🌟 Participate in our research! 🌟

UK Open Government Network
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The e-lectorate project is on a mission to create a functioning digital democracy. We want to understand how people engage in democracy through social media, and we need your help to make it happen!

We are asking people who are interested in advancing digital democracy to complete a short questionnaire about their use of social media in democracy.

Link to questionnaire: https://forms.gle/yPcJXvcTokKbQuZy7

Why Participate?

:mag: Shape the Future: Your insights will help us enhance our knowledge of how social media can shape democracy.

:ballot_box: Make an Impact: Share your experiences and opinions to contribute to a more informed, connected, and vibrant online democracy.

:gift: Exclusive Opportunity: Be part of a groundbreaking research project that aims to transform political discourse and civic participation.

Ready to Make a Difference? Click https://forms.gle/yPcJXvcTokKbQuZy7 to take the survey and share your valuable insights with us. Your participation is crucial in shaping the future of digital democracy.

Together, let’s revolutionise democratic engagement. :earth_africa::sparkles:

Sincerely,

Joseph Gaunt

Project Director
e-lectorate project

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Hey Joseph,

Love your project’s slogan - we’re on a mission to create a functioning digital democracy. Obviously that’s “co-create” if you follow the OGP process.

I read through your survey. Just can’t see what difference it might make to investigate and compare peoples use of the commercial social media platforms. I guess its a matter of what you consider social media. e.g. This discourse platform is the only one I’ve found, in the UK/English language, that directly addresses improving government. A platform where I don’t get profiled by an adtech company.

Sure, its limited primarily to revolve around the UK’s OGP project (only). But at least we can compare between one official UK government’s group’s (MSF) view of the OGP co-creation process and its secretariat’s outreach to their civil society. Both sides of the fence (as I call it)

New public political institutions eventually make their way of bridging this gap. That’s why the OGP co-creation process is such a good one. The project’s process falls down because it segments the co-design of commitments by each country. So, in the case of digital democracy co-design, the wheel - the possible technology - has been reinvented since the OGP project began. Just ask Tim from the OGP support group. (Para 5)

If you want to take the easy approach to researching how democracy might be improved, start with the basics - trust in public institutions. The leaders here are the Swiss with 87% approval as opposed to the UK & Aus where its about half that. Those figures are from an official Parliamentary enquiry.

Now, if you’re interested in inquiring into the possible technologies that might improve our public institutions then lets have a chat here (on this thread). I’m no geek. But I have spent almost 2 decades hanging out with the geeks who run the public R&E networks across Europe (and beyond).

If we’re attempting to co-create a functioning digital democracy, I’ll trust them before I trust a US multinational, or a government’s policy makers. How bout you?

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Hey Joseph,

Thought you may be interested in this survey that’s being done over on the OGP dgroups list. This ones for just their OGP newsletter but I’m trying to broaden the focus so that it includes your approach - about the effect of social media tools on democratic (and open) institutions.

We all know this is an evolution from (say) list (email) servers through the beginnings of the social web with AOL, myspace, etc all the way up to today’s FB, Instagram, X, etc. But the interesting thing about these kind of tools is they only really offer one thing, and that’s an opportunity to build a community with a hope that things, like the democratic process, might be improved.

But tools come and go. Its the honest conversations about developing ideas which offer promise that make things happen.

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Thanks for sharing Simon!

Kind regards

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No probs Joseph,

I could point to around 40 surveys/year in the UK (English speaking world). Its the same in most countries. The media of democracy movements are extremely fragmented, and that’s before we talk about the different languages.

Its an Interesting one. (I’ve been monitoring this evolution in “social media” institutions since the web was invented back in the 1990’s). These commercial (privately owned) media assets have become so popular over the decades. In order to make a buck, you get a couple of people with very different ideas to start arguing and then wrap advertising around the conflagration. (I have co-design war zones and then watched bill boards spring up around them).

Interesting one, only because there appears to be a complete lack of understanding, inside our public institutions, of how social media could work in the public’s interest .

I’m a network (infrastructure) guy, so when you ask us to participate in your research, the first thing I’m questioning is who us is. In this domain its 372 private registrants/citizens. There’s possibly another X 10 passing readers. (that tends to be a good rough guide in public social media spaces. Most democrats are observers. They don’t participate in discussions/arguments)

Would you do me a favour? I could use your feedback. I’m attempting to illustrate to people who work inside public institutions that in order to share a public space, they (insiders and outsiders) must share a common public institution-issued ID so they can Log In and share a platform which has different levels of privacy and security.

Let me illustrate. Users of this domain use discourse software. Click on this link and go the Log In, top right. It gives you a choice of six ways to Log In. Use your email and another password or use any of your 5 social network accounts. There’s more choice than in this opengovernment domain but it illustrates who controls the access to (i.e. governs) most “social” domains.

Now look at this site. The GEANT project consists of public networks that tie together (enable access to) most of the schools, unis and (some) government departments around the world. Hit the Log In button, top right. You can see the tens of thousands of public R&E institutions (mainly unis) around the world who enable you to access and share this wiki space, using your public institution-issued ID.

So. Ive scoped the difference between ID’s issued by private companies, and then, government institutions. The main point being, apart from the fact that while attending a uni you might not have noticed how your individual security was being protected, that surveys are quite useless unless one knows that the audience being surveyed are real citizens from a particular e-lectorate.

Is that too dense or does any of it resonate with your ideas about e-lectorates?

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Hi again Joseph,

Just to complete this overview.

The bridge in using social networking software, if we just limit our view to an online process, comes down to some form of linking/co-creation between a government’s petitioning process, which exists in many parliaments, and the public’s social media. Some call it the fifth estate.

I’ll point to the UK, and Australian, government’s e-petitions’ versions. Now, in Westminster-based “democracies”, this is pretty dumbed down. That is, as opposed to (say) Switzerland where they place more emphasis on direct government procedures. (usually 4 referendums/year)

So we all know where we are heading, when using available online technologies to be more inclusive. The only question then becomes, who will be a community’s manager? And what will their role consist of?

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Hi Simon,

Thanks for this. Would be good to chat more with you 1 on 1 – if you’re up for it?

If so, drop me an email directly to contact@e-lectorateproject.uk with your availability.

Kind regards

Joseph Gaunt

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Thanks for the response Joseph,

I gotta ask/beg you. PLEASE. No more running off and having discussions 1 on 1 below the radar (by email). I refuse to watch another generation remain as ignorant as mine.

There are so many bright minds and well-intentioned around this little UK domain, and they all have the same response. “Let’s take the conversation off to a personal echo chamber and change the world”,… later.

Not possible. People learn by watching others. If you, or anyone else (are you listening Kevin? Chloe?), wants to respond/ ask questions/give an opinion to my explanation of how (social) networks are constructed, HERE, then please do.

Otherwise, all we are guilty of is being one small (well intentioned) part, of one small UK-based charity’s project which, because of a lack of Perceptible collaboration between their project managers, never grows an International democratic community.

Like all the other open government projects around the world, our UK charity’s support group think there’s a “big story to be told”. Absolutely… and, thankfully, this charity is trying to bring thing projects together, at least in the UK. Just like the OGP community is trying to do Internationally.

OK. Try this. According to many UN institutions and the ICC, we have a genocide inflicted, by a National government, going on in Gaza. In the USof A, their Parliament is giving standing ovations to the leader of their government for doing so. This is democracy, as we know it, in action.

And that’s just one story that we, globally, get pummelled with, by corporately-owned media, everyday. Observers. Not participants.