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Peter Bradwell

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Researcher

Peter Bradwell is a researcher at Demos. He is interested in digital identity, technology and the ways that information and knowledge is shared...

Posted by Peter Bradwell at 6:37pm on Monday, 2nd October 2006
What better way to dispel the accusations that you're vacuous and policy-lite than to air your very own video podcast, or vodcast or...webcameron - noting your whimsical and more sincere policy insights and firing them into the open-access heaven of the internet? Talking straight to the people, wired straight into the public consciousness - no middlemen, no journo agendas, no spin; just your ideas with the ecover, some washing up, drying underpants and breakfast with the wife and kids.

Are the days gone when we should bother trying to distinguish between party political ingenuity and public opinion management (spin, public relations etc)? Is this the start of a beautiful friendship between Dave, the Tories and the public? Can we expect webcameron to be an honest forum for Conservative policy ideas? Is Dave, and his team, just pressing the right PR buttons? Is this the 'real' David Cameron - and do we want to see behind that curtain?

Should we shelve the cynicism and read this as another means to connect people and polticians? Should I be excited that party politics is finding new ways to talk to people?

So many questions. I'm not really sure, although the sight of Dave musing with his washing up certainly got my spidey-senses tingling. But I'll be subscibing to that feed...

Be interested to know what other people think.

Comments

1
So is the answer to the Economist cover this week to be found on webcameron?
Posted by Molly Webb  at 12:18pm on Monday, 2nd October 2006
2
well, it certainly wasn't in the economist. i can't believe  i paid £3.25 to read that article! my advice; read it in the shop first.
Posted by Charlie Tims  at 2:37pm on Monday, 2nd October 2006
3
I have been thinking about this since seeing Blair’s impressive conference speech desiccated into anodyne, dry snippets on the evening news last week.

What hope is there of politics re-capturing the imagination of a disenchanted public, if on those occasions when there is a truly engaging political event they aren’t given a chance to experience it? It struck me that in wireless world, communicating a political message via the mass media may be an old fashioned and unnecessarily restrictive route to follow, and that it is time for parties to use new technologies to circumvent ‘gatekeepers’ of communication and speak directly to the public.

If used correctly, perhaps webcasting can become the 21st century equivalent of ‘soapbox’ campaigning. Podcasts, speech archives and maybe even web conferences would allow wider access to otherwise insular political events. The public aren’t interested in policy documents but they do respond to engaging speakers.

If politicians were to seriously embrace web based communications I think there is a good opportunity to create a new forum for political engagement, dissemination and dialogue. If however, it is just utilised as a gimmicky adjunct to the current politics then I doubt we will see any real positive change at all.
Posted by Faizal Farook  at 3:36pm on Monday, 2nd October 2006
4
When I first tried to Google "webcameron," it was all a little bit porny. Thankfully, the web's hive mind has now double-glazed over this and webcameron is again Tory-friendly. Bloggers and Flickrers have woven a new, more polite web.

Remind me not to try Internet metaphor again.

I still think "candid cameron" would have been a better name.
Posted by Jack Stilgoe  at 10:10am on Tuesday, 3rd October 2006
5
Given that only 57% of the country have access to the internet at home, its unlikely that anyone other than political bloggers, 'broadsheets' readers and those in receipt of Tory HQ emails will look at webcameron - highly unlikely to either 'talk to the masses'  or swing any votes.  As can be statistically shown and hilariously sung, the internet is for porn.  However, as there are seemingly ample opportunities to combine the two, perhaps the great internet/poltics leap is out there?
Posted by Stefan Webb  at 10:23pm on Tuesday, 3rd October 2006
6
first and foremost i would like to emphatically state that i am not to the right of the political spectrum. However, i expect a bit more from demos than a blind philistine dig at web cameron. yes, it is true that not everyone has access to the world online at this moment in time, but, we are rapidly entering a world where vast swathes of the electorate will. rather than knock this innovation you should be investigating its potential as a political and civic tool. how often we becry the loss of the unmediated town hall, when video blogging can offer a channel of direct communication. it is increasingly clear that Labour is on the back foot in this regard and will find itself playing catch up just before election time with the conservative party happily bedded in. Now is not the time to laugh this off as some kind of shallow spinning enterprise.
Posted by Dai the Blog  at 2:29am on Wednesday, 4th October 2006
7

While we are on the subject of using the web to reach directly to the masses, have a look at the new UK Parliament website which went live recently. It looks nice and simple, though it won't make reading a bill any more interesting... could this new look be a belated response to the success of Steinberg's (et al) website TheyWorkForYou?

Posted by Charlie Edwards  at 6:39pm on Wednesday, 4th October 2006

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