Mar 2, 2010
Democracy? there’s an App for that!
I received a link via email today (thanks Tom):
DIY DEMOCRACY – these guys have developed an iPhone App for… well… engaging in Democracy…
The ‘DIY DEMOCRACY’ App allows citizens to report back to government agencies when they encounter an ‘issue’ and it also gives immediate access to the written law – it even has a button to ‘challenge the law!
The logic of the App seems to be that, given the correct information, our elected government bodies will ‘fix’ society’s problems e.g. broken traffic lights
Here is some more from the App’s website (it’s currently only available for use in the US):
“FIX YOUR STATE”
“FIX YOUR CITY”
“DOCUMENT YOUR EVIDENCE”
“TAKE ACTION”
“SHARE YOUR ISSUES”
“CONTACT YOUR LEADERS”
The above are all really good ideas BTW – but really… with an App? – I’m a little skeptical…
In recent years, in-keeping with the web 2.0 ‘participation,’ ‘interactivity’ trends there have emerged a great number of websites and applications which seem to offer to act as ‘broker’ between disenfranchised citizens and political process.
In the UK, quite a few sites operate under the banner of the charity ‘MySociety.’
An example project is ‘FixMyStreet,’ a website which deals very sensibly with a constant problem – potholes – by putting pro-active citizens in the position of informal ‘monitors.’
If you spot a pothole then you can simply enter the location (postcode) into the site (or a geotagged photo if you like) and all of the necessary information is AUTOMAJICALLY reported to the SPECIFIC RELEVANT LOCAL AUTHORITY so that they can schedule a repair.
In crowdsourcing pothole reporting, FixMyStreet has a very modest and clear remit and I think the website works primarily because it takes a lot of the hassle out of the ‘civic duty’ of COMPLAINING.
The DIY DEMOCRACY App takes this notion of reporting ‘problems’ to a totally different extreme:
THE POWER OF CHANGE IS IN YOUR HAND
Its rhetoric is very seductive, and raises some questions:
Are all of societies inequalities and failings mere logistical ‘bugs’?
And, can we REALLY solve all of our POLITICAL issues by remote control?
There are a growing number of transparent democracy websites and below is a link to a comprehensive blogpost by Tom Steinberg (of MySociety) outlining various emerging trends and strands:
Nine is the number: The different flavours of transparency website in 2009
That is one awesome app. I’ve recently been getting a lot of mileage out of something called ASBOrometer, which works at the opposite end of the political spectrum (which area has the most Asbo’s?) and I believe there is an app that corresponds to Megan’s Law for US citizens.
I think the interesting thing is that it suggest that the law is reducible to a set of clear defined formulae which is clearly an over-simplification. The way that it compares reporting a broken streetlight to a bent cop is also very dangerous in terms of the way it frames them as part of a large venn diagram; “bad governance”.
Its kind of like those political cause facebook groups – relaxitivism (my term)
I think the ASBOrometer risks a very shallow level engagement with a serious issue
For me, the joy of ASBOrometer is in that shallow engagement – as if law can be the mechanism for fixing society. Ha ha.
And as for Facebook-style political engagement (“Gurka’s to be Christmas no. 1!”) it actually drives me away from politicised thinking. There was a piece in the recent Newswipe series by Adam Curtis, about the lack of elite-style leadership because of knee-jerk reactions by Facebook groups and the mass media – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87WqBDgc7wY