The U.S. presidential election is more or less just around the corner; and as we speak our two candidates are grappling with issues more pressing than the future of Digital Citizenry; nonetheless, that issue does remain on their books and in their campaign material, and have been addressed by both Obama and McCain.
So where do they stand?
It's no secret that Barack Obama has used the Internet more successfully than any other candidate in any election before him. By the end of the campaign he expects to raise as much as US$1 billion online, that's 12 times what John Kerry raised in 2004. Also, his online activities have mobilized over two million people to work for him, and he used the Internet to get more people up and running earlier and at a better clip than any of his opponents during the primaries.
As expected, Obama's IT savvy approach to political campaigning is reflected in his stated technology policy. If elected, he says, he will appoint the country's first true Chief Technology Officer, responsible not only for government technology infrastructure, policies and services, but also for technology policy across the country.
Obama's digital aim, which I find rather promising, is to create a "transparent and connected democracy" in these United States.
According to campaign material, his policy states: "Barack Obama will use the most current technological tools available to make government less beholden to special interest groups and lobbyists and promote citizen participation in government decision-making."
The policy then goes on to promise that more data will be available to citizens on the Internet, that government meetings will be made viewable, and even "participatable" on the Internet, and that cabinet officials will hold national online town hall meetings.
Today, with voter-numbers declining and citizen political engagement weakening year by year (except during national financial emergencies, as today), Obama's technology policy should be viewed as a firm step to improve democracy by digitizing it. Bottom line: Obama, if elected, will be the U.S.'s first technology-savvy president.
John McCain's technology policy is, you may have guessed, not quite of the same caliber. While it does recognize the importance of making more information available to Americans on the Web, it never refers to the use of social networking tools as a means to expand democracy and participation in government.
It is easy to assume that this divergence in policy between McCain and Obama may be based on a generation gap--McCain is 71 and Obama is 47, after all-- but there are many citizen in McCain's age bracket that know how to use email, and plenty more besides, that in fact use their computers and the Internet in many creative ways.
While the age gap might serve as a plausible reason/excuse, I think the difference in approach boils down to political beliefs. Obama is pursuing an agenda that squarely aims at increasing citizen participation in government through the use of the internet, while McCain hasn't quite caught on to the importance of Digital Citizenry just yet.
Photo by Beth Can. Creative Commons Lic. Attribution 2.0 Generic
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