What is the Role of Technology in Politics
Yesterday, I was writing about too much technology. Today, I am wondering about the power of technology. I have watched trailers for a couple of documentaries coming out this summer. No End In Sight (Clip is included below) about the Irag war (which also won some awards at Sundance) and Sicko about health care in the US. Over the past couple of years that I have been working on campaigns, I know that these are both major issues in politics, but ones that are removed from many Americans.
Will these documentaries, and the access to this level of information - images, video, interviews - play a role in shaping public perception about these issues. Currently most American’s interact with these issues through the lens of the main stream media. Will these documentaries play a greater role in shaping public perception.
When people ask me about the upcoming presidential elections I am really eager to see what the effect of technology will be on the presidential race. For the first time ever, voters have access to a tremendous amount of information about candidates. Television and the internet make it possible to see many aspects of these candidates. Do you think that the internet will play a significant role in the 2008 presidential elections?
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The short answer to your question is “no”, in my opinion, and mainly because these technologies haven’t fundamentally changed *how* we do politics. Politics on the Internet is the same as politics the old way — lots of noise, lots of biased statistics, lots of stuff written by people with hidden agendas. If anything, I feel that the current info overload is *decreasing* citizen involvement, because it’s so hard to tell what’s true.