Can blogs influence the political agenda in Italy? Two weeks ago, while dark clouds were gathering over the the Prodi government, a short and reflective post written by Luca De Biase initiated a discussion around this question, trying to define the opportunity to make a change for better in a rather complex framework.
The discussion quickly evolved into a large scale debate, and made
different views coalesce around a single idea: a citizens’ agenda,
built upon the conversation evolving day by day in the Italian-speaking blogosphere, with the aim of influencing
the political agenda of the whole Country – leveraging the richness
provided by the long tail of ideas thriving in the public discussion space. It could possibly be built to pursue the following goals:
- mutual aid information, finding a way to efficiently aggregate
local news and ideas (where local is intended in terms of proximity,
not necessarily restricted to geography); - giving perspective to declarations made by politicians, religious and business
leaders, outlining their opinions
formerly expressed on the same subjects; - symbiotic exchange with established media, trading depth and variety with exposure on mainstream newspapers and other media.
Actually, looking at the sum of political and information systems in Italy with the innovator’s toolbox (as if it were, let’s say, a dominant business model ruling a specific industrial sector) I’d say that it is ripe for disruption: traditional parties are rather disconnected from their "customers", with the left worrying more about solving its internal balance of power than about ruling the country, and the right confident in a large victory, despite having led a sterile opposition and counting on nothing else than Berlusconi’s undisputed leadership. In these terms, the first thing to do would be to look for potential game changers, and the most obvious choice is the comedian-turned-demagog Beppe Grillo, whose hypothetical party was credited with a stunning 7% of votes in a recent poll on la Repubblica. Further evidence: two years ago another comedian, Daniele Luttazzi, explicitly rejected any possible confusion between being an inspirational leader for a movement or whatever, claiming with decision for himself the role of satirist. And it is not a coincidence that after the V-day event last year (aimed at changing the rules which allow politicians to be elected), Grillo’s next target is the information industry.
I have reread and rewritten the previous sentence a thousand times. Putting "political system" and "disruption" in the same paragraph is a thing that I do with great unease, and I’d like to underline all the caution that is needed in doing this. But discontent and lack of trust are tangible these days, and ignoring the problem is not a sensible thing to do.
I believe that De Biase is right in saying that it is necessary to raise the bar for the public discussion taking place around blogs: it is not a matter of who: even Grillo, whose communicational power is made explicit through his blog (but who does not engage any discussion on it), has indirectly empowered a number of blogger-followers and those are, indeed, part of the discussion. It is a matter of how much awareness, engagement and trust we, as a community, put at stake in this discussion.
