I want to give a plug to an upcoming conference in Canada — mesh. (Only second time I’ve done this.) Founded by a group of savvy journalists and at least one equally hip attorney, mesh is a Canadian forum focused on Web 2.0 applications and will take place May 15 and 16 in Toronto.
One topic the conference will take a look at is the impact of blogs on Canadian politics. One of the organizers, Stuart MacDonald, suggests that Canada is so close but so far from the U.S. on the role of blogging in politics.
Canada is far away from that. In fact, you could say that there is huge evidence that Canadian political parties, steeped in senior back-room leadership who still might well have people print their emails for heaven’s sake, are far out of that loop, despite superficial attempts to look like they aren’t. Personally, I think unless that changes, they will have their communal butts handed to them online within two years.
Another organizer, Mathew Ingram, seems to disagree with his colleague.
We decided to look at that last one in part because of the effect that bloggers had on the coverage of the Iraq war, on the election of George Bush and even on events such as the Jayson Blair affair at the New York Times — but also because of the effect that bloggers like Michael Geist and Ed “Captain’s Quarters” Morrissey and Joey DeVilla had on the Canadian election, when they helped destabilize and possibly derail the candidacy of Sarmite Bulte, the record labels’ best friend.
Whichever way it is, the session on blogging looks promising, as does the entire event.
Cynthia Brumfield at 12:47 PM|Comments(3)
Thanks for the post, Cynthia. Looping back to Mathew's comment above, it really isn't that blogs or social media have had no impact up here to-date. Rather that in comparison to the US, it has been miniscule and more importantly there seem to be very few in the political class who are much past the idea of brochure-ware/1.0 sites.
Still very I-talk, you-listen.
We would love you to join us at mesh if you are so inclined.
Best, Stuart
Posted by: Stuart MacDonald at April 27, 2006 8:09 PM
Thanks a lot for the plug, Cynthia -- and I'm sure Rob will be happy to hear himself described as an "equally hip attorney." I think the political panels and workshops could be some of the most interesting ones at mesh -- and just to clarify my thoughts relative to Stuart's, I think blogs have had some limited effect, but not nearly as much as they could in the future.
Anyway, thanks again for the mention. I'm a big fan of IPDemocracy. And there are still mesh tickets available if you want to come and take part in the discussion :-)
Posted by: Mathew Ingram at April 27, 2006 4:12 PM
I work for a nonprofit tech project called Net Squared: Remixing the Web for Social Change and we've got a list of nonprofit blogging case studies at http://netsquared.org/casestudy/blogging
http://socialsignal.com is also a good place to look regarding Canadian politics and blogging. They are a consultancy in Vancouver focused on just that.
Posted by: Marshall Kirkpatrick at April 27, 2006 2:07 PM
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