Lower Than Low

Thank you to Henry Jenkins for pulling the race card when discussing the internet. You have sunk to a new low.

Jenkins says early internet users "desperately wanted a place where they didn't have to think about, look at or talk about racial differences."

We did?

I never asked for that. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that racial differences are the furthest thing on my mind when I access the internet.

A comparable analogy, in my mind, is The Washington Post. Most of us read this paper daily, but rarely do we ever look at the bylines of the reporters. When I do glance at the bylines, I do not try to figure out an author's race. I don't care about an author's race in the same way I don't care if they are male or female. It doesn't matter and it shouldn't matter.

The internet is colorblind, even if some members of our society sadly are not.

Unfortunately, we live in a time when people are seeking to divide us into different groups politically, socially, and demographically. One of my favorite sayings says: "They need a divided America. We don't." Call me an idealist, but I think we should focus on the ways in which we are alike, not different.

Jenkins and his friends can go discuss race on the internet, but for the vast majority of Americans this is a non-issue.

And in my opinion, it should stay that way.

It's the Cell Phone Stupid.

The Economist article on the digital divide raised some interesting points.

1) World organizations like the U.N. are trying to treat the digital divide as one large problem, instead of looking at the underlying causes of the divide like poverty.

2) The real key to closing the digital divide lies in cell phones, not the internet.

The U.N. is undertaking a project which aims to spread the internet to rural parts of the world. Through the "Digital Solidarity Fund," the U.N. hopes to increase prosperity among many poor countries by closing the gap between the haves and haves-nots in technology.

This is the wrong approach according to the Economist because the internet alone will not cure poverty, illiteracy, hunger, or other problems. The Economist states that you can't build prosperity from the top-down method.

Instead, they advocate building infrastructure from the ground up. And the perfect place to start is with the cell phones.

Almost 77 percent of the world lives within range of a mobile phone network. Cell phones are popular because anyone can use them - rich, poor, literate, and illiterate can all communicate via cell phone. Another advantage is that cell phones do not rely on a dedicated power supply, allowing users to take their phones into the most remote and rural areas of the world on a battery.

We've already experienced a cell phone revolution in this country. Cell phone use is up 300 percent in the United States and with over 159 million subscribers. Having already tapped out most of the domestic population, cell phone companies are targeting children under 12 with small cell phones as educational/safety devices.

Cell phones seem to be the wave of the future with new features like steaming video set to arrive en masse soon. It would be smart of the U.N. to take a bottom-up approach and work to install the latest cellular technology in the underdeveloped world instead of pursuing a flawed plan for internet access.

Trust Me, I'm an L.C.

In 1989, I wrote president George H.W. Bush a nice letter. I remember telling him how cool it was that the President of the United States had my same name!

Bush I wrote me a letter back and even sent me a signed photograph! I was so stoked that the President wrote me!

But that was 1989. Before e-mail. Before anthrax. Before citizens lost faith in government.

If I were born after Dennis Johnson wrote Congress Online, I would probably just sent the president an email. After all, the use of e-mail has increased almost 200 percent in less than 5 years! In 1999, there were 51 million e-mails sent to members of Congress. Now it is over 150 million.

So how does a member of Congress write back to his constituents?

They don't. (This burst my bubble when I found out H.W. Bush hadn't actually written me).

The glamorous job of responding to letters goes to a Legislative Correspondent or an LC as it is commonly referred to on the Hill. An LC is a fancy title for "letter writer," but it looks cool on a business card. House offices typically have one or two people who respond to constituent mail, but some Senate offices have up to 6 LC's.

To respond to the large volume of constituent mail, some members of Congress experimented with software that automatically filters out responses based on key words like "Social Security" or "Iraq." Ultimately, this software failed because members were worried that constituents had key pieces of their letters ignored.

Politicians are always worried about their next election. Suppose Joe Blow decides to write his Congressman X and gets a canned response about Immigration reform, when he wrote about his Immigration visa problems? Mr. Blow probably won't vote for Congressman X again, ever.

From that perspective, it's easy to see why that software failed.

After all, why trust an inhuman computer to sort letters, when you place your re-election hopes on a 23 year old college kid LC?

It sure fooled me in 1989.

Squeaky Clean Blogs

Phil posted an article from the Congressional Management Foundation about how candidates are utilizing blogs. The CMF Survey went into detail about the different types of blogs that they identified from a personal blog to a travel blog. I thought that was a little nit-picky. To me, a blog is a blog.

It was interesting to see what candidates posted on their blogs. Senator Patty Murray and Senator Jim Talent kept their constituents informed about the recent CODELs to Iraq. Senator Patrick Leahy believes that Vermonters will be interested in the details of every Senate roll call vote. Congresswoman and Senate hopeful Katherine Harris posts her thoughts about the 4th of July and the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

After reading each of these blogs, I was shocked at their similarities. They were all squeaky-clean and sanitized. I am not naive enough to think that the candidate actually writes the information himself/herself, but repeating the party talking points or your latest press release is pretty boring.

After all, why do we read blogs?

I read blogs so that I can find information that I would not find elsewhere. Our class emphasizes that blogs are cutting edge and get more in-depth than the MSM. Yet almost all of the information I found on these candidate blogs could be located by reading the local paper or staying informed. Of course, I could be a poor example because I like to think that I'm more informed than most people.

I would just prefer to see candidates with their gloves off. If they have a real opinion, it'd be nice if they'd share it. While that opens them up to criticism, it's what makes blogs unique. Senator Russ Feingold posted his controversial opinion about regulating blogs via the FEC on DailyKos. Perhaps he can afford to do that because he was just re-elected for another 6 years. Other politicians seem to shy away from controversy so that they can focus on getting re-elected.

Ideally, it'd be nice to read something new and interesting on candidate blogs instead of the same-old, same-old MSM stories. And most importantly, it'd be nice if the candidates would be real instead of cookie-cutter.

Local Party Control of Websites

The Man with the Plan?

In class a few weeks ago, Justin mentioned that it would be much better for both parties if they hosted all of the web technology in order to allow candidates to set up websites. A feature article on Howard Dean in the Washington Post Magazine describes why this might be useful.

The author called the Democratic Party "woefully inadequate" in some aspects of party infrastructure.

This episode in Oklahoma emphasized the author's point:

Example: Go to a Web site for Republicans in Oklahoma, Tulsagop.org. A crisp page appears, with a slide show that covers each issue of the day, from judicial nominees to stem cells. There are links to local GOP clubs, sharp color photos and an invitation to "participatory leadership training."

Go to Tulsademocrats.org, and you find an unpolished red-and-blue site with a handful of tabs. One of them says "Photos." Sounds promising. Click on it, and three words pop up.

"Flag Day 2003."

Dean was the internet candidate. And this article makes it sound like he's committed to giving parties the tools to succeed in the states, but I doubt if he will ever usurp local control of web operations.

I see three major problems, all of which are similarly related, with national parties running state and local candidate web sites.

1) National Interlopers. It might be unavoidable to have the national party exerting influence over the local party operations. Imagine getting a call from a person in NYC as to why you haven't updated your webpage in 3 weeks? Why should some Washington person tell a party chairperson how to run the web page for their local party?

2) Liability issues. If parties offered web space to individuals, who is ultimately liable for the content? I would argue that it would be the host. Why would the national parties want to open themselves up for potential slander / libel lawsuits from negative mudslinging on campaign web sites?

3) Unwillingness to be associated with the national party. Most times, people pride themselves on being a Rockefeller Republican in New York or a South Carolina Democrat to avoid the negative stereotypes of national parties. Running candidate X on the national Republican or Democrat webspace might Candidate X politically.

Local control seems like the best place for candidate and party websites. However, the national parties can do many things to help speed internet use in the state and local level. If the nationals give the local parties the technology to compete, I think they will be surprised by the results. With computers, programs, and training, state and local parties will be equipped to embrace new technologies that can make or break an election in their own communities.