By way of the National Coalition for Dialogue & Deliberation blog this is a must-read article in the NY Times on open government and civic participation via the Internet.
"The headlines from Washington today blare of bailouts, stimulus, clunkers, Afpak, health care," writes columnist Annand Giridharadas.
But it is possible that future historians, looking back, will fixate on a quieter project of Barack Obama’s White House: its exploration of how government might be opened to greater public participation in the digital age, of how to make self-government more than a metaphor.
A comforting thought...
Federal agencies have been directed to release online information that was once sealed; reporters from Web-only publications have been called on at news conferences; the new portal Data.gov is allowing citizens to create their own applications to analyze government data. But the most revealing efforts have been in “crowdsourcing”: in soliciting citizens’ policy ideas on the Internet and allowing them to vote on one another’s proposals.
It would be nice to see more of this kind of thoughful journalism and less blare of bailouts, stimulus, etc.
