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THE
CITIZEN’S REVOLUTION When a blog first informed about the relation between Monica Lewinsky and Bill Clinton, hardly anybody would have expected that the president of the United States would testify about it from the Oval Office. Another significant example is the fact that a well known company, specialised in bicycle locks, lost 40% of their market worth in the 10 days after a blog published the weak link : the locks could simply be picked with a screwdriver. It resulted in the recalling of millions of those locks. We have gotten into the world of WEB2.0, where sites such as YouTube or MySpace give all of the protagonism to the citizens and the interpersonal and social communication. The use of digital communication technology is revolutionising the relations between power and public, or the between the chosen and those who choose. Politicians, business people and media are studying curiously the evolution of participating citizens in an all new area of our information society, and have even found a word for it : Technoinfluence. Whereas 10 to 15 years ago the future of internet was very vague, which resulted in the dot com crash of the late nineties, today we have a much clearer idea about the role of internet in our society, thanks to a number of new ideas and technologies. It is therefore not surprising that, in 2006, TIME magazine chose the internet user as person of the year. At the moment, we can all exert influence in elections, complain about things not done right, or have an impact on decisions through the world of blogs and forums. This capacity will result in a completely different relation between politicians and the public. Micropower will change the unilateral way of government ( political power decides for the public ) to a bilateral government ( from the public to political power and later from political power to the public ). The possibility that the participation of citizens in politics contributes to a regeneration of democracy or the democratic system is taking a definite form thanks to the digital revolution. Political action will be developed from a continuous interactive dialogue ( talk, but also listen. Statement and answer ) made possible by the new technologies. It will also result in the fact that lobbying will no longer be the department of powerful groups, and social agreement or disagreement and ideas or criticism will be a lot easier to take to the right persons. We see the same evolution in the world of business, where the smaller shareholders are becoming more and more important, since they are now able to organise themselves and discuss outside the actual annual general meetings through web-based forums. Let’s get things right though, micropower is not the power of the individual, the individual becomes the co-protagonist, rather than the antagonist. This brings us to the key points of the new politics : autonomy and integration. People have to be conscious of their capacity of influence, but will need to interact with other persons to get to the full results of micropower. The benefit of all this is that citizens and consumers are now more important, because of their ability to speak and let it be heard. Classical power will need to adapt and learn how to deal with this new way of playing the game. Micropower obliges to play it in a far more transparent way, where there is no place for despotism or “ behind closed doors”. Tino
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