The internet causes all problems - the internet solves all problems. Or so we are led to believe.
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Leaving your children alone in a room with the internet will apparently make them easy prey to molestation, and capable of building bombs from empty washing-up liquid bottles. But at the same time, giving everybody access to the internet and the ability to vote online is supposed to restore interest in politics, ushering in a new age of democracy.
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Of course, the internet is capable of neither of these things. It is a very cheap means of communication, it is very simple to use (although it could do better), and it is a dizzying resource of information and knowledge about every subject you could think of (and many that you didn't). But the saviour of democracy? Encouraging young people to get interested in parliament? What are our politicians thinking?
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In early January 2002, New Labour leader of the UK House of Commons Robin Cook claimed that parliament is an outdated institution (1). He is not the first to say so - every year the pomp and ceremony of the state opening, where Black Rod dons his tights to allow the Queen entry to the Commons, is accompanied by embarrassed MPs saying 'don't blame me'.
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According to Cook, parliament has to change - and must modernise how we vote in elections. Voting with the 'astonishingly quaint' pencil, for example, is something strange and alien for anybody under 40 - the remote control generation. In Cook's view, 'the yoof' (anybody under 40…?) would be more likely to vote if polling booths were based in skate parks, or if there was more space to park your Segway Human Transporter outside.
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Cook wants politics itself overhauled - claiming it should become much more 'two-way', with more information being put online, and the public being able to comment on policies before they become law. Invoking the Chartists to back him up, Cook claimed that if they were around today, they would be demanding online access (but would they really be prepared to go to jail for the sake of a chatroom?).
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While Cook's ideas for connecting government to the public were presented by some as being a bit maverick, they are actually quite central to government thinking. So last year, cabinet office minister Graham Stringer told the Global Forum: 'Information and communication technologies are becoming one of our most important tools for raising the quality of life, strengthening democracy and fostering economic growth.' (2)
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It is the same at UK Online, the internet portal that aims to link government with the public and business (3), which claims that 'driving forward citizen participation in democracy' can be achieved by redesigning Citizen Space (an area of the website), and turning it into 'a showcase example for e-democracy, providing an improved set of electronic fora designed to enhance public participation'. Unfortunately, at least for this digital citizen, all of the documents that the public should be able to comment on are currently showing a 'page unavailable' error.
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 | | What if, after all this, still nobody votes? |
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Stringer succinctly poses the problem that politicians are trying to address - the TV programme Big Brother produced better voting rates in the UK than the European elections did. Politicians know that the issues they choose to talk about are irrelevant to most people's lives; they just haven't yet realised that they themselves are the cause of their sad situation.
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But can taking its functions online save democracy? And if it could, why stop there? Why not run elections with telephone voting on a Friday evening, after everybody gets back from the pub? 'Remember, a 1 at the end of the number if you want to vote for Tony, and a 2 if you're going for Iain. The call will only cost you 10p, and please do ask an adult before using the phone.' Why not appoint gay extroverts with a nice line in putdowns (a la Big Brother winner Brian) as party leaders? And surely more people will tune in to watch televised parliament if they thought Widdecombe and Duncan-Smith might get it on (on second thoughts…).
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The problem with all of this is that politics is not a game show, or a shoot-'em-up video game. The rather technocratic politics of today is largely irrelevant to most people's lives, no matter how it is packaged. And no amount of pleas to information technology will restore its oomph.
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Does all this mean I'm against online voting? No. Just like I'm not against placing polling booths in areas where people live, and I support postal voting for those who would have difficulty getting to a ballot box. I just don't subscribe to the view that a declining interest in democracy is halted by increasing the number of days on which we can vote - just in case it rains on one of them.
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And what about having more online information? Good idea. The more information we have, and the easier it is to find, the better. But let's not pretend that more information equals more participation, which equals more democracy. Democracy is about the right to vote, not the obligation. Democracy is about rugged debate and arguing for beliefs, not daily rounds of questioning from politicians about whether they're doing the right thing.
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But there is another problem with this discussion that goes beyond the self-delusion of politicians imagining that they can drum up some interest via Gameboys or Sky Interactive. The problem for me is the burden it places on information technology - in particular the internet - to solve a problem that it cannot begin to address.
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Don't get me wrong - I wouldn't have helped set up ePolitix.com or spiked if I didn't think the internet had a role to play in politics. But what if we put into practice all of these plans? What if we do have internet voting in the next election? What if all candidates are allowed a five-minute video broadcast, and we can freeze frames and view from any angle? What if people can vote at any time during a one-week period? What if they can phone a friend, ask the audience, pick any candidate they like from the past 1000 years, or choose Super Mario or Sonic the Hedgehog? And what if still nobody votes? What if, after all of this, the interest in democracy and parliament is even less than it is now?
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Unless we make it clear today that a falling interest in the process of government is a problem of politics and not technology, we'll wake up tomorrow to find another problem laid at the internet's door - the decline in democracy.
Mark Birbeck is managing director of x-port.net Ltd, and was responsible for building the ePolitix.com political portal. He is co-author of Professional XML and Professional XML Metadata, both published by Wrox Press.
Read on:
Connecting to what?, by Sandy Starr
Was it the UK's first internet election? by Sandy Starr
Where communication is king by Tiffany Jenkins
(1) Intent on change, Radical Robin returns to the fray, 7 January 2002
(2) e-envoy press release, 15 March 2001
(3) See UK online
(4) This year's action plan, UK e-envoy
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