The Berkman Center’s conference on the internet and democracy begins with a panel on “Citizenship.”

Tom Sander, Kennedy School of Gov’t

Tom is studying MeetUp.com. They sat in on 40 MeetUps in 8 communities and interviewed people. They found that MeetUp is not a young person’s phenomenon. Attendees tended to have more education than normal. There’s a high turnover rate, which is not a good way to build trust. Nevertheless, about 30% of attendees meet up with other attendees outside of MeetUp.

Kerry MeetUps attracted 10-15x the number of people who came to Bush MeetUps. [And then the Kerry campaign stopped supporting MeetUp.] The political MeetUps tended to be larger and to have a clear leader. And they spent a loss less time socializing than at other MeetUps. The Kerry campaign at its peak hade 2/3s the attendees that Dean did at his. Maybe this is because MeetUp is more useful in the early stages of a campaign. Also, the Dean campaign was better at letting ideas and blogs from the grassroots filter up into public view.

Pippa Norris, Kennedy School

She has researched the effect of e-voting from the home or office in the UK. In Britain, they’ve experimented with doing this through phone, Palms, Interent, teletext TV, etc. This should be compared with Oregon where everything was done through the mail. The British method is more convenient, can overcome social exclusion (“My kid was sick that day,” “Too hard to get my wheelchair down the stairs”), and streamline the administration of elections.

In May 03, the UK tried 59 pilot studies involving 6M people casting real ballots. The results showed that voting by mail incrased voter turnout while e-voting was at best mixed. Young people didn’t vote whether it was postal, email or mixed. The older population really liked the postal voting. Gender, age and class were significant variables.

Conclusion: All-postal ballots are afar more effective than e-voting at boosting turnout. The Internet has more effect on other aspects of the election process.

[Pretty damn interesting. Jarvis says her pdf is here.]

Hossein Derkkhshan (Hoder)

70% of Iran is under 30 years old. 5-7M Iranian citizens are on the Net. There are about 75,000 active weblogs in Persian. The result is the Internet is the most trusted medium among Iranians.

He gives metaphors for understanding what’s hapenning. First, blogs are windows. You can see into Iran and see how deeply the Iranian people have changed, how open and more tolerant they are. Second, blogs are bridges. It can even bridge parents and children. Even the VP of Iran blogs, a nd promotes blogging as the best tool for understandiing what’s going on. Women bloggers have been invited to official ceremonies as representatives of their generation. The hardliners have blogs, also. And blogs are cafes, places where discussions happen that otherwise wouldn’t be allowed to happen.

The Internet has made the hardliners in charge so angry that they’re cracking down on political websites. They’re filtering them out. They’ve developed conspiracy theories to support their agendas, e.g., the bloggers are funded and managed by the CIA.

[Hoder is explaining exactly why for so many of us, the Internet is the medium of hope.]

QA

Lolita Jackson, pres of a NY Republican activist group: Do political meetups do better in areas where the people feel a bit under siege?

Tom: I haven’t researched it.

Jarvis: What can we do to help, Hoder?

Hoder: The world could help us a lot. Localized, free technology. Education. We need to increase access. E.g., millions in Iran have access to satellite TV. It would be revolutionary if the same tech could be used to provide Net access.

Jordan Pollack (Brandeis): WRT e-voting, people have to trust that the medium has not been undermined. [A totally off-topic editorial interjection: Jordan has created a micro version of backgammon, called Nannon.]

Pippa: There are a number of factors, including trust. We need to do more research.

Zack Exley (Kerry campaign, ex-MoveOn.org): We took the links to MeetUp off the Kerry site because we were switching to our own version. When we did it corresponds with when Tom saw the dropoff. Why do you, Tom, consider MeetUp’s stickiness to be low? Compared to what?

Q: Is the Net narrowing us or broadening us?

Hoder: Few people are able to consistently read opinions that are opposed to theirs.

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