Ethos Perspectives
The Impact of New Media
Introduction
Ever since the 2006 General Elections (GE) in May, the topic
of blogs and blogging has received more air time in local
mainstream media than before. Technorati estimates that 100,000
blogs are being created everyday. The vast number of conversations
in the Web and the speed at which they are generated make
it impossible for governments to hear, sieve through and respond
on every issue. Governments now face a new communication dilemma—how
to establish an online presence to engage the citizenry on
policy issues in a way that is constructive and not frivolous.
It has to find new ways to engage their stakeholders on policy
issues in ways that are constructive and not frivolous.
To understand netizens and develop new ways
of engagement, this issue of Ethos Perspectives provides a
snapshot of the psyche of bloggers (Ref 1), the possibility
of collaboration with online civic networks (Ref 2), the relationship
between the mainstream and new media (Ref 3), and the ways
which other governments try to manage blogs (Ref 4). Through
these articles, we hope to provide a perspective of the current
state of the blogosphere and what challenges and opportunities
it presents for governments.
Reference 1: Bloggers – A Portrait
of the Internet’s New Storytellers by Amanda Lenhart
and Susannah Fox
This survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project
gives a snapshot of the demographics and psychographics of
American bloggers where 8% of Internet users (or 12 million
American adults) keep a blog and 39% of Internet users (57
million American adults) read blogs.
A majority 78% of American bloggers said
that a personal experience inspired them to post, with 37%
of bloggers writing mainly about their life and experiences;
only 11% of bloggers focus on government and politics subjects.
Over half often or sometimes post because of something they
heard or read about in the news media. Close to all bloggers
(95%) get news from the internet, but a comparable percentage
also include newspapers, television and radio in their daily
news diet. While 72% of bloggers look online for news on politics,
more so than the general internet population, the proportion
of bloggers who prefer news sources (i) that do not have a
particular political viewpoint (45%); (ii) that challenge
their viewpoint (24%); or (iii) that share their political
viewpoint (18%) mirror trends in the general internet population.
These findings dispel the current myth that political blogs
are taking centrestage in the American blogosphere.
Lenhart, Amanda and Susannah Fox, Bloggers
- A Portrait of the Internet's New Storytellers, Pew Internet
& American Life Project (US: Washington DC, July 2006).
http://www.pewinternet.org
(accessed August 1, 2006).
Reference 2: The Network-Empowered
Citizen – How People Share Civic Knowledge Online by
Stephen Coleman
This research report by the Oxford Internet Institute explores
the potential of the Internet to empower grassroot civic networks,
augment social capital and cultivate incipient institutions
of co-governance. The Oxford Internet Institute is a department
within the Social Science Division of the University of Oxford
which conducts research on the impact of the Internet on society
so as to inform policy and generate debate. The author Stephen
Coleman is a professor at Leeds University and is well-known
for pioneering online consultations for the UK Parliament.
Coleman researched into six non-related
online civic networks that allow everyday, virtual knowledge-sharing
amongst people. He considers civic networks to be a new source
of public knowledge on issues which previously nobody had
much interest in addressing. Such networks enhance the state-citizens
relationship, and in turn enable citizens to influence policy
more readily. For the government, it is a chance to close
the government-citizen gap by using the Internet to engage
civic networks that would previously be outside its reach.
For civic groups, they now have a new medium to debate on
issues of interest and expand their reach and role as a citizen.
For the society as a whole, there is increased social capital
generated from the interactions online.
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