As I sit down the write this article I have a whole bunch of tabs open on my shiny new installation of Firefox 4. A couple of national newspapers, a local one, the CBC, and Twitter. It’s a regular political war room and, in my opinion, without the last site on my list it would be embarrassingly incomplete.
Twitter matters this election, and for you naysayers, buckle up.
So if you haven’t gathered just yet, I’m a big fan of the World Cup.
Even if you aren’t a huge fan though, Twitter’s World Cup coverage is nonetheless very interesting to follow. They’ve set up a very ingenious website which displays soccer-related tweets from both countries while their teams play. Presently, I can watch live tweets from Greece and Korea, displayed head-to-head, as these teams play their first World Cup match. It’s neat seeing the tweets roll by from the two countries. Less interesting because neither of these teams, and therefore countries, speak much English so most of the tweets are in languages that I don’t understand.
Still, it’ll be interesting to see how things look for the USA v. England match up this afternoon. Should be very cool to see opposing tweets from either side of the Atlantic.
Another incredible use of this kind of technology.
I can’t wait!
Douglas Coupland is one of my favourite authors, not to mention an absolute Canadian gem, but his last novel, The Gum Thief, felt tired and phoned-in to me. So, when I began to read his latest novel, Generation A, I wasn’t wholly optimistic. What I found though, as I went, is that Coupland is far from tired and while I don’t think he’s been at the top of his game recently—since jPod, I’d say—Generation A is nonetheless a winner.
My friend Luke, who doesn’t have a website to link to, tipped me off to an incredible website called Open Parliament.
In a nutshell, Open Parliament aggregates data from around the web to let you know exactly what you’re elected Member of Parliament has been doing on your behalf. It trolls the government Hansard (the official record of the House of Commons), MPs twitter accounts, and other various media sources and lays it all out for you on a very easy to read page. You can see, at a glance, what your MP has been voting on—and what they’ve been voting. You can see where they’ve been, what they’ve been up to and every time they’ve spoken from the floor. In fact, you can even set it up to get an e-mail every time your Member of Parliament speaks. You’ll have a pretty empty Inbox if your MP is a back-bencher though.
Open Parliament is the kind of thing I love about the digital age; it’s the kind of thing that gives me faith in technology—in a technology like Twitter, especially. Here is a great use of that particular medium, for all those naysayers.
Now I know, I’m a bit of a politics junkie and it’s hard not to get all worked into a fit about this but isn’t it the coolest?! Doesn’t this have the potential to revolutionize Canadian politics?!
I mean, I can see, at a very quick glance, that my Member of Parliament, Peter Braid voted Nay on Bill C-241 to remove the waiting period for Employment Insurance. Now this is a topic that interests me, being ostensibly unemployed for a total of 3 months of the year. With this knowledge I can petition Braid to reconsider similar votes in the future. More than that, I can now closely follow his position on this and other matters by following what he says from the floor. I can let him know what I agree and disagree with. We all can.
Remember, these are our elected representatives. While information about what they were doing, how they were voting, and what they were saying in the House of Commons was never secret, even from its inception, it wasn’t always easy information to find. Open Parliament makes it easy and the easier something is, the more likely people are to check it out. Being able to more closely follow what our MPs are doing invites us further into the process of democracy. We’re more engaged, we’re able to be more engaged and that’s a good thing.
In addition, Open Parliament also gives you run downs of what topics were talked about recently in the House of Commons. You can track Bills as they’re introduced, and follow them every single time they’re mentioned with a record of who said what, when, and what they said. You can also track Debates, too.
I whole-heartedly applaud a democracy-strengthening endeavor like Open Parliament. This is truly the perfect marriage of technology and democracy in the digital age. I encourage you to check it out.
