We often talk of digital divide Italian, but not enough of ' alphabetical divides, that is the fact that 65% of the population does not possess sufficient literacy skills to understand a newspaper article or to interpret a diagram like the one below. L ' alphabetical divide explains much of the digital divide, because a computer has done for half an alphabetic keyboard, and because the Internet is a place that is accessed by typing words written (because the bottom is made of writes: 001,010 , IF, body, etc.).. 
Obviously, the share of people functionally illiterate or semi-literate is achieved only by the media "not alphabetic, such as radio, mobile phones and television, which in most cases is the only source of information . L ' alphabetical divide can perhaps to better understand why some political scandals, that all educated people know, not "heavy" electorally. The chart above has been obtained by crossing data OECD (2001) with data on functional illiteracy Censis (2006) on the use of different media by the population.
I take this opportunity to point out here the site of the Center for Cognitive Liberty & Ethics.
Italy is the most corrupt country in Western Europe, and one with slower growth. A UN study links the two phenomena by invoking illiteracy functional. 1. According to the report of Transparency International of 2008, Italy is considered by experts as the most corrupt country in Western Europe. In the ranking of the best performing countries (in yellow and orange in the figure below), it only occupies the 55th place, while the seventh economy in the world is preceded by almost all OECD countries and also from other poor countries as Chile (23), Uruguay (23), Botswana (36), Bhutan (45) and Malaysia (47).
On the other hand, data from the International Monetary Fund (2008) show that Italy is also, with the exception of Ireland, the country with the weakest economic growth in Western Europe, the only one who ended the year with a negative -0.1% . In addition, the report OECD in Figures (2008), the average Italian growth (+1.7%) in the last twenty years (1987-2007) was the lowest of OECD countries. According
Daniel Haile (2005) 's UNU-WIDER , can be explained by a mathematical model such as the high rate of corruption contributes to slow economic growth.
2. The premise of Haile that corruption in a country (in blue in the figures below) tends to be:
Haile The conclusion is that (a) corruption practiced by the wealthy classes on the political class, to consolidate (b) inequality of income, leads (c) the State to reduce the redistribution of wealth through taxes, dropping to below optimal levels for growth. This reduction limits (d) the resources that the state can invest in public education, lowering (and) the level of literacy in the population. Thing that hinders (f) the dissemination of technological innovation, thus depriving (g) the economy of one of the main drivers of growth.
3. The data seem to fit the Italian situation point by point to this model.
(a) First, the size of the corruption problem is exemplified by the relationship SOS Impresa - Confesercenti (2007), that the Mafia is the first "company" Italian, with € 130 billion in annual revenue. For guidance, the Group Fiat first Italian industrial company, invoice € 58.9 billion, the Unicredit Group third European banking group, invoice € 77 billion, and will invoice Fininvest Group 6.1. At international level, General Motors says $ 207.3 billion a year (162 billion €), the IBM group $ 91.4 billion (71.4 billion €) and finally Google $ 10.6 billion (7.8 billion €). In practice, therefore, the Mafia is among the few "companies" that Italian, for overall budgets, are not afraid of globalization. Moreover, as has very large profits (90 billion €) and the banking system is in a liquidity crisis, This financial burden can only be converted into a broad power to influence the political system, Italy.
(b) Secondly, Italy is the 6th OECD country with the highest rate of social inequality, the report Growing Unequal (2008) OECD itself (figure below). The average income of the richest 10% of the population is about 10.6 times that of the poorest 10%, a factor well above average (8.9 times), which in Europe is second only to those of Portugal and Poland . Countries like the United Kingdom, Spain and Greece is around the average, while in France and the Scandinavian countries higher incomes are just 5 o 6 volte superiori a quelli più bassi.
(c) In terzo luogo, anche se è vero che la pressione fiscale in Italia è abbastanza alta (43,3% del PIL nel 2007, 6° Paese dell’ OCSE ), tuttavia la sua funzione redistributiva è decurtata da una forte tendenza all’evasione fiscale, che avvantaggia soprattutto i ceti medio-alti. In teoria, lo Stato impone una tassazione progressiva, che dovrebbe riequilibrare le diseguaglianze sociali, prelevando più dai ricchi che dai poveri. In pratica, obbliga a pagare solo i poveri e tollera che i ricchi evadano le tasse. Secondo la Direzione del Dipartimento delle Finanze , l’evasione in 2006 amounted to 200 billion € per year, equivalent to 13.7% of GDP. By way of illustration, the entire U.S. economy recovery plan launched by Obama on Feb. 16 last amounted to little more than three times that figure ($ 787 billion, 655 billion €).
(d) These resources removed from public finance is reflected in spending cuts, and primarily to the historically neglected area of \u200b\u200beducation and research. The entire cost to the state sector in 2005, € 67.9 billion, one-third of tax evasion. Reform Gelmini has scaled to save about € 7.8 billion: 3.9% evasion. But these cuts affect a spending are traditionally under-sized. According to the OECD report Education at a Glance (2008), Italy's spending on education at all levels, if measured as a percentage of GDP (4.4%) is considerably lower than the average (5.4% ) and only higher than those of the Czech Republic (4.3%), Spain (4.2%), Greece (4.0%) and Slovakia (3.9%). If, however, is calculated as a percentage of total public expenditure (9.3%), then, in addition to being below average (13.2%), is also the lowest ever recorded (chart below: The blue columns indicate the values 2005, the blue dots as of 2000).
(e) The small size of the investment can only result in modest results. Also according to the OECD, the total Italian population between 25 and 64 years, 16% had primary school or less, 33% middle school, 38% have a diploma and 13% have a degree or more. Half of the Italian population is stationary then the school (49%), compared with an OECD average of one third of the population (31%). Only four countries have a lower proportion of our graduates (51%). If we look for graduates (13%), only Turkey (10%) there taking the leading country of less educated among the advanced economies (where the average is 27%). Things not change when the data is broken down by age (chart below): the doubling of graduates, class of sixty (9%) to thirty-somethings (17%), does not prevent Italy from the fourth last steps to third to last place (tied with Slovakia, and not to mention that Brazil is not a member OECD), because other countries have grown faster (Mexico and Portugal).
(f) It would be simplistic at this point to consider education as a mere social problem: the knowledge society, it is a sine qua non of economic efficiency of the system. Not surprisingly, since 1998 The OECD notes the degree of literacy of the people treating it as an economic indicator. L ' OECD (2001) not only to test those who can read and write, but defines four profiles of specialties and five levels of competence in assessing "how adults use information to operate in society and in' economy. The four's specialties are: 1. read a prose text, 2. interpret a text document and images, 3. make calculations, 4. solve logic problems. Limiting ourselves to the first profile (diagram below, not too different from the others), the five levels of competence quantify the share of the population capable of doing things as follows:
In short, 65% of the Italian population does not have the minimum literacy skills, according to the OECD, to orient themselves in society (that is "functionally illiterate" or "illiterate"). While less than 10% have the skills necessary to orientarvisi critically and creatively. With such economic consequences?
(f) According to Eurostat (2008), l’Italia è l’ultimo Paese dell’Europa occidentale per numero di famiglie connesse ad Internet (42%), il terz’ultimo dell’UE-27 (60%) davanti a Bulgaria (25%) e Romania (30%), e l’unico ad aver subito una regressione rispetto al 2007 (43%). Una prima conseguenza di ciò è che, secondo Eurostat (2007), il commercio elettronico italiano contribuisce solo per lo 0,9% al fatturato delle imprese, contro una media europea del 4,2%. In pratica, solo Cipro (0,6%) e la Bulgaria (0,5%) fanno meno commercio online. Il dato cambia poco secondo l’ OCSE (2008), che annovera una decina di Paesi in cui l’e-commerce is now more than 10% of sales (see figure below), and Italy ranks second to last with about 2%, ahead of Slovakia. But we must consider that e-commerce is just the most visible aspect of the matter. In fact, the entire services sector to be affected by the contribution of Internet in terms of productivity gains, to the point that, according to the OECD, the productivity of a firm is proportional to the share of employees related to broadband .
The Italian weakness in the Internet economy is often explained in terms of a generic "delay culture "to new technologies, as if it were to acquire more modern habits. But this assumption is contradicted by other data, and first of all by the fact that the Italians, according to Eurostat , boast the third largest in the EU-27 the number of phones per 100 inhabitants (134 compared to an average of 103: more mobile phones people). It is not a rejection of "technology", but the refusal of some technology, and not another. Well, after what has been said, the reason is clear. The technology is rejected which is based on the ability to read and write on a screen, using an alphabetic keyboard, to access a world where everything is produced and arranged by writing (from binary code to HTML, the URLs to the Google index). In short, a hell for that 65% of Italians who does not know the alphabet. It's an interesting place (certainly not a paradise) for only the remaining 35%.
4. In conclusion, the model of Haile to read the Italian specificity in terms of a real "language crisis" of the economy, where innovation of products and processes is hampered by the high proportion of illiteracy of the population. This share depends, as we have seen, the historical weakness of public spending on education, caused by a fiscal policy almost always allergic to the redistributive, imposed by a ruling class largely predatory and corrupt.
Like any self-respecting crisis, this is characterized by feedback loops, where the effects feed back on the causes that produced them, strengthening them further. There is no "crisis" that is, without "vicious circles" that prevent the crisis. In our case, the main one is called, to say the least legal conflict of interest "(and without euphemism" media control of the population), and it works pretty much like this: the corrupt ruling class, which produced the mass of illiterate functional governs the views through the television system, the only source of information available to them, and thereby obtain the consent election, which strengthens it. It therefore has no interest in reducing illiteracy, which is the real quantitative basis of consent. Or to develop new media type alphabetically, which does not know and does not control. In fact, it behaves as if they were considering a threat to its archaic way of exercising power, based on the lack of transparency and participation.
course, want to go into detail, things are more complex. For example, some social groups express a genuine and freely informed consent, which is independent from the influence televisiva e si fonda su interessi reali (per esempio l’interesse a falsificare i bilanci, per quelli che hanno bilanci da falsificare). Mentre altri, oltre a guardare come tutti la televisione (95%), si informano leggendo i giornali (35%), che non appartengono a un solo gruppo, ma a quattro. Sono però dettagli che non falsano il quadro. Né la cornice.
5. La cornice è l’avvicendamento storico tra due tecnologie cognitive, che sono anche due modelli di organizzazione della società. Il vecchio è destinato a perire. Ma tutto dipende, per noi mortali, da quanto ci metterà, da chi porterà con sé, e da come sarà fatto fuori. Decisiva è la nostra parte, perché tutto avvenga quickly and well.
Some, especially in Italy, consider the intentions of delusions use the Internet to protect the rights, or to engage populations in the political management of public affairs. And they probably are. But as they say, the shared dreams can become reality. And, according to the OECD (2008), more than half of us agree that this kind of dreams.
The founder of Tiscali has lost the election because he has not properly used the network to counter the excessive power of television Mediaset. Watch videos of Renato Soru on its website , After the defeat in Sardinia, and I wonder what's missing for the Italian Obama. Despite the recent setback, in fact, I think still the best person to pull the country out of the cave cathode. There is something strong in him, in his way of being left, a moderate leftist and radical together. And there is something weak. The question is what.
rally in Sardinia Soru
Strong is a kind of humanity. The fact that a person is simple and good. With that weakness that does not hide the baldness without regrowth, that voice that occasionally shakes but does not stop. Then there are the ideas which are clear and clean, reasonable and acute, sometimes difficult, because it's phony, however ambitious and generous. Protect the landscape and economy for traditional Sardinian tourist development as part of a system of social guarantees, is what any sensible person would want to Sardinia. Finally there is a strong coherence, the fact that he wanted sfanculare clumsy and myopic part of the PD (the electorate has rewarded him by giving 5% more votes for the list). All this is all that is strong and new: a simple person, intelligent, courageous, honest.
E cosa c’è di debole? Di debole c’è il lamento per il fatto che Berlusconi faccia campagna con tutti i media a sua disposizione, con una “incredibile volontà di conquista” (Cappellacci ha preso il 5% in meno della sua lista). E allora? Anzitutto Berlusconi è sempre quello: lo conosciamo da tempo. E poi la politica è proprio questo: sfidare e battere l’avversario con tutti i mezzi disponibili. Che cosa c’è di strano? C’è che Berlusconi è proprietario di Mediaset e utilizza le televisioni per vincere. Mentre Soru, che è fondatore di Tiscali, non utilizza in alcun modo la rete. Questo è strano. Fare politica alla D’Alema, come se la bicamerale contasse più Retequattro, was improvident in 1997, but today is inexcusable. Especially counting that as an entrepreneur, Soru is half a century ahead of Berlusconi.
Now, how should it use the network, one that still has 20% of Tiscali? Of course, not limited to obtaining the sorry excuse for a television, to post their videos and speeches (although sometimes unforgettable, such as those reported here in Sardinian campidanese). That is, not merely use it as do the staffs of the Democratic Party, which for an antidote to television regime propose two new television networks ( YouDem.tv and Red.tv ). I pass on the idea of \u200b\u200bdemocracy behind it and that there is little foresight front. But even assuming that they were to share equally with the Knights control the media on public opinion, the fact remains that the resources are totally inadequate. Think of the Internet as a television and think of it as a tool to respond to the cannon with a bow and arrow. While it is a means to respond with fighter bombers, provided that the pilots are prepared to bet a bold democratic.
Browse videos on the site Soru - the last is a bit 'down, the polls go wrong - and I say, sure, you will see it and not two thousand, one hundredth of those who have seen the monologue Berlusconi on Italy 1. Used well, the network is irrelevant. And it is wasted. Because we, as we look at - unlike those who look at Italy 1 - could also act. What would happen if, for example, properly organized, spedissimo each video to our hundred friends on Facebook? Would happen in that short of two thousand two hundred thousand of those who become Soru Berlusconi. And if you send more than we did even a video on Facebook phone calls, hold meetings, talk to the neighbors, printing of flyers from distrbuire intersection? Happen that the contacts would rapidly become two to four times those of Italy 1. So, while watching videos of Soru, I get to whisper, you lost because you've wasted. Have you applied to us as it would Berlusconi any one. But we are not the voters of Berlusconi.
The Obama campaign taught us: the network should be used to recruit, motivate and organize militants occasional multiply the initiatives of the proposed territory. The people you connect to the internet "for information", in reality he does so to inform and to act. How many people will gladly help a good candidate, if they really trust him and if they could concentrate their efforts in the short duration of a campaign (without knowing necessarily those of the PD section of Porto Torres)? I am confident that thousands would be ready. But to use them, the candidate and the party should be ready a Copernican revolution in the management of power, which limited their choice and take the literal words in the Constitution: "The sovereignty belongs to the people ..." (Art. 1 ).
A closer look, is precisely in this use participatory and activist network - certainly not in video streaming - it is clear that the advantage of a sincere and intelligent candidate, rather than smart, spectacular, and the bearer of true discourses and ideas, rather than commercials. In fact, the spots can convince someone to go vote, but then hardly be enough to convince someone else to turn. By their nature, the commercials are effective in communication star the mainstream (one to all), work well in the short term, the single bar, nell'univocità unanswered. But they lack the joint enough to allow their listeners to build new arguments in turn. It's very difficult for a voter Berlusconi, if unpaid, is then able to make a militant followers (the speech is different, of course, for AN and the League).
In most cases (except in those aware of connivance with the manipulator), this type of voter is one that has drunk an ocean of crap, often contradictory, with no cognitive content. If so try to repeat is unable to respond to any objection. For this reason, the proselytes, Berlusconi should have them vertically one by one. Can not count on their active cooperation. It must also renew the message so insistent, because its not a speech that "holds" is not something to remember and to say, that you enjoy because it makes you understand things, and therefore can not live on life of its own movement in language. If you repeat it and why there is a bit ', you know immediately who is a bullshit useless. Only if you listen again on television every day, backed by a one jaunty jingle, and next quarter of a nice ass, then you do not realize that it is meaningless. Questo significa che il Cavaliere non può sfruttare la reazione a catena a crescita esponenziale che è tipica del passaparola (e che per esempio vediamo funzionare su Facebook nelle Causes).
Viceversa, un messaggio come quello di Soru, senz’altro meno efficace nella dinamica dello spot, potrebbe esserlo molto di più in quella virale “di bocca in bocca”, proprio perché non è fatto di slogan, ma di argomentazioni circostanziate, riflessioni informate e ben costruite. Insomma, non folgorerà forse gli analfabeti nei primi 15 secondi di ascolto, ma fornirà agli ascoltatori mediamente colti, nei successivi 15 giorni, tutto il necessario per argomentare a loro volta, e per convincere qualcun altro. In other words, discourses are more suitable for one use participatory and activist network, instead of vertically indoctrinate every voter to "reactivate a social network of proselytism" horizontal ", which propagates the chain reaction following an exponential growth.
For these reasons, it seems to me that the Obama campaign participatory, with the network used in advanced mode to recruit, motivate and organize militants could make a difference in elections where there was a credible leader, who endow a bold strategy and generous. And I think it would be a difference also inherently difficult for professionals to fill the marketing of Publitalia, because they cease to be just marketing.
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Mediaset television Some names, like Big Brother, Matrix and vellum, deleting the language are effective metaphors to denounce the media control. 1. The recent conflict between programs "Matrix" and "Big Brother", which led to the resignation of Henry Mentana at Englaro case, deserves a comment supersensible, the height of the events. I will not dwell on the matter as such, nor on the status of this journalist as "left" that allows Berlusconi to call themselves liberal. I am interested only in words (not) have to talk about: the common sense to stay, as they say, "speechless." Indeed, while research in memory the words and images that could help me understand what happened, a newspaper headline he whispers two names that at one time considered useful. But now, GM has become useless: Matrix and Big Brother . Because the two main transmission Mediaset - the company that governs the human cognitive ecosystem of the country - are called with two of its sharpest titles that culture has given birth to condemn the totalitarian control the media?
2. The reality show "Big Brother ," the Dutch Endemol, Mediaset is distributed in Italy since September 2000. At that time, the group deals with Berlusconi for six years undue dominance in the broadcasting system. A Constitutional Court ruling requiring it to dispose the Retequattro, Mediaset, but it does not, and get continuous extensions by the government. Meanwhile, the concessions expire, and you open a new tender for granted. Surprisingly, Europa 7 shows that wins and gets the grant which will be without Retequattro. E 'July 28, 1999. But Mediaset not want to miss. He wants to keep its dominant position. To do this, must do all they can cease to seem dangerous.
The title "Big Brother" takes the name of a legendary character in the book by George Orwell , written in 1948 and 1984 entitled . In the book, Big Brother is a ruthless dictator (a transparent allegory of Stalin) who exercises total control over the population, by monitors and cameras installed in every house, and a bureaucratic system of manipulation of information. In particular, Big Brother promotes the establishment of an Orwellian Newspeak: it makes clear that all the vocabulary words "uncomfortable" that could be used against him, out of the documents to archive or change its meaning.
Berlusconi version of "Big Brother" is not only inherits the name of that Orwellian. For example, the fact that the House is controlled by spy cameras is also part of the concept of the book. However, the reality has eliminated all references to the political use of media control, and then defused the ethical condemnation that he raised in the book. The 'Big Brother' Channel 5 carries ormai un controllo mediatico tutt’altro che inquietante. Anzi, si direbbe che è una cosa piacevole: un’alacre esperienza comunitaria, cui ogni adolescente vorrebbe partecipare.
Come conseguenza del successo della trasmissione (che tocca fino a 15 milioni di spettatori, il 25% della popolazione italiana), l’espressione Grande Fratello ha perduto il suo significato originario, almeno presso il grande pubblico. Ormai non può più essere utilizzata per nominare con precisione, rapidità e ricchezza di riferimenti il tipico “dittatore che controlla il sistema dei media di un Paese”, giacché, udendola, la maggior parte degli interlocutori intenderà “il reality the Youth house controlled by spy cameras. "
3. Four years later, during his second term, now also controls when and RaiUno RaiDue, Berlusconi is remove Mentana from TG5 , probably because too impartial in the electoral battle. In fact, after winning elections in 2001, the center-right coalition had lost all the local competitions, and surveys provide a defeat for the politics of 2006. Among the hot topics of the campaign of the opposition stands the so-called "conflict of interest", un'astrusa formula of the right to say, among other things, that a prime minister can not control the view public which should be controlled. Berlusconi can not lose the election because, as usual, likely sentences in different processes. Must therefore do everything possible to recover consensus: first, to better control the media, stripping the Mentana TG5 in prime time on the other hand, refute those who accuse him of controlling the media, inventing a Mentana new transmission depth in the late evening.
The title " Matrix" is taken from a recent Hollywood trilogy, signed by the brothers Wachowsky (1999-2003) who, with rare communicative effectiveness and immense success, he painted the scene of a nightmare world, in which the entire population, reduced the larval stage, is cognitively controlled by totalitarian power of machines through the injection of a virtual reality pervasive. This view is obviously distressing and disturbing entirely absent from the transmission of Mentone, which indeed looks like a model of liberal television, where even the opposition can tell her, and where the journalist, although the pay of the Berlusconi family, he shows independence.
As a result of successful transmission (up to 6 million viewers, 10% of the population), the word Matrix has lost almost everything, at least among the general public, meaning that the film had given between 1999 and 2005. It is now increasingly difficult to use it as a shared apt metaphor to describe a typical "political power that controls the cognitive system of the population through the media" because anyone who hears the word, now tends to think of the "living room of Mentone (where even Veltroni Peter can be expressed). "
4. The allegories of Matrix (the movie) and Big Brother (the book) were perhaps among the instruments sharper language to talk about the Berlusconi regime. I am not referring to conversations or analysis that politicians or intellectuals can do this using other words (assuming they do, and that still have a culture distinct from that popular). I speak the Italian language, that is unreflective of knowledge and discourses can circulate widely shared among the entire population. Well, in the language - this protocol sharing of knowledge - words Matrix and Big Brother are no longer available to describe, understand, and then eventually fight a totalitarian power of the media. Mean anything now. From inflexible indictments against media control, have become his screen and his commercials.
This, I believe, only the tip of the iceberg. Other words have undergone or are undergoing the same fate. Just think of the word tissue. In the journalism of the last century meant a manipulated news, political or financial power that went to newspapers in order to unduly influence public opinion. This meaning has remained in vogue until the worst it has not become the norm. At that point, Channel 5 has launched a questionable transmission of satire, " Striscia la notizia" (1988), in which they appeared in front of the butts in thongs two girls on skates handing supple news to the conductor. These were called asses inoccultabili and unforgettable " Veline . So, while the politician, the financier and the manipulator media became the same person, and the tissue became the standard of journalism, the meaning of the word was abolished by the common lexicon, and relegated to a few specialists. Since then, instead of evoking the ugliness of anti-democratic control over the media, evokes the beautiful buttocks that frame the freedom of information.
5. As I write, I read that Berlusconi said: "As for the Constitution I have not attacked. The Constitution, however, is not a moloch: it can evolve with the times "( Republic February 9, 2009). I do a quick search and found other similar occurrences: "[The Maastricht constraints] are not a moloch, but they are important and we want respected "(October 5, 2008 Republic). "An order of the State [the courts] can not live in an empyrean and think the law as an absolute moloch. The laws need to be adapted ... "(May 31, 2008 Republic). "The truth is that 'Article 18 has been elevated to a moloch" ( Republic March 17, 2002).
Moloch then the word is that Berlusconi uses systematically desecrate institutions that limit its power. He uses it as a synonym for totem untouchable, giving it the meaning of "entity which you pay an almost sacred respect, to be considered ruling and excessive. " Strange use. Because the meaning of the characteristic moloch , precisely what distinguishes it from even etymologically totem, it is rather "an entity with immense evil power or oppressive." As when, for example, speaking of Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher of absolutism, it is said that his absolute state is like a Moloch, a monster that is as powerful able to subdue all other powers and all freedom. It would be a shame if, by dint of hearing the refrain repeated without adjustments "will also be good, but not a moloch, smarrissimo the meaning of a word so useful nowadays.
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Obama submit new laws to the network, which was crucial to his election, and indicates a new frontier in the evolution of democratic systems. 'post on the website for five days, all legislation that is not an emergency, and allows the public to review and comment before the president sign it. " And 'what is law now for some weeks, to be precise by 12:01 on January 20, 2009, in the opening message of official blog the White House. This is the first election promise and turned into executive decision confirmed by the new president of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, who has wanted to schedule an announcement moments after he entered office, when he was still in the stage mini-gaffe the oath ceremony (in the state of wanting to be president, Obama has forgotten the word "faithfully" and broke it reinserted at the end, that 'that was required to repeat the oath the next day). One could not imagine anything more symbolically disruptive issue a decision like that one minute after the investiture, no move could be to make more explicit its flag policy. Eppure questa bandiera, avvistata da Le Monde solo la sera del 21 gennaio alle 20:25, agli occhi del lettore italiano non sventola ancora.
L’annuncio figura a conclusione del post inaugurale del sito www.whitehouse.gov, firmato dal « Direttore dei Nuovi Media » del governo, Macon Phillips e intitolato « Il cambiamento è arrivato alla CasaBianca.gov ». Questo post si apre ricordando che « Milioni di americani hanno sostenuto il viaggio del Presidente Obama fino alla Casa Bianca, molti usando internet per partecipare alla definizione del futuro del Paese » e che il nuovo sito web è solo « l’inizio degli sforzi della nuova amministrazione per estendere ed approfondire questa partecipazione online '. Macon then goes on to define the three priorities of its action. 'Communication', ie, in-depth information to keep everyone updated and informed on the state of the economy and the nation. "Transparency", ie publication of all acts and decisions of the presidency "to make this the most open and transparent administration in history." And finally "participation", since Obama began his career by engaging in social work, knows what people are putting together, and wants to do what 'a government priority. Hence the decision to immediately implement the election promise that the Bureau will publish the new laws before signing, to allow everyone to review and comment.
E 'hardly necessary to emphasize the range not only symbolic, but legal and political implications thereof. If it is implemented, it will be the first time that the holder of the formal sovereignty of a democratic state, the people will be called upon to express a substantial, systematic and straightforward, albeit only in an advisory on the merits of the legislative process. In a country where the share of population connected to the Internet (73%) far exceeds that which goes to vote (61%), that 'means a counter-profile openly direct popular democracy, in the face of an administration pubblica a democrazia rappresentativa che, come in tutto l’Occidente, è storicamente ostaggio delle aristocrazie socio-economiche organizzate nelle attività lobbing. Non per caso la campagna contro le lobbies è l’altro grande pilastro del rinnovamento (noi diremmo della « riforma della politica ») che Obama ha inteso portare a Washington. Questa campagna non è meramente mediatica e formale, ma si fonda su un preciso dato materiale: più della metà del finanziamento record che ha portato alla vittoria il nuovo presidente proviene infatti dalle piccole donazioni della gente comune, racimolate a milioni tramite internet. Il contropotere popolare che si esprime sul piano politico come potere consultivo sulle leggi in via di approvazione is therefore materially based on a countervailing financial, which has suddenly made the American population connected to the network the more powerful the lobby of the country.
These elements may allow to better decipher the political strategy of the young black president. If it is true that Obama has armored the political credibility of his administration by giving it a profile very moderate in all matters relating ganglia traditional exercise of power (from economics to foreign policy), it is also true that reserved space no less crucial to the ambitions of radical reform were more genuinely the start of his campaign. This space is precisely the technical and procedural and legal (in fact his academic specialty). Taking advantage of its land border and again the ex-lege of new technologies, where the concretions of the powers that be are not yet consolidated, Obama is in fact promoting a renewed centrality of popular sovereignty as the constituent power. A potentially disruptive centrality, which by its nature materializes, of course, but at the same time exceeds the constitutional representative democracy (who knows that just from what 'is not dependent on the slip, simultaneous opening of the blog, which has forced the then to repeat the oath).
It 'hard to Europe, and even more Italy, where the Internet is painted and used by major media as a sort of television-equipped as the new frontier of entertainment, to realize exactly what has happened in America. Aid comes from the video produced by progressive French foundation Terra Nova 'Ils on fait Obama - Obama have done "(available on www.dailymotion.com). According to Terra Nova, innovation is not decisive of the campaign is the use of Internet communication, but rather 'in the transformation of the Internet as a tool of communication, a tool to organize people, called to Operario directly on the ground. One hundred salaried employees has recruited, motivated and coordinated some tens of thousands of volunteer activists, that within a year involving 3 to 6 million voters, pushing a half to support financially the candidate outsider.
This trend seems clear, moreover, well before the November 4th to anyone who had visited the sites of McCain and Obama to compare them. McCain's site was just a sort of interactive television, video-centric propaganda of the candidate who promotes himself and his history of turning its message to the voters-viewers. The site of Obama, by contrast, was a machine to enhance the audience-voters, turning them into activists, militants soon as they came, we wondered immediately enter your zip code, your unique geographical location, which allows the system to propose a list of contacts and things to do in your neighborhood, such as distributing leaflets, talking with neighbors, organize meetings, call a list of voters undecided. E 'through this capillary system of bottom-up participation that Obama won the election, not through a media illusion (or perhaps through a media illusion much more sophisticated and ambitious, and altogether exciting as the one by us).
The two million people thronged the streets on Jan. 20 in Washington were not so simple spectator-voters rather were for the most Party activists, militants, that is, to put shackles, aware 'employers' of Obama, those who have promoted and funded in the first election campaign. It 's why Obama should keep this in a completely different way than you would with simple spectators voters. And the promise to submit their comments to the law, before promulgating them, is indeed a telling symptom of this change.
