Categories: 
Topics: 
Antonella Napolitano's picture

The Europe roundup: Nick Clegg and the electoral insurgency (on the Internet?)

Antonella Napolitano | April 23, 2010 - 7:45am | Email This!
  • UK | Nick Clegg and the electoral insurgency (on the Internet?)
    Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrat party was little known until a few days ago, when his victory in the first television debate with Cameron and Brown gave him an unprecedented popularity. "The general election has become a genuine three-way contest with the Lib Dems, on 29%, enjoying their strongest support in almost 30 years." says the Times. And the Internet starts playing a significant role: in the 24 hours after last week's debate, the Lib Dems received £120,000 in small donations, a significant amount of money for the British scene. So far the LibDem party is also the only one to have a Facebook page (though unofficial) with more 140.000 members and is picking new support from people under 35.

    Electoral insurgency? "In America, the internet has helped "insurgent" candidates with little initial support, funding, and campaign infrastructure" recalls Andrew Chadwick on NCPU blog. The television debate may have acted as a catalyst but "the internet is an insurgent's medium. We may be about to see it become a more prominent, if uncontrollable, force in the election campaign. The ways in which it interacts with broadcast media and the press is what we now need to analyse." concludes Chadwick

  • Netherlands | Open government data: the state of the art
    Knowledge manager Ton Zijlstra describes recent developments in the Netherlands in some guest posts on EPSI platform. Using current examples, Zijlstra also points to some inconsistencies across government institutions: datasets are provided but not on open standards (which are mandatory from April 2008) or require registration or are uncompleted. Optimistically, he suggests that the confusion is only temporary: "Lots of change agents within all parts of government are making headway to more pro-actively publishing PSI in a reusable way. Both by pushing for more PSI being made available, and by taking technological steps to make that easier". On his own blog Zijlstra also reports from the workshop 'Hack the Government' with a suggestion for civil servants: "it is key that civil servants who are serious about open gov data let the 'outside' know what they need to move things forward, what we can do to help.". Collaboration is key, also in the Netherlands.
  • EU | EDem10: exploring new behaviours in society
    "A revolution doesn’t happen when a society adopts new tools. It happens when society adopts new behaviours". This Clay Shirky's quote introduces EDem10, the 4th International Conference on eDemocracy that will take place on May 6th and 7th in Krems (Austria).The program features also some workshops on open access and eParticipation and interesting case studies. Keynote speakers include Hansard Society's Andy Williamson, Ismael Peña-López and our own Micah Sifry.
  • UK | Place your bet on the election
    British bookmakers do care about election, too. And they are more than open to surprises, as this commercial shows:

Our readers also like:

PdF Conference 2007 is this Friday, May 18th
169 recommended posts
Categories: 
Topics: