What the new Democracy TV could enable
Most of our readers will already have heard of the launch of Democracy TV by the Participatory Culture Foundation, but perhaps we have not grasped what it really enables.
David Moore of the Participatory Politics Foundation has a great summary of which we publish the conclusion here:
Here’s an example of the potential of Democracy: internet TV to better inform civic discourse: imagine a program called This Week in Congress (TwiC – this probably isn’t far off, seeing as how quickly political candidates are picking up video blogging). Any Congressperson (or elected official on any level) could use Broadcast Machine to publish a weekly video with a summary of that week’s news, legislative actions, and how their time was spent. BitTorrent publishing makes this a virtually free way for elected officials to distribute video blogs, video press releases, sessions, speeches, and more, connecting directly with their constituencies. For viewers, who subscribe to their officials’ different channels in Democracy and receive video delivered automatically to their desktop, TWiC provides an easy yet detailed way to stay in touch with government using software that’s free and open to everyone.
When it comes time to throw down on policy debates, Videobomb.com allows users to vote for the videos they support, as well as post comments on videos and have easy access to different points of view (viewers can find and subscribe to video feeds by tags, category, or publisher). Last, Broadcast Machine makes it possible to create “open� channels for citizens to upload their own video comments to TWiC without needing to use an FTP server. These comments from consituents and the grassroots can then be moderated and viewed as its own channel, encouraging collaboration and open-submissions public policy development.
With tools that are open to everyone, such as Democracy: internet TV, the “pop� and nuance of video can extend into new realms of civic and cultural programming: health professionals can publish tutorials on disease prevention. Public school teachers can publish assignments to their students. Online video tutorials can offer educational content to anywhere the internet goes. Families can stay in touch watching video of their 2-year old niece. Elected officials can publish video blogs updating their constituencies on their work. Human rights organizations around the world can share on-the-ground video from crisis areas. Independent arts groups can sell their work and earn income creating what they love. But in order to continue and expand these new offerings to as wide an audience of participants as possible, both the publishing and viewing tools need to be free, open-source, and based on open standards. It’s about building the foundation for a public-interest internet TV network, as helpful and varied as the internet itself.
