Here at the Winfield office complex, things happen fast! It is easy to forget that many readers look to this blog every day for inspiration, guidance... and insight into this insane world of media. So, back to the keyboard. The brain block is over.
Today, we are focusing on the immense changes wrought by our tech world. One observation jumps to mind, and is directly tied to technology and how our new world is fractured... Lets rip off Bill Mayer! New Rules!
Our dis-satisfaction with government is tied directly to our access to government.
Government has always been somewhat mysterious. The "sausage making" happened behind closed doors, for the most part, and our "leaders" did an excellent job of hiding behind those doors, while making decisions often based on greedy self interest. If a citizen wanted to find the squiggly creatures under the rock, it was a huge task. Thus, the people got screwed. Again and again.
You don't need to go back 50 years to prove this point. Or even 5 years. Let us just go back to the Bush debacle. Besides the fact that an open debate would never have been televised like the health care summit-King George would have never been allowed to run a meeting on his own-the landscape looked very different. Twitter? no. Smart phones in the hand of every member of congress? no. Politico and truthdig etc? Not so much.
The convergence of several elements has created this moment: a new president, elected on "hope" and "change", a topic that everyone is interested in, and media designed to create instant access to information and opinion. And of course, a poltical system that is a fracking disaster.
The more we know, the angrier we will be.
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And the angrier we get the more we want to do it ourselves to fix it. Government no longer elects officials to legislate, that takes to long and often leads to compromise. Now we have referendums and let the people decide. Technology has turned Democracy into crowd sourcing and from crowd its just a small cranky jump to mob. We're all just one Kevin Bacon away from anarchy. Thanks Twitter.
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