Monday, January 26, 2009

Digital Politics

In recent elections in both Canada and the U.S. the public saw a huge rise in the participation of political parties in new forms of electronic communication. For the first time politicians, or their employees/volunteers were creating their own facebook groups, sending text messages and participating in blogs to rally support and unify the electroate. Locally in my riding I was informed of a politician who knew he had a facebook group, yet himself had not contributed to its content and likely was unaware of the password to his account. When such information is made publically available under one name, yeet circullated by a group of inddividuals on behalf of another, is this ethical? Is it plagarism? Although unlikely verifiable, should such an individual theoretically be penialized for such action? One may say that this is the case, but playing devils advocate, is there any difference between this happending on facebook, a blog, or an old fashioned newsletter written by the same political crew? Or, furthermore a politician reading a speech in which was prepared for him/her?
In the current media atmosphere politicians are put under stress to keep up or be left behind. When the president of the U.S. is able to spend enough money to puchase primetime 30 minute slots on the major networks, and promote himself on an unmatched scale, should the public call for further regulation of the political in public space?