are some quotes to give a flavour of the proceedings. Note that some of the items are from verbatim notes, the ETO site team is seeking to contact those who have been quoted so that they may have an opportunity to validate their statements. Geert Lovink, Digital City (Amsterdam) We are entering the phase of 'massification' of the internet in which commercialisation will also mean increased control. Andrew Graham, professor of economics, Balliol College, Oxford Globalisation has been going on for a very long time; it has not depended on the internet and it does not necessarily mean the inevitable decline of the nation state . . . indeed too much globalisation can create nationalism (e.g. the pressures on the Shah of Iran...). In order to obtain maximum benefit from the internet and the global market and to promote democracy we need: Global standards and laws; Diversity of content to protect and promote local culture; Good editors and moderators to help educate, mediate and facilitate. Stephen Miller, MD, Mass Networks Education Partnership Private profit seeking investment is the wind in our sails - but we also need public policy making to facilitate non-commercial goods and service provision. Herbert Schiller, Prof. of Economics and Communication, Univ. of California We must recognise the commercial forces that are acting on the development of the internet. There are currently two opposing visions of the internet: one is that it will lead to group empowerment and enrichment, the other is that it is an enormous marketing opportunity. As far as the US is concerned, these two visions are incompatible as evidenced by the US radio, TV and cable industries which have all been overtaken by the commercial sector . . . the US isn't developing an Information Society - it's developing a Marketing Society! Benjamin Barber, Prof. of Political Science, Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick The quality of our democracy will not depend on the quality of our technology but on the quality of our institutions and citizens. Robert Cailliau, co-inventor of the WWW (with Tim Berners Lee) (www.cern.ch/CERN/People/Robert/Personal/Data.html) There are several threats to the WWW: That a single company locks up world standards Fragmentation of standards Increased complication (e.g.developments of frames) A packet switching or circuit switching war A consciuos leading away from abstract to purely visual knowledge Advertising Virtual reality - the ultimate hard drug! Europe must concentrate on content provision, an area in which it lags behind the US, if it is to preserve its diverse cultures and languages. One way of generating this content is to use students and teachers who should have 24 hour internet access via schools and colleges, each with their own server. The above report has been provided to European Telework Development (ETD) by Irving Rappaport, UK Citizens Online Democracy (UK COD), http://www.democracy.org.uk. ETD will be following through with UK COD other relevant and interested parties to assist in networking and information exchange at European level on this vital topic, as an exemplar of effective telecooperation. Notes UK Citizens Online Democracy http://www.democracy.org.uk In November and December 1996 UK COD supported an online seminar involving Members of the European Parliament and representatives of industry and other interests, focused on the policy issue "Should UK join the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU)?". Reports on the project will be published at the ETO and UK COD sites shortly. UK COD is currently (March 1997) supporting three kinds of forums: Policitians' Forums in which politicians explain their positions and are challenged by othe politicians; Invited Forums in which selected participants (including politicians) debate public policy issues; Public Forums that are open to all. These activities are all fully visible online at http://www.democracy.org.uk "Kiosks" refers to access points for the Internet or other networked services positioned in public places for walk-up use by citizens. Kiosks may appear in Libraries, the High Street, rail, bus and plane stations or roadside facilities. Access points in Cybercafés are another approach to "kiosks". The ETO site team is compiling a list of links, which will be available shortly at our page of links and resources about telecooperation A link to details of the "People's Election" programme will be provided shortly. The European Telework Development Initiative is collaborating with UK COD and other interested parties to create an independent, politically neutral online "meeting place" for European electronic democracy projects, initiatives and interested parties. A form will be provided here shortly for those who wish to register an interest. The USA national programme NetDay96 (http://www.netday96.com) was a national program to wire America's K-12 schools as a first step toward gaining Internet access. It is a historic grassroots effort in the classic American barn-raising tradition, with activities occuring on each of the four Saturdays in October 1996. At least 35 states are participating; individual state programs and timetables vary. To see what's happening in any particular state, go to the NetDay Web site and click on the state's image. Contact information, a list of participating schools and information on how to volunteer are also available on the NetDay96 Web site.