Andrew Raziej - "€œDemocracy, Civic Action & Politics" @ NYU

PUNKCAST1483 - Nov 19 2008. The eighth lecture in Evan Korth's NYU Computers and Society course featured Andrew Raziej. his topic was "Democracy, Civic Action, and Politics in a Networked World".



The Internet and the phenomenon of social networking platforms like Facebook, MySpace, plus the rich media tools like YouTube, have given the average political proselytizer new powers of persuasion that are resetting the political roadmap for not only the candidates and their parties, but also for the main stream media which is trying to cover and report on them.

Just like we are seeing technology reshape the music and entertainment industries, information technologies are empowering people to use the massive networks that are being spawned to fundamentally change politics and soon governance itself.

Political opinion in our society is formed mostly through people talking to each other. These conversations happen in all kinds of typical places, like dining tables, water coolers, playgrounds, VFW halls, bars and coffee shop counters, and even over the back fence. Like they have for generations, those conversations are happened in the 2008 election cycle too.

However, this year we are saw a new powerful force of a networked public sphere emerge that is taking many of those conversations and putting them on steroids.

Now that the 2008 election is over, this newly empowered citizenry will start to demand a seat at the table of governance and will upend the political power structures of the 20th century and challenge, unions, lobbyists, and special interests that do not heed the power of the technologies and the voices they link and amplify.


Andrew Rasiej is a social entrepreneur, Founder of Personal Democracy Forum, and co-founder of techPresident. He has served as an adviser to Senator Barack Obama, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator Tom Daschle, Congressman Dick Gephardt, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on the use of Information Technology for campaign and policy purposes. Mr. Rasiej also maintains the position of senior technology adviser for the Sunlight Foundation.

http://www.personaldemocracy.com/
http://www.techpresident.com/

http://www.computersandsociety.net/

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