The Little Brown Reader

The Internet and Political Campaigns

The Globalist | Global Technology -- The Internet and Political Campaigns

This article makes some worthwhile points, but I find their core conclusion questionable. They take the three leaders mentioned below, all of whom were assisted by the Internet in their rise to office, and then try to conclude that there is a connection between that quality, and the qualities which led them to do be unsuccessful in office.

It boils down like this (excerpts):

...the most interesting indictment of the early thesis of information technology's coming political beneficence comes from the few places where it has indeed had an impact.

Consider the three political leaders aided the most while rising to power by the Internet and information technology: Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in the Philippines, Megawati Sukarnoputri in Indonesia and Jesse Ventura in Minnesota.

...

Simple, easy, wrong

As the old adage goes: For every political problem, there's a solution that's simple, easy and wrong. And that's what quick IT-based political movements currently excel at finding.

They might be onto something with the points they make in this article, but I don't buy the dour overall conclusions they are trying to draw. Maybe I'll just have to be the one to prove them wrong. ;-)

Read It Rating: 6
Left/Right Rating: 0
Freedom Rating: 2
Learning Percentage: 55%