I’ve started drafting three articles in the last 24 hours for this blog only to find a better one on the same subject written by someone else.
Firstly, it’s a regular theme here that data visualisations are a huge opportunity for us all because they allow us to break the monopoly that civil servants, sloppy journalists [...]
Posts under ‘Direct democracy’
Three signposts off
A way of involving the ‘hard-to-reach’ groups and the expense of the ‘hard-to-avoids’
Via Mick Phythian, I’ve just seen this (shorter version: people don’t use interactive services because it undervalues their time, ‘valuing it at zero’- face-to-face is a more reliable ideal, and the utility calculation has to be positive before people will take online options. If buying something online saves you £20 then you may take the [...]
Two applications worth looking at
Two things.
This is ‘why pie charts stink’ – a nice programme for visualising data:
Dashboard 1
Powered by Tableau
Secondly, further to Andrew’s Poblish posts, I’ve just revisited Debatepedia. I met one of the Debatepedia team last year at the WeMedia conference and I had to say at the time that it didn’t seem to be quite [...]
Climate change and the lobbyists
I meant to pick this up a few days ago – I’ve been too busy to blog as diligently as I’d like to.
In the Times, Greenpeace’s Joss Garman says:
“Imagine if, instead of 60 years ago, the Labour Party was trying to create a National Health Service today. The right-wing campaign to scupper the formation of an NHS [...]
Minarets, trade offs and direct democracy
The recent outcome of a Swiss referendum in which a majority have voted in favour of a minaret ban has helped to highlight a few important issue around the question of direct democracy.
Dan Hannan says that – while direct democracy is a great idea, this particular result is regrettable.
Make of that what you will. For [...]
The myth of easy engagement: Evans’ Law?
Just a quick response to Tim Davies’ verygood post about ‘The Myth of Easy Engagement’.
There is one argument that supports his general position that, I think, he misses. I’m sure that sooner or later, some will come up with a frivolous law (like ‘Godwin’s Law‘ or ‘Muphry’s Law‘) but if they don’t, let me dibs [...]
Town Hall Meetings
A sketch of anti-healthcare reform protests in the US – from Rolling Stone magazine:
“The threat of violence was thinly veiled: One agitator held aloft a tombstone with the name Doggett. Screaming, “Just say no!” the mob chased Doggett through the parking lot to an aide’s car — roaring with approval as he fled the scene.
Conservatives [...]
Sustainable Communities Act 2007: business as usual or unusual government?
So it seems that a government advertising campaign is to target climate change sceptics. Certainly, policymakers appear to be hitting problems in bringing the public along with measures to address this issue, and it’s not very likely that ‘business as usual’ within the democratic process will deliver sustainable development.
So there are great hopes pinned on [...]
A few links to be going on with
Just a few interesting things I’ve seen over the past few days that impact further on this councils v local newspapers issue. The first is that – when councils decide to factor in ad-revenue into their communications budgets, it adds a significant amount of uncertainty – because ad revenue can go down as well as [...]
“Too much democracy”?
Douglas Carswell MP and Daniel Hannan MEP, along with a few others, may wish to have a glance at Tim Garton-Ash’s latest – this time answering the queston ‘why has California got itself into such a mess:
“…its prisons are overflowing; the energy-guzzling way it meets its water needs takes a staggering 19% of the state’s [...]
A blog about representative democracy, social media and a conversational politics. How will peer-to-peer communications change local democracy? How is representation changing? 
