Protests, Participation and the Future of Politics
Making headlines in the U.S.this month are the Occupy Wall Street protests which started inNew York City and spread to cities across the country. Imitation protests are said to have been held in 900 cities around the globe. The movement is a delayed response to the financial meltdown of several years ago, asking for “presidential commission to separate money from politics.”
The movement represents an interesting combination of an old fashioned organized protest with a few modern differences provided by technology. First, the idea was said to have been spontaneously taken up by “all the people of the world”, after being floated to a magazine’s e-mail list. A project to fund an Occupy Wall Street newsletter ranks among the most funded projects on Kickstarter, a crowdfuding website.
In response to criticism that the movement is leaderless and lacking focus, one participant responded that those things will work themselves out, that “this revolution is run by the Internet generation, with egalitarian ways of looking at things, and an inclusive process of getting everyone involved.”
Even as these protests indicate that some members of the internet generation may be disenchanted with government, others believe that crowdsourcing is “making politics cool again” as new, online government platforms are allowing citizen voices to be heard, meaning they are willing to participate and engage with government.
At least one young writer agrees— a Universityof Texas student who commends the Texas State Senate for plans to implement crowdsourced legislation by the year 2013. This young writer presents a balanced view of political crowdsourcing. On one hand, students will have a direct outlet to their representatives and a powerful tool for participating in debates such as higher education funding. On the other, the project presents many challenges, such as how to develop effective measurement metrics and moderate the process.
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