Enhancing Public Debate and Contribution
The media has evolved to become a valuable aspect of 21st century politics. Independent news outlets such as Fairfax and Newscorp have become powerful organisations that control most of the public political debate today. The virtual world has played a large part in the growth in this aspect of politics. A serious concern that is beginning to become more evident to the Australian public is that politicians may be working harder at keeping an "image" and relating to the public through the media, rather than concentrating on sound legislative output. Our groups discussion this week revolved around ways to improve actual government processes and parliamentary discussion by having a greater inclusion of the voters through the virtual world.
Improving Distribution through a Virtual Medium
A key idea of our group is to increase the general public's interaction with parliament by creating a system of guilds. Guilds would be a way in moderating idea's generated around the country by the public, with each guild specialising in a particular field of interest, such as economics, mining, climate change, and so on. With guilds placed around the country, it may be a way to bring more mobility and distribution into the parliamentary process, while simultaneously enhancing the public's involvement. The way in which the virtual world would benefit this type of system is that geographical distance would not inhibit the guilds abilities in influencing discussion in Canberra. This could also be a way to soften the tension between the two major parties in parliament that all too often seem to be wanting to take the country in opposite directions.
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