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Is anyone based in Hong Kong on DoWire these days? Drop me a note about the Internet and political trends in HK: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For those in China, do you see Hong Kong-based Internet content/blogs/news having an influence on the mainland? Hong Kong has one the "Weos" on my list: http://www.sinchungkai.org.hk/demo/eng/home/home.html (Wired Elected Officials) Steven Clift http://dowire.org More: http://www.civic-exchange.org/n_home.htm See: http://www.civic-exchange.org/publications/2004/VOTE04.pdf (1MB) Introduction A new model of political participation In the run-up to the September 2004 Legco Election, Civic Exchange launched a pilot project with the goal of using alternative media to motivate citizens, young people in particular, to vote. Civic Exchange assembled a team of people to design and implement a website, http://www.vote04.hk [still up in Chinese - SLC]that would appeal to young voters and that could also serve as a platform for mass mobilization through electronic means. Civic Exchange, an independent public policy think-tank, believes that citizens must take an active interest in public affairs, and promotes wide political participation as the foundation of a healthy polity. Voting is one of the simplest, but most important ways for citizens to perform their civic duty and exercise their rights. In early July, a team was assembled and work began on www.vote04.hk . The team planned, developed and launched by early August a variety of election-related materials, and set up an SMS (short messaging service) platform for mobile phones available to all members of the public, including political candidates.1 Electronic media is unlike traditional forms of print and broadcast media because it does not have the high entry costs that prevent most members of the general public from publicizing their own messages. You do not need large investments, or a broadcast license. For a small amount of money, someone can set up a website. If they use blogging software, they do not even need a lot of technical know-how. Anyone can very cheaply send an SMS message. Anyone with internet access can send an e-mail. Alternative (electronic) media have already played pivotal roles in several political campaigns around the world. In 2000, a million Filipino citizens used SMS messages to organize demonstrations against then-President Estrada, who was being impeached for corruption.2 In 2002, the progressive news site OhMyNews mobilized thousands of voters in support of South Korean presidential candidate Roh Moo-hyun using e-mails and SMS messages on Election Day. Roh, who had been slipping in the exit polls made a comeback, and won the election despite having received mostly negative coverage in the mainstream media.3 In Kenya, where mobile phones outnumber landlines due to the poor infrastructure of the latter, text messages were an important campaign medium for all the candidates in the 2003 presidential election. The candidates compiled huge databases of their supporters’ telephone numbers for both campaigning and organization. Their messages were able to reach even the remotest locales, where perhaps a whole community might share one mobile phone.4 This year, US Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean ran an extremely effective internet-based grassroots campaign. He managed to attract the support of many young voters, and raised unprecedented sums of money over the internet, consisting mainly of small donations by ordinary citizens rather than large lobby groups. He organized his supporters through blogs, Meetups and Deanspace. Deanspace was a website set up by an independent group of technologically skilled Howard Dean supporters, providing free software such as forums, blogs, voter file registration, and volunteer list management to the campaigners.5 Though Dean’s presidential bid proved ultimately unsuccessful, he got much further than an obscure candidate normally would have, and was for a time the front-runner for the Democratic nomination.6 Vote04 was an attempt to bring alternative campaigning to Hong Kong, which has the highest rate of mobile-phone and internet penetration in Asia. With 83% of adults owning a cellular phone7 and 72.5% of the population having internet access8, alternative political campaigning had the potential to become very successful. The Website The website, Vote04.hk had three goals. The first goal was to inform voters. The website provided basic information about how the electoral system works, presenting “myths and facts” about the geographical and functional constituencies in an accessible, easy-to- read format. It also sought to provide voters with information about candidates and their positions. Later on, statistics from the Hong Kong University Public Opinion Program rolling polls were added in the form of a scrolling graph, as well as some analysis of election issues and events. The second goal was to entertain viewers. Efforts were made to make the website interesting to younger voters, in the hopes that they would regularly visit the site and introduce it to their friends and families. The website included a multimedia section with election- related Flash animations and videos, and political cartoons were prominently featured on the front page. Blogs (web logs – to be explained in greater detail later) written under fictional names provided a somewhat tongue-in-cheek commentary on political events, and the site also held a contest for viewers to submit catchy SMS slogans to use in a get-out-the-vote campaign. The third and most important goal was to motivate people to vote. Besides passively trying to interest people in the election through a website, Vote04 actively staged email and SMS advertising campaigns, sending out thousands of messages encouraging people to vote. It was hoped that these messages would have a “viral” self-replicating effect – that they would be entertaining enough for recipients to forward them to their acquaintances, enabling them to spread in much the same way email joke lists. The website was also intended to have some interactivity. Viewers could respond to bloggers’ posts and discuss issues in an online forum. The SMS platform was open to all members of the public – anyone who registered would be able to use the website to send up to 20 free text messages. Evaluation How Successful Was It? As a pilot project, Vote04 encountered delays and teething problems that prevented the website from becoming as popular or effective as it might have been. Nevertheless, it was a valuable learning experience and proved to be an experiment worth repeating. The following discussion will examine the planning, execution, content and impact of Vote04, so that future endeavors may be more successful. See the PDF for the full report: http://www.civic-exchange.org/publications/2004/VOTE04.pdf ... 1 Vote04 was an independent project, unaffiliated with any political parties and did not endorse any specific candidates. 2 Political Texting: SMS and Elections, Howard Rheingold, The Feature, April 12 2004. http://www.thefeature.com/article?articleid=100479 accessed on September 28, 2004 3 Oh My! News By Million Phonecams: Smartmobs v. 2004, J.K. Min, OhMyNews, March 16 2004, http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&n o=154143&rel_no=2 accessed on September 28 2004 4 Rheingold, April 12 2004 5 http://deanspace.org/about Accessed October 15, 2004 6 Rheingold, April 12 2004 7 Hong Kong Outpaces Rest Of Asia, Eric Lin, The Feature, August 9 2004, http://www.thefeature.com/article?articleid=100963&ref=3060811 accessed September 28, 2004 8 Internet World Stats, http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats3.htm#asia, accessed September 28, 2004 ^ ^ ^ ^ Steven L. Clift - - - W: http://publicus.net Minneapolis - - - - E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Minnesota - - - - - - T: +1.612.822.8667 USA - - - - - MSN/Y!/AIM: netclift UK Office Hours - 1pm - 11pm - - T: 0870.340.1266 Join my Democracies Online Newswire: http://dowire.org *** Past Messages, to Subscribe: http://dowire.org *** *** To subscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** Message body: SUB DO-WIRE *** *** To UNSUBSCRIBE instead, write: UNSUB DO-WIRE *** *** Please send submissions to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** *** New RSS XML Feed Available: *** http://www.mail-archive.com/do-wire@lists.umn.edu/maillist.xml
