Making Government Transparent and Accountable
The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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The Online Election
This past fall’s national election was historic and groundbreaking in so many ways. Add the public’s unprecedented use of the Internet to that list. Thanks to a new survey by Pew, we now know more than half of the voting-age population accessed the Internet to get information and/or to get involved in the process during the year. Some 74 percent of Internet users–representing 55 percent of the entire adult population–went online in 2008 to get involved in politics or to get news and information about the presidential and congressional elections, according to a report just released by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.
With blogs and social networking sites coming to the fore during the election cycle, some have dubbed 2008 the YouTube election, with interested citizens increasingly sharing their views on the campaign online. I think of it as the Online Election. According to Pew’s report:
* Nearly one in five (18 percent) Internet users posted their thoughts, comments or questions about the campaign on an online forum such as a blog or social networking site.
* Fully 45 percent of Internet users went online to watch a video related to a campaign.
* One in three Internet users forwarded political content to others. Indeed, the sharing of political content (whether writing and commentary or audio and video clips) increased notably over the course of the 2008 election cycle. While young adults led the way in many political activities, seniors were highly engaged in forwarding political content to their friends and family members.
* Young voters continued to engage heavily in the political debate on social networking sites. Fully 83 percent of those age 18-24 have a social networking profile, and two-thirds of young profile owners took part in some form of political activity on these sites in 2008.The survey also found, among the entire population (Internet users and non-users alike) the Internet equals newspapers and is twice as important as radio as a source of political information. Nearly half of Internet users accessed five or more news sites during the election cycle. And those citizens that went online for news were increasingly gravitating toward news cites that promoted a point of view.
It’s fascinating to see how the Web is increasingly becoming THE marketplace of ideas. Comparing the 2008 election cycle to the couple that preceded it reveals this in stunning fashion.
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Transparency 2.0
Nick Troiano at SocialGovernment.com has an interesting and important post about government transparency, the 2.0 version. Nick was reflecting from a discussion featured by the National Conference on Citizenship titled “In Transparency, We Trust?
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Storytelling 2.0
My good friend Allison Fine has an interesting post about the “power and limits of storytelling” via social media on her blog. As an example of best practices, she also embeds this cool video about telling the story of Red Riding Hood with social media:
Social media obviously us the ability to tell stories in more visual and powerful ways, allowing us to more adroitly communicate our messages. Allison lists YouTube, human rights advocates at Witness and National Public Radio as examples of folks using video effectively to tell stories. She also highlights the work of Andy Goodman, a longtime advocate (and another very good friend!) for using storytelling for causes.
Allison cautions how advocates need to be careful, however, not to let powerful stories drown out the real message they are trying to communicate. “It’s easy to listen to the loud voices because they’re, well, loud, but much harder to listen to the quieter ones who probably represent the norm of the experience with your effort.”
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The Feds and Social Media II
Here’s an exciting development! Last week, I blogged about an encouraging report by Doug Belzer at Federal Computer Week, where he wrote about how Twitter, blogs and other Web 2.0 tools are revolutionizing government business. The General Services Administration had determined that Twitter’s standard terms of service is compatible with federal use.
Two days ago, Doug has another exciting article, this time in Government Computer News, about GSA announcing that it has signed agreements with Flickr, YouTube, Vimeo and blip.tv that will allow federal agencies to use new-media tools. Agencies can now begin using these tools to better communicate, network and share information via the Web.
Chris Snyder at Wired’s Epicenter blog termed the move, “Web 2.0, meet dot-gov. Dot-gov, this is Web 2.0.” He’s right in calling it a “big step” for agencies attempting to become more transparent and interactive with citizens. “Now that the bureaucratic brush has been cleared, government agencies will be free, for example, to embed videos and create photo widgets that citizens can embed into their MySpace or Facebook pages,” he writes. An example of a government agency already using Web 2.0 tools successfully is the Centers for Disease Control alerting the public about the recent peanut better product recall.
Chris quotes Andrew Rasiej, founder of Personal Democracy Forum and Sunlight’s senior technology advisor, as saying it’s another example of why it really matters who’s president of the United States. “Because we have the country’s first tech president, the speed at which the government can catch up with the private sector and use of technology is exponential.”
Each individual agency will determine their own guidelines for how their employees can use the tools. “The new agreements make it easier for the government to provide official information to citizens via their method of choice,” according to GSA’s administrator, who is in discussions with other new-media providers. They started with these four because of their popularity and large number of users.
We’re excited about this development. You should be too.
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SocialGovernment.com and the States
Earlier this week, Alexander Muir at SocialGovernment.com wrote an interesting post about social media in the states; how they are using new media to interact with citizens and what are some of the best programs. Much like the federal government, he found that the states can and should be doing so much more.
Muir found that states were starting to use maps to inform their residents about traffic and other similar issues. He gives Maryland “extra credit” for the Old Line State’s interactive map displaying environmental initiatives having to do with the Chesapeake Bay. He notes that many states should do more with safety alerts. Currently, Amber Alerts are the most used new media app. He suggests a tornado watch system would be appropriate use of new media.
With the federal Recovery.gov up and running, many states are building their own version. He sites Illinois’ site as a “great start,” but added we’ll have to take a “wait and see” approach to see how transparent and useful these sites end up. And I would add we must take approach the states much like we are the feds by prodding and demanding that they are as open as possible.
States are starting to experiment with Twitter, but few are fully realizing its potential. He sites California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger as an exception, who has set up a Twitter group on Buzzable to discuss what’s going on with the state government. He adds that states should embrace widgets much more, with Virginia doing the most with ones on wine, traffic and emergency notices. He also credits Virginia for setting up a YouTube channel, podcasts and a flushed out stimulus site.
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YouTube Citizen Journalism Challenge! (UPDATE)
Earlier I had posted about the Youtube Challenge for citizen journlists. Well the winner is in, Arturo Perez did an excellent video on Camphill, Calif., a community where adults with developmental disabilities work and live together. Browsing the entries you can see how journalism is changing and there is a need for citizens to fill in where MSM can’t. Media Shift has an great write up about the event and the videos that stood out to him. I think the last paragraph says it all:
“But for independent journalists like (Arturo) Perez, monetization is not a necessary component for success. For those who are just starting out in the industry, it’s a chore to just get noticed, and over the past few years we’ve seen several examples of online video stars — who started out making videos for free — getting snapped up by major media organizations.
In a world crowded with journalism and film school grads, the online video giant (YouTube) may serve as a way to rise above the cacophony of aspiring journalists and take control of your own career path.”
With main stream media entering in a crisis that has effected quality and extent of coverage it is great to see that the new generation of journalists still want to tell stories. The people who participated in this contest will be telling stories for years to come because of the internet, despite the challenges.
(h/t Simon Owens)
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The Veterans Administration Goes Web 2.0
Maybe this is the start of something big in government.
In an in an attempt to better connect to the younger demographic of returning soldiers, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is embracing the world of Web 2.0 with its Returning Servicemembers page. They have launched the department’s first public blog, a Youtube channel, a Facebook page, and a Secondlife island. And the VA has also set up a mobile site at m.va.gov where returning soldiers will find news, videos, facility locations, contact info and more.
We hope this is a trend that spreads rapidly throughout government.
Hat Tip: Socialfeds.
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YouTube Congress Channel Launches
Today, YouTube announced the creation of two channels made specifically to accomodate videos posted by congressional lawmakers. The channels have been in the works for some time as Congress finally freed themselves of cumbersome regulations governing the use of outside web sites. As one of the authors of the Open House Project section calling for the restrictions to be lifted, it is great to see this success and what the future of a connected Congress looks like.
There are few differences in the channels from the rest of YouTube. The main difference is the lack of advertising and the removal of the watermark (the little YouTube logo on every video) from each video. These changes were necessary to ensure compliance with long standing congressional rules. The most notable difference is the launch page for each channel. Each launch page contains a Google Map interface allowing users to click on a given state to see a listing of lawmakers with YouTube accounts.
The YouTube channels are accessible at youtube.com/senatehub and youtube.com/househub. And here’s a video announcing the channel launch from the congressional party leaders:
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Freshmen Lawmakers Have Wealth of Tech Experience
A number of newly elected lawmakers have serious experience with Internet technology and used the Internet in the campaign more than any previous class of incoming congressmen. According to TechCentral,
Freshmen lawmakers are not only eager to use the latest technologies to communicate with constituents — many of them come from tech and telecom backgrounds. Most used some type of new media tool on their campaign pages, and nearly half provided links to online blogs, according to a National Journal analysis. Almost half also linked to YouTube videos, followed by Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, Twitter and Blip.tv sites.
Thanks to the lifting of restrictive franking rules from online content, these new congressmen can start off their legislative career with a free hand to operate online.
It’s great to see so many lawmakers coming into their new jobs familiar with the variety of online communications sources available to them. I’m also very interested in seeing how these freshmen used online communications, rather than what they used. Were they engaged in conversations online, through blogs or Twitter? Did they blog openly at other online venues? What is their history of engagement online?
I think that the answers to these questions will better help to gauge how they will use online technologies and communications – and how transparent they will be about it – than simply recognizing that, as a class, they used technology more than previous incoming groups of freshmen.
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State of the City
Gavin Newsom the Mayor of San Francisco has started putting his State of the City addresses on You Tube. You can go his You Tube page, which is branded and integrated really well with the City of San Francisco’s government page, and watch the whole speech or specific topics. Unlike Obama’s You tube broadcast the mayor of San Francisco allow users to respond with comments or a video response. This is definitely a great way to give people a chance to learn about the city on their own time and gives them a chance respond to the Mayor in a public forum. I hope the responses are monitored by Mayor Newsom’s staff and are addressed by the Mayor. If that happens a real interactive relationship between citizens and their local government will be created.
This is of course not perfect. The videos are under a restrictive copyright and they are not downloadable. I hope with public pressure these issues can be solved. If citizens want more openness they should get it and the Mayor should respond to what his citizens want.
