Cameron Barrett on Participatory Politics

Cam Barrett has a good post about post-broadcast participatory politics and the Democratic party, including some critical remarks about blogging at the DNC. After his work on the Wesley Clark campaign, Cam gave some advice to the Democrats, most recently suggestions for the convention. [Link]

In an email conversation earlier this week with Jeff Jarvis, I mentioned that I was talking to the Democratic National Convention Committee back in early May about building an online community for this week's Convention. Jeff's recent post echoed a lot of my thoughts back in May (see emails below) about how the Democratic Party needs to start moving away from the "broadcast politics" of the past 40 years and more towards something called "participatory politics."

In broadcast politics, the American people are mostly informed through television and print media. The message is defined and then propagated through television and advertising campaigns. The American people have little say about what this message is and very few opportunities to actually contribute their thoughts and opinions. With participatory politics, the channels of communication are opened up between the groups of people attending the Convention (delegates, politicians, journalists, bloggers, etc.) and the American public. Instead of being talked to, they are being talked with. The inherent nature of this is participatory and provides a sense of belonging and ownership, two of the common traits identified within communities of all kinds (including online communities).