Go Ask Howard

On page 139, Johnson describes how Senator Stabenow built a community around prescription drugs through her official website that allowed visitors to share their own stories dealing with prescription drugs, find out more information on legislation, and subscribe to email newsletters. Stabenow reached out to all voters, not just her Michigan constituents. For those members who are interested in Presidential runs or other national leadership, the Internet is a way to build a national presence and community.

Encouraging viewers to comment on the website and suggest improvements (Congress Online 133), both on campaign websites and on official government websites, is like tapping into free work. Forget about spending thousands on focus groups! Open-sources applications like Mozilla have been hugely successful in creating improved products because many people are working on improving it on their own volunteer basis.

Plus, people love it when you ask for their opinion!

Progressives need to embrace email and podcasting like conservatives embraced talk radio.

Talk radio doesn't persuade anyone. What it does is give conservative supporters talking points for defending and advancing conservative views to friends, family, and opponents. It's like arming their soldiers. Even as an involved, reasonably aware progressive, I wish we had a similar, efficient system. I know we're facing huge crises, I know that supply-side, trickle-down economics doesn't work, but I can't defend myself when those Republicans start throwing out "facts."

Cheap and easy help is here. Jesse Jackson has been doing it with JaxFax since 1993! I wish Kerry would stop using email as his soap box and fundraising mechanism, sending it out way too many times a week and clogging my small inbox. Instead, he should be using it for MESSAGE DELIVERY. What is his main issue? What is he going to do about? Why is the right wrong and why are we right? What should I do about it and where can I get more info to convince people (a la Clinton)?

By answering these five questions, weekly not every day, he could have a totally prepared army. Having your supporters deliver a message is way better than delivering it yourself, especially since they have existing networks based on trust. I am way more likely to forward an email if it lays out an issue I care about in black and white, with bulleted points, than one of his garrulous emails. Things don't get forwarded or virally marketed if you don't do them right!

There's an art and a science to writing email.

One of the things we are talking about in our Pol Comm class is how the push for breaking news 24 hours a day is making crappy "news" - reporters search for quick conflict, like Harry Reid said so and so about X Republican - not for deep news about policy issues. The Daily Kos got a hold of Bush's speech ahead of time. The news has gone into the future!

For the Public, Not the Congressman
Not the Congressman

On page 129, Johnson says in Congress Online that a focus group around Congressional websites saw the member’s pages as “too concerned with promoting the lawmaker, rather than informing their audiences.”

Members, concerned with re-election and having sizable egos, understandably want to use all tools at their disposal to improve their image, but there is a better way to do it. When the tone is self-congratulatory, visitors believe and retain less of the information. By simply changing the tone to one of frankness, matter-of-factness, the member comes across as more reliable and trustworthy. The information is seen as valid, and the reader accepts it.

Even, in discussing a member’s view on a bill, stating the other point of view factually can help in projecting an image more in line with informing the public than in building up the Congressman. Also, by presenting the other side and then being able to rebut or inoculate against the opposition arguments, the Congressman has helped a supporter become a better advocate. Inoculating is a common component of campaigns, but the inoculation on issues can be taken into the everyday policy world to build solid supporters as well.

This is part of an email sent out to Dean/DNC list about "Democracy Bonds," or as other's in the non profit world know them "sustainers" or "members" - people that give small amounts monthly through their credit card or check draft. I like the idea of owning the party. See Advise and Consent's post on Dean and ownership for more info.

This morning, on the Democratic Party's brand new web site, I made my commitment to reform the political process and change the way political parties are financed.

I got my 'Democracy Bond'.

A 'Democracy Bond' is the way for you to take control of our party's future. It's a monthly commitment to donate a small amount -- $20, $30 or whatever you can afford -- to build a sustainable Democratic Party in every state and win elections at every level of office.

More important, 'Democracy Bond' are the start of a community of Americans with a stake in our common future. We, the people, have the chance to reclaim our government and rid politics of special interest money once and for all. With a 'Democracy Bond' you don't get your money back -- but you do get your country back:

http://www.democrats.org/democracybond

So much for MoBlogging.
As I'm away with spotty Internet access this week, I thought I could use a friend's cell, which can send email, to do remote posting. How much cell phones have changed in two years! As technology keeps changing, I hope I can keep up!

For the Public, Not the Congressman
For the Public

On Congressional websites – Johnson notes that constituents looking at official’s websites are not interested in a promotional piece. They want information, not propaganda – that’s the campaign’s role.

While more Congressmen are including a link to THOMAS, the legislative data base is clumsy for first time users. A better link would be to nonpartisan Project Vote Smart, which provides self-reported survey results on candidates, as well as scorecards from issue groups on both sides of the aisle.

What would be even better is a list of votes on all bills with links to what both sides of the aisle have to say about the bills. Deciphering legislation is hard, and constituents deserve quick interpretations.

Where are they?
Having public schedules of legislators is a great idea, particularly for when the officials will be in the district, and I would recommend this at the state level, too. In my home town, sometimes the district “office hours” of state officials are posted in the bulleting section of the paper, and I always intend to go, but the announcements only run the day of, and my schedule is usually already full by then.

Actually meeting people is one of the best ways to maintain support, particularly at local levels where fewer people vote. Having the hours posted in advance on the website would make it easier for more people, from different walks of life, to stop by to talk with the official. It also inoculates the member from opposing candidates’ claims that they are “out of touch” with the district.

What are they doing?

I love the point Johnson makes of listing bills coming up on the schedule, analysis of current bills, and the votes and views on past bills on Member’s websites. Not only does this help constituents see that Congressmen are actually busy, working hard, on important issues, not petty political fights, but it gives them the tools to be better advocates. If you know when a bill you care about is scheduled to be heard, you can mobilize your friends and family members to contact their legislators at the best, most critical time.

_______________________________________________

While it may be impossible for US Congressional members to personally write individual, timely emails back to their constituents, I can testify that nothing makes a better impression outside of actually meeting the candidate. And it is totally do-able at the state-representative level.

My testimony:
My state representative wrote me back a timely email that at least sounded as if it was coming from her – it was a short, candid response, not a position paper. I am a big fan now, even though she said that she wasn’t sure what she could do on my issue, but had a few loosely related ideas.

My state senator, however, sent me back a paper response about a month after I had sent him an email that sounded like a form letter and did not acknowledge my point of view on the issue at all. It was like a piece of campaign lit to the opposite side of my take on the issue, and I thought less of him than if my email had been ignored completely.

A quick response to email is important for so many reasons, and Congress’s fears that Johnson details about sending email and their preference for paper letters simply does not outweigh the cost of not responding to email with email.

Not only are you better able to engage people when you reply sooner to their request (every organized campaign and nonprofit knows that you respond as soon as possible to volunteers, before they lose interest), but it is a sign of organization and respect.

Studies have shown that people prefer to be contacted in the media with which they initiated contact. It only makes sense – if you’re sending an email, you probably want a quick response!

Members say that they like the seriousness of the look of stationary over the casualness of email. First, seriousness in the today’s world is determined in how fast you respond and how good your information is, and paper does not deliver any more seriousness than an email, particularly for the younger generation (although I do agree that the virtual stationary is a nice compromise). Second, however, perhaps people want a casual, approachable relationship with their representative. We have seen it lately in national elections – folksy, warm, casual folks like Bush win over stiff, formal candidates like Gore and Kerry.

If you get an email in HTML, or if the layout is formal with dates and address and salutations, by all means use the fancy stationary. But if you get an email in text, you should probably send it in text, for the added reason that html slows down many email accounts, which is a nuisance for many constituents.

Also, email has additional benefits, like directing the recipient to the official’s homepage, possibly pointing out some new news like a press release on the homepage, and encouraging the constituent to sign up on the official’s newsletter. It’s unlikely many folks would do any of these options if they receive a paper letter two or more weeks after they first wrote their representative. But if it is a quick response, with information added, and signing up for the newsletter or looking at a new press release is just a click away, many more folks are likely to sign up.

On pg 117 of Congress Online, Johnson says that many lawmakers do not put their email addresses on their stationary, though some do put their websites URLs. The subtle message that this sends is the typical, arrogant, “Listen to me. But I am not interested in listening to you.”

If Congressmen would like to use the Email-Your-Representative Forms, which provide filtering, then they should write on their stationary, “email me at www.mysite.gov.” The Internet, let’s say it again, is about dialogue, not top-down communication.

The worth of email

Johnson’s Congress Online documents the different types of software US Senators and Representatives use to manage their email. Some of the programs, like EchoMail, send automated responses depending upon key words that have been picked up. (115)

This practice really upsets me. While I understand that my elected representatives may have their staff read and respond to my letters, I always assumed that somehow my voice would be heard if I wrote letters or emails to my representatives. My theory was that a staff member would read what I had to say, and it would affect his opinion on a piece of legislation, and he might speak with his boss about it.

With programs like EchoMail, however, now, no one reads the email, except a computer. Can the computer program even tell how I feel about an issue? I certainly doubt it can measure the intricacies of some of my emails, the ones that aren’t cut and dry on an issue, but suggesting a kind of compromise. This upsets me because the whole uniqueness of new technology like the Internet is that it provides a cheap, manageable way for elected officials to have a two-way dialog with their constituents. Instead, it seems as if they are using the technology to filter out constituent comments.

The new email software can even send automated responses, further proof that our electronic correspondences have no affect on our decision-makers’ perspectives. I think using the software like this could be a big mistake, unless it is able to filter out only those form emails organized by advocacy groups. There is nothing that infuriates constituents like me more than when I get back a letter that seems to have been written not at all in response to my concerns. The whole point of accepting email is to show that you are interested in what the people you represent have to say!

So these software programs are pretty much legislative correspondent machines. (Taking away intellectual work, a la Vonnegut’s Player Piano.) Will there be machines that manage campaigns more effectively than people, or at least reduce the role of people? There is an article on using mathematical equations to determine where to spend resources – link – not much of a stretch to machines which can accept input for such equations and produce output.

I'm reading this book now by Kurt Vonnegut, Player Piano . It's supposed to be in the future, with a major theme being that machines do so much that people have come to feel useless. There is plenty of food and shelter and there is "work," but the work isn't inspiring because computers and machines can do so much - even determine how many washing machines or novels the economy can absorb. Every day the world loses more and more intellectual work, in addition to the disappeared physical work.

Will this ever happen to us? I always thought that there was no shortage of intellectual work to be done, but we have lost some intellectual jobs. For instance, Quickbooks has replaced accountants. Shared computer power are determining higher and higher prime numbers, solving difficult equations. Long ago, as Professor Johnson will share, opposition researchers traveled the country to small towns to search through public records, follow leads - now we have information at our fingertips as we sit at our desks. Will there always be new things to spend our time on? Will we feel needed?

Contentious.com's article on Web Feeds brought up spam, and Ireland and Nash's text warned against potential anti-spam legislation. Technology to beat spam filters continues to proliferate, but so does technology to beat caller-ID. The technology fools the phone line it is calling into thinking it is another phone number. It pretends to be another phone number, potential a number that the person who answers the phone will trust.

Companies say that they will only market the tool to law enforcement officials, and there are some hints that it will be released to collection agencies, but the promises are meaningless. Once the technology exists, it gets out there, into the hands of people who shouldn't have it.

As phones become more personal with individually owned cell phones, this trickery feels like a huge invasion of privacy.

The form of the email newsletter, according to Ireland and Nash, determines whether it will be read. Having a sort of concise table of contents at the top, with details lower in the email, gives subscribers the information they need quickly to determine whether or not they will continue to read the email.

Newsletter masters should still think outside the box, however. Some of the emails from the Kerry campaign were written in narrative style, like a direct mail piece, and a number of them were very compelling.

Yet the compelling narrative style email may be do-able only in high profile races. Most people who signed up for the email, or who at least read the email, felt engaged in the race. I continue to get emails from Democrats that I don’t have time to read, with a slow email account, particularly when I don’ know what they are about.

Having a good Subject line is the most successful way to get people to read your emails. All of the newsletters from the Democratic list have had vague titles like Fighting for You, or Stop Republican Extremists. While these emails get through to some Democrats, they don’t get through to me, an avid Democrat, and are skipped over by others I know. The subject lines should be clear – Save the Filibuster, Stop Extreme Judges, Pass Child Healthcare. Then I am able to decide whether I am interested in the email and open it accordingly. Nielsen's critique of the washingtonpost.com newsletter illustrates this subject line problem.

The From line is just as important as the Subject line, perhaps even more important. While Ireland and Nash emphasize the friend-to-friend emailing, or viral marketing, that makes so many online campaigns successful, even emails sent out by the organization should have an email address that gives information to the subscriber. For instance, Tom McMahon and Harry Reid are unknown to most of the people who subscribed to John Kerry’s list. Why are they sending out emails under their names? No one knows who they are, and I never open those emails. Hilary Clinton, John Kerry, Howard Dean – these are the top names that should be used, or else Democratic Party. Nielsen reports on the Bush side of the problem.

Likewise, nonprofits shouldn’t use their Executive Director’s name as the From line. When I sign up or give money to an organization, I don’t remember the executive director’s name. I do remember the organization name, and I do expect to get emails from the organization. When a person’s name is used in the From line instead of the organization name, sometimes the newsletter master puts the organization’s name in the subject line, but this leaves less space for the subject, and can often cut out the meat of the subject. Subject lines must be short simply because email programs can only fit so much of the subject line on the page.

On page 160, Ireland and Nash warn against keeping subscribers on email lists who ask to unsubscribe. Some candidates may view this as a sign of weakening support, but in reality, it could be a sign that the campaign is sending up too many emails! People's inboxes fill up quickly. You might not keep them if you remove the subscribers from the email list, but you will certainly lose them if you keep them on after they ask to be removed!

Another solution may be to allow subscribers to indicate how often they would like updates - once a week, once a day, or whenever urgent, just as Google Alert allows subscribers to choose.

Also, on page 168, Ireland and Nash criticize pop-ups. It is true that people hate pop-ups, and there is more software than ever to suppress pop-ups, but they still have their use. For instance, an Internet consultant for the Democratic Party said that they found that pop-ups of Bush in a scary picture raised a ton of money for the Kerry campaign. Also, if you have an urgent goal, such as the closing of a fundraising period, or to raise funds for a recount, pop-ups would also be warranted.

In such an anonymous world, I agree it's important to add that personal touch, as everyone wrote on The Same Wave Length. Dean's personal calls to small donors (I got the email, too), is a nice touch, because it contrasts with the access that large donors have to elected officials.

This isn't a new shtick, though. When we did a house party for Dean, all the house parties across the country got to be on a conference call with Dean and Al Gore. Some parties even got to ask questions, and all got to introduce themselves. That was the cool part, the two way conversation and the connection with all the other supporters that were doing something that seemed very strange to me - having a party to raise money for a political candidate. Definitely got me more excited about him. This class is Politics and the New Media, but conference call technology is kind of old, and telephones are even older. What is new is the way of thinking.

A fundraising feature that I think would be neat is to have a comments box where people can write messages to the candidate or the campaign to attach with their message.

I thought about this when reading the anecdote in Winning Campaigns Online (pg 132) about the candidate who logged into her fundraising database every night because she "liked being able to log in at the end of a long day and read the email messages of support from her contributors. For her, the contributions represented not only money, but also a daily confirmation of her support in the community."

What a source of motivation, and what a way to make people feel heard. Can you imagine, too, if the staff or candidate picked out a few good quotes from those messages and then used them on television, in being quoted by a paper, or on a radio interview? You can bet that contributor would feel amazing, and be more loyal and get others to support the candidate. It gives the whole campaign the image of not just passively "listening" to voters, but of really taking what they say to heart.

Mobile technology and instant communication technology is certainly changing the way we work together - text messaging has allowed citizens of third world countries to organize, and social software that works with cell phones allows people to meet strangers who share common interests. Pre-teens to college students are quickly becoming addicted to IM, Instant Messenger.

But is all of this technology changing our psychology and the way we interact for the better? I do not use IM because I know that I am easily distracted and have little will power - if I'm working on a paper and I'm interrupted, I'm much less productive. There is plenty of peer pressure to sign on, though. I've started taking cell phone calls when I am out with other friends because people have said I never answer my cell phone, but what is the proper etiquette? I never plan exactly where or when to meet people any more, because we use the cell phone as a walkie-talkie to find each other. Will the ease of sites like Mapquest make it more difficult for the next generation to use regular maps? Is the new technology making us dumber, less organized, more scatter-brained?

The television, the Reagan Administration's relaxing of advertisement length, and the remote control have all been attributed to our decreasing attention span. Will new technology create similar handicaps? Is it worth it anyway?

Monday night, our Political Communications class listened to staffers from Tom DeLay's office talk about what it means to be a communications director or a press secretary in the House. For Congressmen who are not in the leadership, it is difficult to get media attention, even if the leadership has referred reporters to those Congressmen who are experts on particular issues. Are online interviews a place where these Congressmen can have their voices heard?

While the value of Internet interviews is certainly different from print, radio, or television interviews, it seems to be a new frontier not yet crowded with Senators and House leaders. Perhaps it could be used as a tool to get print, radio, or television time, just as the blogs are seen as a tool to get the MSM to cover issues they currently ignore.

- Joe Trippi, Campaign Manager, Dean for America.

Political Journalists are obsessed with the horse race, with approval ratings, with how policy decisions affect careers of politicians, about political maneuvering and infighting. There is little to no substantial coverage on how potential policy will solve or fail to solve problems affecting ordinary people. Most citizens are more interested in policy than in the disputes among politicians. (See Fallow's book for more detail)

One would hope the alternative media would change this, would cover what the MSM fails to cover, and would therefore pressure MSM outlets to cover policy, not political mechanics.

Instead, traditional outlets have taken the form of the blog, but have not changed the substance. The WashingtonPost.com article on Bush's favorability ratings illustrates this. Now, I'm no Bush fan, but couldn't a paid journalist in the nation's capitol write something substantial, something that really does have an impact on the public interest?

Oops, I saved the last post as a draft instead of publishing it.

Regarding the article The Power of Us

I am not entirely sure how Albert Einstein or Charles Darwin would get "lost in the cooperative crowds." If anything, the democratization of the media would give the change for more Einsteins or Darwins to be found, not just skimmed from the top of society.

Also, while the idea of information sharing is very exciting, there is a caution as well. There are a lot of people posing as experts who really know very little about the topic. For instances, there are a number of women's health blogs that attempt to answer questions that are posted with very little detail. While such a blog could be a potential source of information for women who do not have health insurance and cannot afford a doctor, and could give women the necessary information to empower themselves by insisting on treatment in the doctor's office, the actual postings do not seem to be very reliable and, in fact, sometimes falsely reassure those with questions.

Link to Women's Health Forum.

The Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet held a panel a few weeks ago about campaign finance and blogs. One of the topics panelists brought up is whether bloggers should be required to disclose whether they are paid by candidates when they post information and opinions about the candidates on a blog. The thought is that readers can then take the information with the appropriate grain of salt, just as television advertising features a disclosure of who paid for the ad. But is the comparison of blogs to television advertising appropriate? Ordinary journalists, for paper, television, and radio, are not required to disclose their financial interests, even though those interests, whether it is owned stock or lecture payments received, may conflict with topics they could potentially cover.The book Breaking the News by James Fallow covers this topic in detail.

Are bloggers journalists? Do they have the potential to be corrupted, or to seem corrupted, by moneyed interests any more than journalists? Or should both industries, which can significantly influence public opinion and therefore policy, be regulated to provide disclosure?

Steven Baker's article Blogs Will Change Your Business brings the democratization of the media through new technology to the attention of the business community. Yet what most of the article covers is the threat blogs pose to industry, not the potential. The article focuses on potential grassroots (or, astroturf) techniques to manage the impact of blogs on company's profits. If companies are putting up fake blogs to glorify new products, they are missing a huge chunk of market to be gained by listening to those consumer who care enough to comment on line about products. Some people, myself included, have huge brand loyalty and want to help make products better - that's how Mozilla came about, with many people adding to a product, all brining small improvements. Joe Trippi, campaign manager of the Dean for America campaign, has a much more exciting vision for business, one that is community-oriented and delivers better products for consumers, a vision he describes in his book The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

Much has been made of TiVo and how it gives consumers choice and control, including the ability to skip commercials. Winning Campaigns Online quotes Doug Bailey of www.FreedomChannel.com on its cousin Video-on-demand, as saying, "Instead of the network programmers being in charge of what we see, and when, we will be in charge ourselves." Is this goodbye commercials?

Hardly. The for-profit world will find their way around anything, especially when it comes to selling their product. Advertisers have instead turned to commercials imbedded in TV programs, along the frame of the screen.

Read the article.
Read the responses of TiVo lovers.

Now everyone can be a reporter on film as well. Disposable video recorders, selling for $30 each, are about to hit CVS, according to NPR.

China requires bloggers to register in an effort to control free speech. Listen to NPR's story here.

They say that a newspaper is written at the 6th grade level. In the best articles, the writing is simple and immediately easy to grasp. The style does not cut people out, in general, but has always been held as a kind of universal, accessible style.

I don't feel this is the case with a lot of blogs, and I think it may hurt them in recruiting new readers. The Daily Kos site writes with a kind of tone that implies that the reader is a long-time loyal fan. The non-traditional grammar gets in the way of easy reading, I think, and the references to "Kossaks" or to contributors by their web names is awkward. I find the style exclusionary, and I feel like, demographically, I should be pretty close to the blog writers. I don't know how the blogs will be able to expand into other social groups if the style remains exclusionary and awkward. People hang out with people who are similar to themselves, and I imagine bloggers have a high percentage of blogger friends - will they continue to preach to the choir if they keep their current voice and style?

With the format of the class, though a test would be easier for time management purposes, I think that this format is helping me to learn a lot and to learn it quickly.

• It is an entirely new way of thinking, and so much to synthesize. Textbooks, papers, and most classes are organized linearly, with a point-to-point flow. It has been hard for me to stay organized because it is so easy to get distracted by interesting stuff.
  
• It has been great to hear more voices and opinions on all sorts of different issues, with in-depth information and the ability to think about classmate's views at my own pace. It seems in most classes a few voices dominate discussion, and there is a pressure to stay on the topic at hand, but this provides much more opportunity and information.
  
• It really forces you to interact with the texts.
• The style of blogging also gives a ton of freedom. It provides the opportunity to explore a number of different issues, instead of the rigid paper style that only allows one topic and is confined to a limited space.
  

Quotes about the Main Stream Media from former journalist James Fallows, author of Breaking the News:

"Since the early 1980s, the journalists who have shown up in movies have been portrayed, on average, as more loathsome than the lawyers, politicians, or business moguls who are the traditional bad guys in films about the white-collar world," in contrast to their earlier heroic counterparts.

"If an interest group did have the choice of buying the favor either of one prominent media figure or of two junior congressmen, it would even have to think about the decision. The pundit is obviously more valuable," yet not required to make personal financial disclosures like public officials.

The media's "relentless emphasis on the cynical game of politics threatens public life itself, by implying day after day that the political sphere is mainly an arena in which ambitious politicians struggle for dominance, rather than a structure in which citizens can deal with worrisome collecive problems."

Fallow goes on to say that the main political journalists have a different schema than ordinary citizens - they see politics with the game of politics as the priority, and policy decisions only movements within the game of politics, while ordinary people see governing, making policy decisions, as the goal of politics. The media's view is a view I had for a long time, a reason why I hated politics and planned to be a teacher. It keeps people out of democracy. But I haven't seen anythining much different in political blogs - maybe if issue-groups started more blogs (or if I read them if they're already out there), it would be different. After all, issue groups mobilize a lot more people on a deeper level, and it's how I first got engaged.

All this new technology seemed like such a great thing. Until all the advertising that came with it.
The Economist writes about all the exciting developments in Europe and Japan where consumers can opt-into advertising promotions to be delivered to your phone. While it notes that subscribers must be able to unsubscribe, how long will it be before those conditions go away and our cell phones become $50 a month hotmail accounts?
Then again, the Persuasive Technology text argues that mobile device users will not stand for this because they view their mobile devices as extensions of themselves. As one student said, if his mobile phone ever betrayed him through unwanted advertising, the phone "would be a goner." But what about those services that demand access to your account in return for their services - some of my credit cards that I pay online are constantly sending me junk email that I can't figure out how to stop. After a while, will advertising or junk mail to your mobile device no longer be taboo?

Why is it that the mainstream media fails to cover so many important stories that the blogs do cover? Is that they are afraid of upsetting someone, or of losing access to key sources? Is it that they have a lack of resources and therefore don't search for the stories, or don't go after stories that may be difficult? Is it that they have to use their resources on commercial stories - the Jackson trials and the runaway bride, stories that sell? While it is significant that blogs cover the difficult, important stories, the majority of people are not getting their information that way.

Was anyone else freaked out about the opening hypothetical examples in chapter 8 in the Persuasive Technology book? A computer that tells you what you should study and an implant that lets your coach know if you're drinking enough water? With a computer to tell you when to study, will students learn to manage their time by themselves?
Will new technology take away our ability to think for ourselves?

As much as I say I hate the other party, polarization is bad in my mind. It means we can't come up with solutions and compromises to address the urgent problems of today. A number of experts say that the Internet will increase this polarization by allowing people to virtually hang out with those who are like them, diminishing their contact with those who are not like them. As in the first class, we mentioned that people join online groups through other similarities - interest in quilting or fans of a TV show - and that these group members may share political views that differ with one another. There's also another point - with groups like Friendster and, to some extent, Facebook, we have larger networks that are not necessarily based on political views. People actually become friends and share ideas through these networks - I have a couple of friends who have met their girlfriends through Friendster. A larger network means more access to those who think differently - except for those who only live and breathe partisan politics, in which case they isolate themselves among their own kind in different ways, through group affiliations and by listening to talk radio. These networks also mean that we are less bound by geography - I can find out what Midwest farmers think, where I am usually surrounded by Northern urbanites. Or at least, we will be able to in the future as technology and online communication catches on. (What's even cooler is that decision makers can hear from citizens directly, instead of just analyzing, targeting, and polling them like laboratory experiment animals.)

The only ingredient needed to make online individual to individual communication more about subjecting ourselves to diverse political ideas is to take away the barrier, the taboo-ness of talking about politics. Is there a way for the Internet to make it less taboo to talk about politics?

Why is it that female candidates are less comfortable about being pro-active with the Internet in their campaigns? Why are they more intimidated if they are as familiar with the Internet as their male counterparts? Is it the same characteristic in women that makes them doubt themselves in other realms? Wouldn't women who have decided to run for public office have overcome this weakness?

The Internet can help women overcome a number of comparative weaknesses in campaigns - weakness beyond typical stereotypes. Women are often uncomfortable fundraising and asking for money, preferring anonymity and the Internet provides a way for contributors to give without delivering checks, which can make female candidates uncomfortable. It also allows them to have the kind of communication most women - and most candidates - would prefer to have with their constituencies - issue-based conversation by giving easy access to comparative issue pages, the ability to have a constant conversation with their constituents, not one that came around every two, four, or six years. The constant conversation focuses on issues, results and progress, not on selling the candidate. After all, people run for office because they care about issues and they want to make a difference, not because they want to win popularity contests. With a constant conversation, the candidate is more immune to attacks, since she has been updating constituents with progress, and many female candidates have a difficult time being attacked. In fact, generally they are poor at the counter-attack.

Probably the most important feature of the Internet is its ability to have a two-way conversation, instead of a top down structure, which is much friendlier to the female mind. Women ask others for advice and input and often prefer to govern by consensus, agreement, or compromise, not in a top-down structure. Input, feedback, and support could be the most valuable abilities the Internet has to offer.