The Auricle

by Derek Morrison, 11 March 2010 (updated 16 and 19 March 2010)

Any views expressed in this posting are those of the author alone and should not be construed as necessarily representing the views of any other individuals or organisations.

I was recently listening to an obscure US podcast and there was an equally obscure item about how some US senators didn’t recognise their own legislative bills because the actual policy generation had been undertaken by staffers. Such is the reality of the mundane day-to-day work of governments and associated bodies who can generate a veritable torrent of legislative and policy proposals designed to glaze the eyes of normal mortals. That glazing of the eyes, however, means that much can get through to impact on real lives that maybe should not.

So we should welcome anything body or social networking solutions which seeks to mitigate the societal risks arising from poorly conceived and rushed policy originating from government or agency sources, e.g. the UK’s 1991 Dangerous Dogs Act or the unintended consequences of amendments introduced into the forthcoming UK Digital Economy bill (see postscript). In the UK, MySociety is probably the best known example of enhancing monitoring and transparency via its web services but the Open Knowledge Foundation is founded on a similar transparency ethos with its WhereDoesMyMoneyGo? attracting media attention.

I also think that Joss Winn’s (University of Lincoln) and Tony Hirst’s (Open University) Write to Reply site is an interesting application of the CommentPress WordPress plugin developed by the Institute for the Future of the Book. Here then is the simple blog becoming potentially something much richer in scope as an aid to encouraging (or identifying the lack of) transparency and helping the work of motivated policy monitoring individuals or groups. Joss Winn’s own blog Learning Lab and Tony Hirst’s OUseful.info are also worth a visit in their own right.

Postscript (added 16 March 2010)
Lilian Edwards, Professor of Internet Law at Sheffield University made some interesting comments about the forthcoming Digital Economy bill during an interview for the US NPR network (Future Tense, 3 March 2010). The interview is available as a 3min 30 secs podcast or MP3 download.

Postscript (added 5 April 2010)
Putting aside concerns about the ever changing sea and transient nature of politics the US State Department’s OpinonSpace at a minimum provides an illustrative example of how one national government envisages gathering and representing global perspectives on its foreign policy.