For ppl to really participate in dialog, issues have to be communicated and digested. Today, for “political” content, that still requires an end user to sit down and read an article – sometimes several to get a rounded-out perspective – and then wade through the plethora of opinion content out there (be it from larger outlets like MajorMediaCo.com, or yahoo or joe’s blog or whatever). As it is, there’s a growing laziness of ppl taking for face value some random blurb they read on the Internet without verifying facts/source.

This level of “literacy” if you will, is not the same as snacking on soundbites from youtube video or seeing what your friends are saying on facebook. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. My guess is that even young ppl today are still consuming most of their political news headlines / soundbites via major TV networks after their favorite reality television show because it’s much more packaged, and there needs to be some behavioral shift for the consumption of “political” content to become meaningful.

The converse is true – while some candidates have a nice presence on the web/email newsletters/donation mechanisms, etc, there are more tools they could be using to actually present their ideas / platforms (interactive tutorials, embedding images / diagrams in presentation form) that a web presence could be advantageous for.

Since both of these components are readily doable, I tend to think the moneyed interests who now largely control the voice of the People have not seen it in their best interest to get this done. For this reason, I don’t think we are ever going to see the true communicative power of the Internet used to actually allow the People to speak in our political system.

ex animo
davidfarrar

I’d take that one step further. Whatever systems that are set up to facilitate citizen input into governance MUST be set up with open standards, such that no one organization (private company or government agency) has the ability to, in effect, control the perception of that citizen input. If I’m a citizen, and I want to take a position on an issue, I should be able to do so on any service I wish, or set up my own service, and know that my position will carry as much weight as any other comparable citizen’s input.