1. Issues in Digitisation
New media new politics?
“Information is the currency of democracy” Thomas Jefferson
Dr Craig Bellamy
VeRSI, University of Melbourne , 28 Oct, 2010

3. Key Issues
 Why is the web important for politics (history)
 What are its political features?
 How does politics work in a ‘Web 1.0’ and ‘Web
2.0? (case studies)

4. History
 A post apocalyptic command grid
 The domain name system (DNS)

5. Internet Governance: DNS and
ICANN
 What is DNS (Domain Name System)
 The Domain Name System (abbreviated DNS) is an Internet directory
service. DNS is how domain names are translated into web addresses , and
DNS also controls email delivery. If your computer cannot access DNS,
your web browser will not be able to find web sites, and you will not be able
to receive or send email etc.
 What is ICANN (Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers)

6. Why is the Internet Political?
 Interactivity
 Open publishing
 Recent developments, RSS feeds, pod casting,
twitter, facebook, open data…

8. How does the Internet impact
upon the politics?
 Setting the agenda in other media

9. Specific Case Studies
 www.S11.org (s11 protests sep. 2000)
 realjeff.com (1999 Victorian State Elections)
 EngageMedia
 G20 Protest’s London
 Major parties
 (archived sites can be found on ‘the Wayback Machine”
www.archive.org
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/ (Australia)

10. S11.org
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/parchive/2000/S2000-
Sep-14//www.s11.org/
 Logistical organisation of protest (important in
terms of bringing diverse groups together)
 Bypass traditional media gate keeping
 The communication of alternative political ideas
 Influenced how the protest was reported
 Use of tactical media stunts

11. Realjeff.com
(archived at the National Libraries Pandora Project)
http://pandora.nla.gov.au/nph-arch/1999/Z1999-Sep-
24/http://www.realjeff.com/index.htm
 Used the tactic of ‘riding on the back’ of the publicity of
www.jeff.com
during the 1999 Victorian State Election
The alternative site perhaps gained more publicity than the
authentic site

17. How are the major parties using
the Internet?
 www.alp.org.au
 www.liberal.org.au
 www.greens.org.au

18. Concluding Comments
 Internet first true interactive media. Interactivity
all is’ an underlying principle of the Internet
 The Internet has dramatically opened up
access to political information (Hansards, press
releases, newspapers, speeches, party
policies, etc.)
 Arguably until recently governments have done
little in terms of innovation on the network as
most innovation of political-communication
came from non-government groups