TechYob

I previously wrote about the impact that Internet-enabled collaboration and communities on democracy.  How the fulcrum of power will increasingly move away from the sanitised, centralised mass media towards decentralised communities of influence.  

That was why I was more than a little interested to read recent articles appearing in the Australian press about the use of the Internet by activists to try to disrupt the G20 meeting in Melbourne this week.  The Group of Twenty, attended by finance ministers from countries representing 85% of the world’s gross domestic product,  was established in 1999 as a forum for discussing key issues in the global economy.  Websites such as stopg20.org dramatically improve the ability of activists to self-organise around key events.  People participate, stay informed, keep connected.  They are increasingly self-informing and therefore self-forming.  There is less reliance on charismatic leaders.  Mobilization is instead around creating the infrastructure and channel for members to self-serve and participate. 

Other websites, such as Syndey Indy Media, demonstrate the ability for user-generated media to be proactive in covering issues that are relevant on a profoundly local level.  Rather than coming across as left-wing reactionaries, I think more and more people who are disenfranchised with the lack of bandwidth paid to their issues and concerns in main stream media will find refuge in such sites.  Their catch cry “don’t hate the media, be the media” tells me they get new-media in a way their less tech-savvy counterparts have yet to grasp.

On the weekend I got to talking about the The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, with a good friend of mine Tim Mortimer (also known as a founder and Director of the real-time B2B integration company RedWahoo).  One of Friedman’s most remarkable assertions got me thinking about the power of social networks and Web 2.0 that stands poised to be unleashed on Democracy as we know it

There is an iron law in U.S. politics: The party that most quickly absorbs and adopts the latest technology, dominates politics.  FDR dominated the radio and the fireside chat, JFK televised debates, Republicans talk radio and Karl Rove direct mail and computerized databases

If you think that mySpace, Facebook and youtube will be looked back on as the defining achievements of Web 2.0 then surely you are mistaken.  Future elections will be won and lost based on the ability of parties and candidates to understand and harness the latent power of online communities and social networks, united by shared interests and values.