fromCONCENTRATE

research blog of artist John O'Shea

Mar 2, 2010 3

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

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