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Entries from Will Riley

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Is C-Span’s Qik Experiment At The 2008 Democratic Convention A Social Media Gimmick?


By Will Riley

August 24th, 2008 · No Comments

At the 2008 Democratic Convention, C-Span has started a Qik group to directly broadcast parts of the convention in the field via video on the Qik website. The C-Span Qik group appears to be private (I tried to join it without [...]

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Tags: Participation · Transparency

Howard Dean Dodges Accusation That Some Democratic Presidents Were War Criminals


By Will Riley

August 24th, 2008 · No Comments

Howard Dean, the Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, dodged a tough accusation today from a C-Span caller that some Democratic presidents were war criminals. The C-Span caller argued that the Democratic party had previously supported presidents who were war criminals. [...]

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Tags: Accountability · Participation · Transparency

C-SPAN Video Library Versus YouTube, Vimeo, And Internet Archive


By Will Riley

August 20th, 2008 · 7 Comments

I am sad to report that the C-SPAN Video Library, a supposedly non-profit venture, is still less public than many for-profit video sharing websites, such as YouTube and Vimeo, because:

C-SPAN does not allow you to embed its videos onto your blog [...]

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Tags: Transparency

Blog Against Poverty


By Will Riley

August 18th, 2008 · No Comments

On October 15th, thousands of bloggers from around the world will be writing against poverty. At Public Please, we too, will be writing against poverty by discussing the communication breakdown between poor people and their elected representatives.

How can we improve communication [...]

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Tags: Participation

Did McCain Subvert Pastor Rick’s Cone Of Silence?


By Will Riley

August 18th, 2008 · No Comments

It appears that John McCain eavesdropped on Pastor Rick’s questions at a recent question and answer session between Pastor Rick and the presidential candidates. At MSNBC’s “Forum On The Presidency”, McCain broke the “cone of silence” he was supposed to observe [...]

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Tags: Accountability · Transparency

We Can Chat With The Federal Government, But Not Email Them


By Will Riley

July 25th, 2008 · 9 Comments

I am trying to get a list of email addresses to all elected officials from the federal government, so I thought I’d just ask for it. I went to USA.gov to find out how to Contact Elected Officials. I looked for [...]

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Tags: Accountability · Participation · Transparency

Does Satire Hold Them Accountable?


By Will Riley

July 2nd, 2008 · No Comments

Remix America promises to bring political satire, and its implicit accountability, to a new level. Now, people can mix and mash embarassing videos of political celebrities like Obama and McCain. Beyond the question of rudeness, we must ask whether these [...]

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Tags: Accountability · Participation

Is McCain Better Than Obama For The Economy?


By Will Riley

June 15th, 2008 · No Comments

I recently read Jennifer Ablan’s article, “At Reuters Summit, McCain seen as best choice for economy“, that reported that some people on Wall Street think McCain would be better for our economy than Obama because of his tax policies.
Here’s the comment that [...]

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Tags: Accountability

PoliChat


By Will Riley

April 22nd, 2008 · 1 Comment

For my final project, I’m working on PoliChat, a web-based tool for large-scale democratic intergroup chat. It is intended to facilitate communication between groups. For example, citizens and politicians can create groups and democratically chat with each other.

You can check [...]

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Tags: Participation

China’s Grand Petition Against The Western Media


By Will Riley

April 7th, 2008 · 8 Comments

According to several state-controlled Chinese media outlets, including China Daily and the China Tibet Information Center, thousands of Chinese people are signing an online petition against bias in the Western media. In particular, the petition responds to the Western media’s coverage [...]

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Tags: Accountability · Participation · Transparency