2007 will be a crucial year in France, since for the first time, both favorite candidates are running their first presidential campaign. Ségolène Royale, 53, used to be an outsider facing her fellow elders in the Socialist Party, and Nicolas Sarkozy, 52, came out with his presidential ambitions only 3 years ago. It is a real revolution in the french political landscape, where presidents often run several polls before being elected. On top of inherent good communication skills, both of them knew how to benefit from new communication channels.
New generation of candidates brings new means of communication. My friend Jeremy (the Tech IT Easy guy) found a good definition of Web 2.0 : “Web 2.0 companies are companies smart enough to make users do the job.” That’s exactly the point of this presidential campaign. The UMP (Sarkozy’s rightwing party) website provides the militants with free space and interface to create their own campaign blog. On Royal’s Socialist Party website, you can subscribe to take part in the pre-election socialist participative debates.
Well, make users do the job, but be receptive to their signals. Remember your economics lessons: There’s no such thing as a free lunch. The internet is not simply a mean to reach more audience. Allowing bilateral communication, it needs to be used bilaterally. There’s nothing more disapointing than a politician’s blog only fed by militants (and most of them are in this case). Such websites only reach a militant base already convinced (pro or con). That’s precisely what Royal understood starting her controversed participative debates. On the internet, Sarkozy (who early pointed at new media assets) posted a comment on Mathieu Kassovitz’s blog defending his policy as Minister of the Interior.
The web will play a major role in this presidential campaign, as it has been playing so far. Remember Royal controversed off the record videos posted on YouTube, Sarkozy advertising on Google, new year greetings on their respective websites. All these processes are not new, the new thing is the buzz it generates (and which, for sure, is not gonna decrease). You now can adress directly your policy-makers, they can answer your questions. You can contribute to the debate on your blog, be a journalist posting your own videos on Youtube. Good or bad shift, welcome to Democracy 2.0.
3 Comments
January 2, 2007 at 11:38 pm
Hey Leo,
Interesting post on a very hot topic. True weblogs and the Internet in general helps the bottom-up approach in politics. But isn’t bottom-up dialogue the very essence of democracy? Why ask whether Democracy 2.0, as you smartly name it, is a good or bad shift? The absence of dialogue between ‘decision-makers’ and the people is the reason why the people stops trusting its politicians and why politicians start cheating on the people. Decision-makers, in a democracy, shouldn’t make decisions but apply decisions made by the people. They should be like teachers: explaining complex political/economic/social/legal situations to people whose job isn’t dealing with such things, but feeding the economy of the country being a baker as well as a doctor.
I believe Democracy 2.0 is a blessing for the West. And I hope other Nations such as China or Iraq will take to blogging soon.
My view point probably lacks balance, but I’m bullish on the positive effects of having everybody becoming a mini-media.
January 3, 2007 at 9:46 am
Hi Jeremy,
As an early blogger, your comment doesn’t surprise me. But as you pecised it, “TRUE weblogs [...] helps the bottom-up approach in politics.” My question is: how can you assess that the current weblogs landscape is fostering dialogue?
Obviously, many relevant blogs available on the internet convey democratic messages. But most weblogs range from personnal diaries to propaganda channels. To get an overview of the weblogs landscape, just visit skyblog.com, you will find a too noisy environment to find reliable data.
I’m playing devil’s advocate, and you know that I am quite confident in blogging future as a democratic process. The only thing is, as you pointed at on your blog, search engines will play an increasing role to sort the huge data generated by bloggers (and more generally, by all contributors to the web 2.0). I guess Web 2.1 will focus on star bloggers like Loïc Le Meur who will be considered as reliable and therefore relevant source of information. Back to journalism ?
Enjoy your trip in Normandy,
Léo
January 7, 2007 at 12:47 am
Hey Leo,
If I understand well, the question is “how to assess that weblogs actually help starting dialogues”. I guess it’s an excellent: I have no anwser to it. But look at your very blog: would you have such conversations without your blog? Would I have met so many interesting people without mine?
Certainly not. You mention Loïc, whose motto is that blogs start conversations vs. media sending messages. I believe this is true: blogs are a true two-ways dialogue tool when used cleverly. But as I said: hard to prove other than by the example. That’s why the point you’re raising is so appealing.
I’ll think about it and get back to you if I find a proper, intellectually satisfactory, answer.
See you man,
Jeremy