Many thanks to the staff and postgrads at the SPP, UCL, for their warm welcome and appreciation last night.

Speaking at UCL’s School of Public Policy on November 26

I’ll be speaking at UCL’s School of Public Policy on November 26, 2009 at 5pm. The location is the Council Room, School of Public Policy, UCL, 29/30 Tavistock Square, London WC1. The title of the talk is “Theorizing the Internet and Democracy Now.”

Please direct any enquiries to the seminar organiser, Dr Christine Reh.

Lots of interesting reactions to the #moralmaze last night

Thanks to all involved. You can listen (for a week) on the iPlayer here. See also the Twitter hashtags #moralmaze and #r4mm.

If you follow me on Twitter (@andrew_chadwick) you’ll be able to read an ongoing debate I’m having with others, including Kenan Malik (@kenanmalik).

Twitter hashtag for tonight’s Moral Maze is #moralmaze

Official theme is “Twitter and mob rule”. http://tinyurl.com/yk4yo9p

Going on BBC Radio 4’s The Moral Maze tonight at 8. The theme is “the internet and protest”.

Suspect Twitter will loom large over the proceedings. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nkcfk

If you would like a copy of my ASA paper…

Just drop me an email. Warning: it’s pretty drafty.

Off to the American Sociological Association Annual Meeting in San Francisco

Speaking on this Thematic Panel about “Democracy 2.0”. Looks like an interesting mix. Will Tumbl on and off while there.

Presenting to ASA Conference Thematic Session in August

I’ll be presenting a paper to the American Sociological Association’s Annual Conference in San Francisco in August. Details below.

Chadwick, A. (2009) ‘The Internet and Democratic Engagement: Granularity, Informational Exuberance, and Political Learning’ Presentation to the American Sociological Association Annual Conference (Thematic Session on ‘Democracy 2.0?: Participation and Politics in New Media’) San Francisco, August 8-11.

Live blog coverage of the Barcelona UAB workshop

A few weeks ago I was fortunate enough to attend an excellent workshop on new media and political engagement at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Ismael Peña-López, an attendee, was live blogging the event. Here is the excellent result (note: this is the first of several entries. Scroll up for the rest).

Back to the future: organizational values and online campaigning

Text of talk to the Progress/Blue State Digital conference at 12 today.

———————————————————————————-

First, let me say thanks to Progress and to Blue State Digital for organizing this excellent event. It’s wonderful to be here at Canary Wharf. It doesn’t quite have the resonance of Farringdon Street, which is where the Labour Representation Committee was founded on February 27, 1900, but I think the WiFi here might be better. We’ll see.

It may sound surprising, but I don’t want to say too much about technology. There’s now no doubt that we’re living through genuinely significant change in the political communication environment. I have long argued that in order to understand where party politics is going, we need to understand how technologies shape politicians’ and citizens’ behaviour. But I also think we need to examine things from a rather different perspective — the other end of the problem, so to speak.

So I want to throw out some ideas on organizational values and their importance in shaping the future of online campaigning. To do this, I want you to join me in a brief “thought experiment.” On this historic anniversary, let’s consider the diverse mixture of organizational values that led to the foundation of the Labour Party, and let’s briefly consider how these have relevance for Labour’s approach to online campaigning.

The Labour Party is now well into its second century, but the historical traces of that famous meeting in Farringdon Street in February 1900 remain. As is well known, the Labour Representation Committee (as the party was first named) was pluralistic. It was, and still is, a federation of affiliates. Today it would probably be called the “Labour Representation Network”. But certainly it was a rather awkward blend of very different pre-existing organizations. There was the Fabian Society, the Independent Labour Party, an obscure group called the Social Democratic Federation, some trade unionists, and some Lib-Lab MPs.

Each of these groups brought a distinct set of values to the new Party. The Fabian Society, then dominated by Sidney and Beatrice Webb, brought an emphasis on collectivism, regulation, order and control. They celebrated rational administration by trained experts and insisted that some element of hierarchy was essential for good governance. They saw the Labour Party itself as a compromise between a responsible mass democracy on the one hand, and enlightened authority, on the other.

Then we have the Independent Labour Party of which Keir Hardie was the most prominent figure. The ILP advocated a new morality based on voluntarism. They emphasized local community initiatives, the importance of fellowship, fraternalism, and individual and collective creativity.

The Social Democratic Federation believed in a rather curious mixture of radical libertarianism and revolutionary socialism. They were suspicious of the centralizing tendencies of the Fabians and tended to promote individual rights and freedoms rather than bureaucratic regulation. They were sceptical of claims to authority, highly critical of representatives and wished to see them replaced by direct democracy through ongoing public debate and decision-making by referendum.

Finally, we have the trade union movement, which steadily moved towards formal support for Labour over the course of the next two decades. The dominant ethos of the unions was based on pragmatism, collaboration, co-operation and solidarity in the world of work, but also in the sphere of politics.

Of course, much has changed since February 1900. The Labour Party’s ideas continued to evolve in all kinds of ways that can’t be covered here. But my point is that many of these founding values are still highly relevant to the contexts of twenty-first century British politics. And, more importantly, it is a combination of these values that ought to inform the Labour Party’s future approach to online campaigning.

The future of Labour’s online campaigning should be a matter of enshrining as many of these diverse values in the online spaces that the party constructs or, perhaps more importantly, the spaces and networks with which the party chooses to affiliate. Online campaigning ought to balance hierarchy, leadership and structure against voluntarism, creativity and initiative. It ought to balance individual freedom and scepticism of authority against collaboration, co-operation and solidarity. And it ought to be about local community activism as much as it is about the Westminster elite.

Though it’s evolving rapidly, the communications toolkit for the next election is already in place. After web 2.0, a term that I do think has substance, it’s now clear that the 1990s British political website model is finally dead. Initiatives like Labourlist.org, for example, are breaking the mould. Any online environment that structures a range of opportunities for meaningful action by politicians and citizens deserves to succeed. But I wonder if Labourlist might not end up being too driven by the Westminster elite, especially as the urge towards command and control intensifies in the run up to the next election campaign?

So arguably the immediate challenge is this: can Labour design its online campaign so that it meshes with the diverse aspects of its organizational structures that it values and wishes to maintain. But can it also loosen and democratize its structures, to reach out to those millions of self-organizing citizens who now conduct their politics far away from the official party websites, in the fragmented spaces of blog comments, discussion forums, online petitions, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and Wikipedia, to name but a few.

In other words, can Labour learn from its foundation, and build new networks of democratic affiliation?

Final programme: Progress: Labour 2.0: campaigning for the net generation conference

I’m a speaker. Final programme has been published and it looks extremely interesting. I’ll post the notes for my talk here tomorrow.

Labour 2.0: campaigning for the net generation

Joe Rospars, Douglas Alexander, David Lammy, Derek Draper, Sue Macmillan

in association with

Refreshments kindly supported by

While the real analysis of the reasons for Obama’s victory has yet to be completed, it is obvious that e-campaigning played a major role and that its importance will continue to increase. As the main political parties gear up for the next general election, the focus on internet campaigning will intensify.

To what extent has the Labour party understood the potential of this new campaigning medium?
How can the centre-left use it to mobilise ordinary voters to campaign for progressive causes? 
And what steps need to be taken to pull the party into the ‘net generation’?

We hope to find answers to these questions and more at this special one day conference, which will bring together over 100 members of the left blogosphere, net-savvy Labour parliamentarians, councillors, organisers and others from the Labour movement who have an interest in e-campaigning and using the net to build a better democracy.

Book your place online now
***If you have trouble with PayPal you can bring payment on the day - but please register online first***

AGENDA

11:00
Opening address
Rt Hon Douglas Alexander MP
Secretary of State for International Development

11:20
Keynote speech 
Joe Rospars
Founding Partner at Blue State Digital, and Barack Obama’s New
Media Director

12:00
What will the future of internet campaigning look like?
Professor Andrew Chadwick, Director, New Political Communication Unit, Royal Holloway, University of London
Greg Jackson, Tangent
Ben Brandzel, former Advocacy Director, MoveOn
Luke Pollard, PPC for South West Devon (Chair)

12:45
Lunch

13:30
Mobilising the centre-left blogging community
Adam Bienkov, Tory Troll
Tom Barry, Boris Watch
Theo Blackwell, blogger and councillor
Alex Smith, writer and political activist (chair)

14:15
Fundraising and voter ID online
Gavin Shuker, Political Insight
Jag Singh, MessageSpace
Stella Creasy, PPC for Walthamstow

15:00
Learning from the private sector
Simon Redfern, Fishburn Hedges
Oliver Rickman, Google
Adrian McMenamin, Linux kernel hacker and former Labour chief press officer (Chair)

15:45 
Afternoon break

16:00
Transforming Labour’s campaigns and communications through new media
Nick Anstead, University of East Anglia 
Matthew McGregor, UK MD, Blue State Digital
Sue Macmillan, New Media Campaigns Taskforce Leader, The Labour Party
Paul Simpson, Tangent
Howard Dawber, PPC for Bexleyheath & Crayford (Chair)

16:45
Close of conference debate:

Can the centre-left dominate the internet despite being in office?
James Crabtree, Senior Editor, Prospect
Derek Draper, LabourList
Rt Hon David Lammy MP
Tim Montgomerie, ConservativeHome

17:30
Close

Book your place online now
***If you have trouble with PayPal you can bring payment on the day - but please register online first***

Getting to the conference

Progress is disappointed to learn that Transport for London has chosen to shut the Jubilee line and the Bank branch of the Docklands Light Railway on Saturday. This will make accessing our E-Campaigns conference at the East Wintergarden more challenging than normal. 

The easiest way to check the best route for you to take is to useJourney Planner

Replacement bus services for the DLR are running, and there are standard bus routes from Liverpool Street and Mile End stations. The DLR is running from Stratford to Lewisham – it is possible to take a train from London Bridge to Greenwich, or from Waterloo East to Lewisham. 

Possible routes:

FROM BANK: Take the DLR replacement bus service from Monument to Canary Wharf (20 mins)

FROM LIVERPOOL STREET: Take the 135 bus to Canary Wharf (30 mins) (alternatively take the Hammersmith & City line to Bow Road, and change onto the DLR)

FROM KING’S CROSS/ EUSTON/ PADDINGTON: Travel to Mile End using the Hammersmith & City line, then take a bus (277 or D7) to Canary Wharf (40 mins in total from King’s Cross). Alternatively take the Hammersmith & City line to Bow Road, and change onto the DLR there.

FROM LONDON BRIDGE: Take the train to Greenwich, and then take the DLR to Canary Wharf (20 mins)

We’re very sorry about this inconvenience. Hopefully if you plan your route carefully it should only add a few minutes to your journey.

The Jubilee line will resume at 3pm.

There is ample parking for cars and bikes at Canary Wharf, though car parking does need to be paid for. 

If there is any further news on the transport situation we will email all delegates to let you know.

East Wintergarden, 43 Bank Street, Canary Wharf, London, E14 5AB

*Please note that the Jubilee line and Bank branch of the DLR are closed on Saturday - use TfL’s journey planner to plan your route