When it comes to politics and democracies, the media play an important part in informing the population of important events and moulding public opinion of a political situation. Important to cyberdemocracy then, is the electronic media.

A free and responsible media is essential for any democracy. And I guess you don’t quite get a space more free than the blogosphere. Independent thinkers writing freely about their thoughts and ideas for all to read and respond to.

When it comes to elections, we rely on traditional media to cover the event, comment on its legitimacy, uncover the injustices and announce the final results. But, how different would it be if we bloggers were part of the media team responsible for covering the electoral process.

Matthew Buckland, GM of the Mail and Guardian has proposed this very idea to the Independent Electoral commission for South Africa’s next presidential elections next year. “Blogs open up the space for many different voices to be heard.”

According to Buckland, the IEC has responded favourably, it is now just a question of logistics. He said we it would not be logical to expect everyone with a blog to descend on the elections demanding access and permission to report on events.

It has been suggested that various blog aggregators like Amatomu be used to identify the prominent bloggers who write with authority and have an interest and insight into South Africa’s political landscape.

Great idea! There are reports of the public losing trust in the traditional media and it’s ability to give an unbiased report. Bloggers carry a lot of credibility with their readers and followers. And because blogs allow for a more personal account than traditional media, a whole new kind of media coverage can be seen; coverage that includes independent critique and that has a strong support base that thinks it credible.

But what about the voices still not heard within this great free independent blogosphere? Many of the countries rural areas are unpenetrated by the internet. Their lack of infrastructure already puts them at a great disadvantage, it would be great to hear their voices for change and allow them access to information about their political system and all the players with it.

No one solution can possibly solve all the many problems in this country but allowing more voices to speak on issues is a definite step in the right direction.

Now when it comes to making full use of the internet and its various tools to promote oneself during an election campaign, American presidential candidate, Barrack Obama is definitely a man with the master plan.

WebPages offer a great opportunity for campaigning, giving out information and, when used effectively, can host a conversation between the voter and their politician. Obama’s election campaign website is a shining example.

The homepage introduces the user to Obama and his running mate, Joe Biden and their campaign as a whole. The user is given a wide range of options from video to merchandise to registration. All a voter would ever need to know about the Obama-Biden campaign is easily and clearly accessible.

Voter registration is an essential part of the election process. If one’s supporters are not registered voters they become meaningless as they cannot change their support into the votes necessary to make it to presidency. The website enables users to register as eligible voters and to verify that they are correctly registered. They can also apply for an absent ballot and find information on political groups in their area so as to promote politically active constituents.

Lack of funding for an election campaign could lead to one’s demise. The costs of running an effective electoral campaign can be extensive. Federal Election Commission Chairman Michael Toner said for a candidate to be taken seriously, they needed to raise at least $100 million.

The internet has proven to be an efficient means of gathering funding. It is reported that on the 16^th of December 2007, Republican Ron Paul collected over $6 million through Internet donations. This is more money than any presidential candidate in US history. Obama’s website gives the user the opportunity to donate money to the campaign on a number of different pages.

In a democracy, voters are enabled to make informed decisions as to who they vote for because they have access to information about a candidate, their manifesto and views on topical issues. Obama does not rely on a media that has been called into question due to bias. He uses his website as a platform to speak to voters about issues that Americans care about. Users can read up on his views on civil rights, the economy, ethics, family, poverty, urban policy, women and of course Iraq, homeland security and foreign policy.

With the feedback application, voters can even respond, challenge and support to his ideas. He also has a blog that can be accessed through his website. As covered in a previous post, effective blogging is an important tool that can yield positive returns.

The use of video and pictures of Obama, his wife Michelle, Bilden and their supports adds a personal touch to the campaign. Michelle Obama has become an integral part of her husband’s campaign making it a great idea to include video footage of her speeches and pictures of her on the road with Biden and Obama.

With the wonders on the e-wallet, where users can purchase goods over the internet, Obama has made merchandise available on his site. One can get golf shirts, golf balls, umbrellas, pins, buttons, summer gear and accessories delivered to their doorstep within 2 weeks of odering and paying online for them.

The internet and its technologies have opened up an entire world of possibilities for communication and campaigning. Barrak Obama is one of the few politicians who have taken full advantage of this.

A while ago I took a look at how well the South African government was using their website to communicate with the public in the interests of cyberdemocracy.  I thought it useful to look at the Institute for Democracy in South Africa’s (Idasa) website under a similar lens; with the question being ‘how is Idasa making use of the internet?’

Idasa is an internationally recognised public interest group “committed to promoting sustainable democracy based on active citizenship, democratic institutions, and social justice.” With its international links, the internet offers a better opportunity to communicate and mobilise than any other medium.

The organisation grew out a need for “an alternative to the politics of repression”. Their aim to create “a democratic culture in SA and strategic interventions to help the new democracy take root” make them an interesting group to look at with reference to e-politics.

Idasa uses the internet to communicate with the general public. Initiations to events and information about exhibitions are placed on the home page. One can also find articles on workshop reports, news stories (mostly about African countries) and a bookshelf where users can read reviews of books deemed important.

Educating the public enables informed decisions which would aid and strengthen any democracy. On their homepage, Idasa posts important information relevant to the programmes they run at the time. Currently they have information about their Party Funding Campaign. They also have information about community and citizen empowerment, governance and aids and safety and security to name a few.

Idasa fulfils their task of trying to create a culture of democracy by being a great platform for citizens to access information, possibly get involved and educate themselves about political issues. However, when it comes to using internet technologies to create a space for debate and conversation, the website falls short.

Idasa has a newsletter to which users can subscribe however there is no place for user feedback, comment or opinion…not even on the “peace building and dialogue” page! There a ‘contact us” page complete with the contact details of Cape town and Kutlwanong democracy centres and contacts for the various programmes Idasa is involved in.

For a democracy to be strong and for effective political engagement for the public they need to be well informed about their political landscape. Open discussion is an important part of that process. In his defence of free speech, John Stuart Mill says that even unpopular opinions should be allowed to be expressed as their authors can be corrected in an open public debate.

Access to information is essential to any democracy. However, it is useless if the public does not know the many ways that information affects them. Discursive spaces are essential for the exchange of ideas and the growth of any nation.

In the previous post I looked the practice of blogging and how it could improve South Africa’s political landscape and supporter-politician communication. Blogs seem like a great idea, however the idea is not without its faults.

Writing is a skill that needs to be mastered and used effectively by every blogger. A politician who cannot convey their ideas in an interesting and engaging way will not gain the necessary support base to sustain a successful blog.

South Africa has a rather contentious political climate at the moment where the public, and politicians alike, feel a great moral obligation to express their support for one a debate or the other. In such times, how leaders express themselves is of pivotal importance.

Commentary made in any blog is open to the public and there as evidence if one were to claim being misquoted. This means that any responsible leader cannot afford to make somewhat precarious statement like “we are in full support of ____ and we will kill for him if need be!”

Being open to public scrutiny, politicians run the risk of a tarnished image if they were voice statements or present policies that were unpopular. Instead of the flow of information, and communication, being a one way process from the top (political leaders) to the bottom (ordinary citizens), blogs are an open for commentary, criticism and dialogue. A blogger needs to constantly be on top of his game or they could come across as incompetent.

It was suggested that blogs could be used as a platform to present proposed policies and receive feedback from the public before having them implemented. This idea however is not half as feasible as it is idealistic. More transparency in the goings on of our parliament would be ideal, but the deliberative process is a lengthy one. With all the political red tape, getting any project off the ground takes ages. Adding another stage (deliberation with the public) could prove more detrimental than useful.

As noted by Susan Ward of About.com, another downside to blogging is that any blog needs a dedicated team to keep it constantly updated and to engage with user feedback. She says, “a blog that hasn’t been updated for a week is a bad user experience. From the blogger’s point of view, a blog can be time consuming and yet another deadline pressure.”

Any project undertaken, especially in politics, comes with a host of risks and benefits. True leaders are able to balance these out to make the right decision for their people.  The South African government could be far more interactive and could make more effective use of all the services made available by various technological advancements. It would do them a great service to first find a way around these risks.

Abdul Rahman Dahlan, secretary general of the United Malays National Organization party’s youth wing insists that all electoral candidates start blogging. He says, “all candidates must have blogs…If not, they are not qualified to be leaders”.

I came across a blog post by Loic le Meur which showed the same faith in politicians blogging. After reading his list of ’10 reasons why politicians should blog’, I decided to compile a list of ‘5 reasons why South African politicians should blog’.

ONE:  at the moment it is close to impossible to get a hold any political leader, especially the higher up they are in the political ladder. A politician’s blog allows supporters greater access to them. They can post up their speeches and ideas and open them up for comment from the public.

TWO:  when run effectively, blogs are a open forum for debate and criticism. If democracy refers to “a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them”, leaders need to know what the public is thinking. Open more spaces for disucussion and criticism would serve to strengthen a democracy.

THREE: politicians can use their blog to test, exchange and share their ideas in a decentralized fashion. At the moment, the main source of information is the government’s and the various political organization’s official websites. The problem is, as noted in a previous post, these sites do not often offer effective feedback options.

FOUR: blogs would allow for a shift in the way leaders communicate with their supporters and the rest of the population. Official websites take on a formal tone that reflects not a bit of personality. Blogs, however are laid back and far more personal mediums of communication.

Thabo Mbeki has always been seen to have been an aloof president, without feeling or personality and who never engaged with the masses as is seen in some of Zapiro’s work. Now I’m not saying that a simple blog would have solved all his problems and done away with all criticism, but it would have allowed the public access to a more personal side to him.

FIVE: making use of blogs, other social and mobile media and web 2.0 strategies, politicians can reach a younger audience. Part youth leagues could make use of the ever so popular Facebook to gain support and engagement from the youth. Le Meur argues that “the Internet is the medium of the young” and I can’t say I disagree.

They are however reasons to believe that, especially in South Africa, we still have a long way to go before political blogging can be done effectively. This will be covered in next week’s post.

Over the past blog posts I’ve taken a look at (among other topics) the number of issues that hinder cyberdemocracy especially in Africa. The digital divide and the language barrier of the internet as it is are major contributing factors to the low levels of e-political involvement.

A large majority of websites are in English. However a large majority of the world’s population does not have English as their first language and some do not even speak a word of it. This presents an obvious language barrier and obstacle for any non-English speaker wanting to participate as an internet activist.

The digital divide has worked to cut off an entire section of the world’s population. As noted in a previous post, “even in the advent of this great cyber-democracy, those who were marginalized by the politics of the apartheid regime are still marginalized by the politics of this new virtual-democracy”.

But…this does not mean that e-democracy is doomed to fail in Africa. The fact that Africa only makes up 3.4% of the world’s online population does not mean that this 3.4% cannot become internet activists.

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Global Voices is a non-profit global citizens’ media platform that allows everyone the opportunity to raise global awareness about the issues that the mainstream media often forget, or simply choose not, to cover.

They use “weblogs, podcasts, photos, video, wikis, tags, aggregators and online chats – to call attention to conversations… that will help shed new light on the nature of our interconnected world”.

Bloggers spark up conversation, spread information and call on action for their particular regions. A team of translators ensure that all content is available in a wide range of languages like, French, Spanish, Chinese and Bangla. Users are even able set up their own networks which translate content into any language of their choice.

This means that with as little as just a GPRS enabled mobile telephone and basic computer literacy, a small group of women in rural North West province can take part in e-politics by blogging in seTswana. They could express the view of people at the grassroots level and have their content translated into a number of languages for global access.

South African bloggers are regular contributors to the site with debates often started with user comments. Nelson Mandela’s 90^th birthday celebrations, environmental issues, and the International Criminal Court’s charges against Sudanese President al-Bashir are only some of the most recent posts from South Africa.

South Africa still has a long was to go when it comes to internet penetration but that does not mean that e-politics is not a possibility.

Granted, one could argue that with internet access still largely in the hands of the more financially affluent, the politics of the poor and uneducated are still marginalize. However, with the government setting up more Thusong Service Centres, all voices can gradually begin to be heard at the global level.

So in last week’s post I wrote about e-voting and whether it could offer a solution for election disputes in Africa. It surprised me then to see that the very first comment on that post was all about the xenophobic attacks that hit front pages worldwide all of last week. At first the comment seemed just a tad misplaced…but then I thought about further.

Well, where better to have your say than on a blog that has stated that “with the power and wide use of the internet, public opinion can now be disseminated with greater ease and the traditional routes to democracy can be bypassed”.

If it is indeed true that “the web is an open medium that allows the average man a voice louder and more far-reaching than any other” then maybe the comment was perfectly placed to test all that I have said.

So this week I decided to put my money where my mouth is. If cyber-democracy opens new space for social commentary by the average citizen then I open this post as one such space.

Every day for the past two weeks, the nation tuned onto the news to see men with machetes walking the streets, shacks being set alight, whole townships ablaze and women singing “mawahambe amakwerekwere” (the foreigners must go).

And it was only 14 days later that the National Assembly sent in a task team to investigate the attacks. It was only on Sunday that the president spoke out in response to the crisis. It was only after 56 had been killed, 324 shops had been looted and more than 50 000 had been displaced that Safety and Security Minister Charles Nqakula could bring the situation “under control”.

All I want to know is, what happened South Africa and when?

When did we move from being the rainbow nation to being a nation that stands aside while people are set alight because they “do not belong here”? Since when do we owe no gratitude to our neighbouring countries for the role they played in our liberation? And since when does it take a government with a whole police force and the army (not to mention military aid from the AU and the UN) at their disposal two weeks to act?

Never have I been more ashamed of being South African…not even when I realised that Zuma was leading the race for national presidency!

Last week I was talking to my dad and asked him “when you were my age and saw the injustice all around you, what did you do?” He said, “simple, I became president of Azapo.”

Well I see the injustice and I write. I spark debate. I get the thinkers thinking and hopefully inspire the doers to do.

Maybe e-politics is just the shield we cowards hide behind. But hopefully, it’s the new weapon for war.

We saw it in Angola, Kenya and most recently in good-ol’ Zimbabwe. Any real democracy rests on a free and fair electoral process. However, as Africa has shown us time and time again, elections could mean the begin of civil war with no democratic resolution in sight.

Perhaps, if the manner in which elections were carried out would be changed, leaders would be appointed with ease and according to the will of the people.

I took a look at the concept of e-voting to see if it presented a plausible alternative for African elections. E-voting is when states use electronic technologies to either cast or count votes.

So the idea is for the voting process to work just like a trip to the ATM, you would cast your vote using touchscreen technology or a number of buttons. All ballots would be tallied electronically. This could prove to be faster and more effective than the current manual counting.

There are a number of advantages to this electoral system. With computers adding up the votes, there is less room for human error. Audio can be introduced for blind voters and zoom in capabilities would cater for those with poor vision. The screen can be displayed in a number of languages and polling stations can never run out of printed ballots.

Voter turn-out in Zimbabwe sits at less than 20%. This is due to, among many more reasons, the fact that many Zimbabweans have left their country in seek of refuge as where. With e-voting citizens could potentially place their vote from anywhere in the world if the necessary online networks and links were enabled.

South African youth are becoming more computer literate and are becoming regular Internet users. However their political engagement and involvement calls for great improvement. Creating a link between electronic media and voting could increase the number of youth voters in national and provincial elections.

However, e-voting is far from being flawless, especially in Africa. Computer literacy, for both the voters and the facilitators, would be a major hurdle. Electronics do not do away with room for human error as these computers are programmed and used by humans, who are at times impartial.

To fund such a project, the private sector would need to be called on board. Voters would be correct in questioning just how impartial the system would be if it is powered by companies with political clout and business interests.

Thabo Mbeki has been seen as good for business and a strong economy. The same would be hard to say about Jacob Zuma, as some have noted. It is totally plausible that an e-voting system programmed, run and managed by these interest would present Mbeki as the next president even if it were against the will of the people.

Even in America where e-voting has been in use, it is still under much scrutiny and heavily criticised. Democracies work only when the people trust that their vote has been counted fairly and freely. This can never happen with a system with so many flaws.

In the New Media course we’ve looked at the makings of an effective and interactive website. So I thought it would be interesting to look at websites in South Africa in an effort to see just how effective they are in catering for the promotion of e-democracy and the enabling of e-political activity.

I want to analyse the South African national government’s site to see just how effective it really is

In making judgments on how effective and interactive sites are, we look for four major factors. APIs Designs, a company that helps web designers set up good websites, and Web Reference speaks at length about content, design, site organisation, website promotion and lastly, content sharing.

With this in mind, I take a deeper look at the South African national government’s web page; www.gov.za

Content

The content one includes on their site has to be relevant , timely and credible. It has to be in accordance with the purpose of one’s site. So if my web page is concerned with cyberdemocracy all my content has to relate to that topic.

The South African government’s web page has relevant information that is clearly labeled under ‘services for people’, ‘events’, ‘key issues’ ect. Timely information on the government’s Programme of Action and the World Asthma Day has been easily available.

The information has a great degree of credibility as it comes from the national government themselves. This however can be debated when one considers research into how much trust South African’s have in their government.

Design

The design of any website needs to be eye catching and engage the user. It also needs to reflect the identity of the company, or in this case, government. The design of government’s website is not the most eye catching of sites but does reflect the nature of government. The look of the site brings across a serious and formal tone.

It could be argued that in order to get more political involvement from the youth, the site could be designed in a more engaging manner. The Glocal Youth Parliament has a very youthful design with greens and oranges and images and uses graphics. However, I would rather have the more formal design for the national government’s website.

Site Organisation

For a user to easily navigate a site, it needs to be clearly organised and as user friendly as possible. www.gov.za has, as its homepage, a list of different avenues that the user can pursue under two main categories; services and information.

There is also a different section offering information on the state of the nation address, Imbizo Week, South Africa 2010 and the Programme of Action campaign. Navigating the site is fairly simple to do.

Web Promotion

Given that 41% of users (according to eMarketer statistics) find a site through search engines, it is important for web developers to effectively promote their site. To see how well the governments site was optimised for search engines I searched for a number of key words.

I searched ‘batho pele’, ‘labour issues’, ‘government’, ‘Eastern Cape’ and ‘national budget’. Links to the government website, such as www. info.gov.za , appeared first or second in the list of results Google had generated. When searching for President Thabo Mbeki’s name however, the government’s web page was fifth on the list of results.

Content Sharing

Another integral part of the Internet is the fact that users are able to share and often generate information. Comment boxes, subscription options, adding to favourites and opportunities to email information to friends are seen by many as being of pivotal importance in information sharing.

The South African government’s sites gives users contact information for its various departments. However, there is no space, online, for users to leave a comment or communicate with their leaders. This does not facilitate the two way communication that is necessary for edemocracy.

One can subscribe to various newsletters online aiding in getting information out to the citizens. However, it fails in getting the views and concerns of the citizens to their government.

Report

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The site needs to improve their content sharing capabilities. The design needs to be more engaging but still maintain a formal and globally respectable feel and look. It is a well organised and informative site.

In a previous post I looked at the issue of the digital divide. From that comes the question; what is being done about the unequal development of countries in the information age? The answer, or at least part of it, is the introduction of information and communication technologies (ITCs).

In South Africa there are a number of challenges to the widespread use of ICTs. Just as the digital divide happens between developed and developing countries, it also occurs between rural and urban areas with any country.

South Africa’s rural areas are behind urban areas in terms of infrastructure, literacy, household income and computer and telephone access. Because of the costs that go into ICTs calls for cost-effective facilities that the community can share.

In an effort to increase access and availability of government information and services, the Government Communication and Information System (GCIS) has introduced Thusong Service Centres, previously known as Multi-Purpose Community Centres.

Dr. Essop Pahad, Minister in The Presidency, described Thusong Service Centres as “one-stop centres providing integrated services and information from government to communities”. These centres provide the community with access to print and electronic media to allow for communication with their government.

According to the GCIS, there are 66 service centres in the country. These centres would are needed more in communities with the lowest access to landline or cellular telephones, computers and the internet.

Households in the Limpopo province have the lowest number of landlines, computers and internet access. They are 7th in the ranking for cellphone access. Only 7.1% of their households have landlines, 4.4% have computers, 3% have internet access and 26.1have access to cellphones.

Limpopo has nine Thusong Community Centres, the third highest number in the country. Each centre services an average of 14 824 people.

The Western Cape has the most access to landline telephones, computers per household and the internet. They are second in the rank for cellphone access. It is therefore quite interesting that they have the second most community centres in the country.

According to South Africa’s Telecommunication Act, the Universal Service Agency is mandated with to promote universal access and services. Together with NEPAD, the e-school project was launched in 11 African countries including South Africa. The idea is for each e-school cyberlab to have computers, photocopier, fax machine and printer to be shared by under-serviced communities.

E-schools and Thusong Service Centres assist in the development of businesses, education and e-politics, through access to information and services. By informing and educating the masses, the state allows for greater political involvement.

It would be worthwhile to look at how successful ICTs have been in promoting e-governance, but, that’s a topic for another post.