I think that the government can use technology in a variety of ways to make the government more transparent and accessible. The first way I would like to see the government use technology is to make us more aware of the legislation that they will be voting on in the House and Senate.
The reason why people like me don’t get more involved in how our country is run is the lack of awareness. Yes the information is out there, but for people like me, who only know what their AOL homepage tells them, finding it poses a problem. I would like to see change.gov have a feed that lists the legislation that is up for discussion and if they could classify who it directly involves that would be icing on the cake
. I know that sometimes I read things that come from the government and the vagueness of the wording makes it difficult for me to fully understand what’s going on. It would be super fun if they got Kat Williams to give us all the legislation in layman’s terms. I’m just throwing that idea out there.
Another way the government could use technology to make the inner workings more transparent is that they could join second life. It might be really interesting for the younger generation to be able to see how the government works using another web application. I think that the most important thing is the use platforms with a significant number of users. Obama utilized this strategy when he was campaigning and put up billboards in video games. That was pretty brilliant on his part.
Another thing they could do to make the government more interactive would be to post opinion polls on their websites to see how people feel about certain issues. It would be amazing if the common person had a say in who gets what type of funding in the bailout package. The only drawback to that is, not everyone is educated enough to make an informed decision. However, to combat this problem they could include links to information that showed the different sides of the story.
I think that with a greater amount of government transparency it gives us the help we need to start monitoring what our government is doing with our resources. If we are to actually make a difference we need to take the new information we get and utilize it. A comment on the original blog by petes_pov said its not that we don’t have access, we just don’t care about what’s going on. I think that might change a little bit since we have seen where apathy and unchecked government gets us. We need to get more involved by writing to our congress people and other government officials, because in the end they are in their positions because we elected them to represent our interests.
I would propose solutions to help older Americans to utilize the internet to keep track of the government, but I think that would require research. I wonder what would get people like my mother who can only email (and still has trouble doing that) to use their computer as a resource to keep track and stay informed about the government.
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4 comments:
This was a great post which had some good insights.
The best thing about this election year was the increased interest by the public. However, some voted for a man because he was black, some for a woman because she was a woman and others for a man because he was not black and not a woman. All of these reasons are wrong!!!
I think more people became involved with the issued while others did not care to. I think the next step, now that we have a slew of new voters, is to increase interest in the ISSUES.
One way to do this is to increase internet resources. I would recommend in addition to the complete word for word display of legislation, there should be a "this means ________ to the average American”; this is how it will affect you section. In other words, give a generalized description for the common person.
change.gov boring... Second life, your getting warmmer. We need some crazy uses of technology to get people interested in politics. I start with a suggestion of a Whithouse reality show, you with me ?
The government has really lost touch with its people and their needs. Most of them seem to be just focusing on their own wants and needs. I think your poll idea for government officials is a good start! Maybe from their they could figure out what would be best for the poeple and not themselves.
Everybody wants money,,,, but i blieve it dosent mean they can stop progress of technology. I wish new presitent make a change.
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