It is often argued that the Internet facilitates greater democracy, it allows the public to input ot news stories (comments posted to BBC Online for example) as well as start or contribute to existing debates through blogs etc. However there is a flip side to this. It also allows groups to gather data on specific questions that can then be used to promote an idea. The British National Party, for some unknown reason though a couple of insider investigations leading to arrests may give a clue, do not like the BBC. They have a poll on their front page asking about the licence fee, a contentious issue, but any rigor in the poll is destroyed by the two highly loaded questions (see 3, 4 and 5) the latter being purely sarcastic one assumes. While it is unlikely these results will have any impact it gives the notion of online democracy a bad name when the research is a push poll rather than something designed to gather information of any use. Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Online Democracy?
It is often argued that the Internet facilitates greater democracy, it allows the public to input ot news stories (comments posted to BBC Online for example) as well as start or contribute to existing debates through blogs etc. However there is a flip side to this. It also allows groups to gather data on specific questions that can then be used to promote an idea. The British National Party, for some unknown reason though a couple of insider investigations leading to arrests may give a clue, do not like the BBC. They have a poll on their front page asking about the licence fee, a contentious issue, but any rigor in the poll is destroyed by the two highly loaded questions (see 3, 4 and 5) the latter being purely sarcastic one assumes. While it is unlikely these results will have any impact it gives the notion of online democracy a bad name when the research is a push poll rather than something designed to gather information of any use. 
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