Memorandum by Comment Technologies
1. The Power of Information Taskforce
Report,[3]
published on 2 March 2009, included calls for action in six areas
where the Taskforce believes significant improvements can be made
to government's use of digital technologies, including improving
the way government consults with the public. Whilst it is obviously
very important not to confuse government's responsibilities with
parliament's, there are a good number of observations and references
in this independent report to online communities, online peer
support forums and the empowering potential of social media, that
might well be of equal interest to both government and parliament.
2. The COI's guide for civil servants entitled
Engaging through Social Media,[4]
published in March 2009, states: "Good use of social media
can help government to better understand, respond to and attract
the attention of specific audiences. It enables real two-way communication
with people in the places where they are already engaging with
their interests." The guide then lists eight specific benefits
of social media including how they can: "enable government
to be more active in its relationships with citizens, partners
and stakeholders" and "reach specific audiences on specific
issues". The guide also states that "There is evidence
to suggest that using online engagement techniques encourages
participation by those who do not normally interact with government
or respond to consultations".
3. However, in the Executive Summary of
its latest Audit of Political Engagement,[5]
published on April 1st, the Hansard Society
states under the heading "Political participation and citizenship—Influence
and involvement":
"Perceived influence over decision-making
at the local and national levels
An overwhelming majority of the public feel they
have `not very much influence' or `no influence at all' over decision-making
in both their local area (73%) and the country as a whole (85%)."
"The most commonly cited reasons for not
feeling influential in decision-making point to a belief that
politicians and the political system overlook the public's views.
The two top answers... convey a strong feeling among the public
that they are ignored by decision-makers. Other popularly cited
reasons include `the system doesn't allow for me to have an influence'."
4. In the conclusion to its recently published
study MPs Online—Connecting with Constituents[6]
the Hansard Society states that, for MPs, the internet
"is seen and used primarily as a tool for communicating to,
rather than engaging with, constituents." MPs are "transmitting
not receiving". Consequently one of the study's recommendations
states:
"Significant opportunities exist, particularly
with the new Web 2.0 technologies, to harness online media in
ways that engage, rather than just communicate with, constituents."
5. Generic social networking sites like
Facebook and YouTube and the Web 2.0 technologies associated with
them are making the internet a place of potential interaction
and connectivity and a place to collaborate and share knowledge
with communities of users who share interests and responsibilities.
The consumer communication revolution has changed how organisations
and people of authority are perceived and how they need to engage.
However, the Hansard MPs Online—Connecting
with Constituents study, in its passing reference to "the
unregulated world of blogs" (p 18), alludes briefly to some
of the general concerns that many organisations feel about the
potential risks associated with setting up discussion forums and
participating in online group engagements beyond their own corporate
environment that are by definition insecure and impossible to
control. This is clearly not an unjustified concern.
6. A New Statesman article[7]
by Jo Swinson on 2 March entitled Parliament on YouTube
that comments on the Hansard study refers to "reluctance
from MPs who are worried about the `reputation of Parliament'
if clips were manipulated or placed alongside inappropriate content"
on YouTube. The article also states:
"There seems to be a total lack of understanding
that in the internet age it is impossible to control images of
Parliament, and that the reputation of parliament is damaged if
it is regarded as an out of touch institution... New technologies
create wonderful potential to engage people in politics."
7. How can Parliament begin to embrace more
actively and in a genuinely engaging online environment the opportunities
that social networking technology offers but without exposing
the institution to unmanageable risk? Is it not reasonable to
want to open up communications with and amongst interested citizens
and Parliament but to do so in some structured, manageable and
measurable way?
Certainly the means to address these questions
is now available and a company like Comment Technologies, whose
technical development team is used to designing and supporting
secure, business critical applications for the finance sector,
can provide Parliament's online team with the state-of-the-art
software required, support its use and provide for relevant ongoing
development. The technology is designed to be easily implemented,
branded and integrated with an existing website so for Parliament
to extend its existing experimentation with social media by developing
and managing its own `parliamentarians and citizens network' in
this way would not be an exhaustive undertaking.
This "open but owned" approach would
enable Parliament to offer a secure, robust, scalable and multi-functional
online engagement environment, in the form of easy-to-use and
branded microsites, that would happily replicate the Facebook
and other generic social networking experiences which people of
all ages and backgrounds find so attractive, but in a way that
enabled Parliament to manage and own this facility, rather than
relying exclusively on the inevitably "hit-and-miss, high-risk
approach" associated with remote, generic social networking
platforms.
Effective engagement with and between citizens
around particular subjects of debate, through panels, polls, forums
and comment could be developed via this secure platform. Profiles
and groups are easy to set up and manage. Educational forums for
schools and students could be readily established. Secure "communities
of interest"' for committees of Peers and MPs or internal
interest groups could be very easily set up and managed. The platform
could also enable citizens to raise and discuss their own concerns
within a democratic forum, instead of having to depend on campaigning
sites like www.mysociety.org
and its component http://www.theyworkforyou.com/.
The platform should also enable both parliamentarians and members
of the public to create and update their own profiles (although
registration and the creation of profiles should initially be
optional for usability and democratic reasons) so that, as topics
of interest and subjects of debate change, comments and contributions
across different subject areas can be effectively measured and
evaluated.
So there is no particular technology barrier
to the introduction of a managed service of this kind to enable
Parliament's presence online to include a genuinely interactive
dimension, that would build effectively on the existing but still
largely "top down" experiments like "Lords of the
Blog" or UK Parliament's Photostream on Flickr.
This "user-friendly" parliamentary
networks platform could not only address the urgent questions
relating to how citizens can interact with Members of the House
and comment on the issues being debated by Members, but also facilitate
more effective internal communication within the House and encourage
those many Members currently less active in this area to recognise
its merits and see for themselves how this kind of technology
can transform the way Parliament works.
24 April 2009
3 Power of Information Taskforce Report, March 2009. Back
4
Engaging through Social Media-A guide for civil servants, COI,
March 2009. Back
5
Audit of Political Engagement 6, The 2009 Report, Hansard Society
2009. Back
6
MPs Online-Connecting with Constituents, Hansard Society 2009. Back
7
Parliament on YouTube, Jo Swinson, New Statesman 2 March 2009. Back
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