Monday, March 22, 2004

Texting politics in Spain.

This article in the International Herald Tribune looks at some effects text messaging had during the Spanish March 14th elections.Spain has a 94 percent mobile phone penetration which is amongst the highest in the world, according to the market research firm Gartner.The article states that on March 13, the day before the elections, text-messaging traffic was 20 percent above the normal rate and on election day, it was 40 percent higher."Political demonstrations are officially banned in the 24 hours preceding the voting. But this time, activists came together anyway, as millions of text messages and e-mails circulated."The article also has this.""Whenever a technology enables people to organize at a pace that wasn't before possible, new kinds of politics emerge," said Howard Rheingold, a techno-sociologist and author of the book "Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution."
Text-messaging the revolution

[Smart Mobs]
6:36:25 PM    

Stephen Harper can win in Ontario. Is Québec next?. Andrew Coyne and Colby Cosh have two good articles in the National Post on Stephen Harper's victory in the leadership race of the Conservative Party. Andrew Coyne's comments are especially relevant: But it's in the riding-by-riding breakdown, ironically, that the... [Le blog de Polyscopique]
1:13:46 PM