eDemocracy Update

Interview with The Pakistan Spectator

Here's a bit of 'me time'. The people from The Pakistan Spectator - part of the Global Voices project mentioned in yesterday's post about Iranian bloggers - interviewed me for their site.

If anyone's interested you can read it here.

Technorati tags: Pakistan Spectator, Global Voices

Unheard voices: blogging the election in Iran

Fascinating article in yesterday's FT about Iranian bloggers.

Key take-aways for me include:

• There are now about 800,000 blogs in Iran
• Iran is second only to China in the ranks of top blogging countries
• Roughly 15m internet connections in a country of 70m - making Iranian Internet access high compared to the rest of the region
• Blogs are faciliatating debates left uncovered by the (heavily censored) mainstream media
• Iran is ranked 166th out of 169 countries in Reporters Without Borders worldwide press freedom index  – ahead of Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea
• President Ahmadinejad blogs at www.ahmadinejad.ir - and is getting addicted to it as well!

What is really interesting is while blogs offer a debating platform for discussion about reformist candidates in the forthcoming elections being barred, they internet looks like it may well play a much bigger part in the subsequent campaign as well:

"It is still possible that the Guardian Council will allow more of the reformist candidates to run on March 14, but analysts say it is likely to leave such decisions to the last minute – giving an advantage to conservatives, who will have time to print posters and leaflets ahead of the seven days of official campaigning. This means the internet could take on an even greater role for reformists, becoming an important lobbying tool for last-minute candidates."

Seriously fascinating. And I would definitely add that if you want to hear more from traditionally unheard voices around the world then defintiely have a look at the Global Voices project at Harvard's Berkman Center

Technorati tags: FT, Iran, blogging, elections, Global Voices

Order, order - literally

There's a rather gentlemanly dispute between John Redwood and Tom Watson taking place on Tom's blog at the moment.

The subject is the nationalisation of Northern Rock and as Ellee points out: "it was a most civil interaction between the two MPs, no need for the Speaker to call out: "Order, order"."

[Via Ellee Seymour]

Politics, Policy and the Internet

Daily Telegraph journalist and blogger, Robert Colvile has produced a new pamphlet on behalf of the think-tank, Centre for Policy Studies.

Politics, Policy and the Internet is available online (as you'd expect!) and has already caused some buzz.

I look forward to taking a look and blogging about it in due course.

Technorati tags: Robert Colvile, Centre for Policy Studies

Will.I.Am remixes Obama speech on YouTube

It's not often you see the name of Black-Eyed Peas front-man Will.I.Am appear in the subject line of an email from the UK and Ireland E-Democracy mailing list.

But tonight, there he is..... courtesy of a YouTube video he put together. The video features footage of Barack Obama's New Hampshire Primary "Yes We Can" speech cut up and put to music.

Good example of mixing celebrity, pop culture and politics. It's not the *best* track in the world but it's a succeeded in getting 1m+ views in two days. See for yourself:

Technorati tags: US Elections, Barack Obama, Black-Eyed Peas, Will.I.Am, politics, edemocracy