Co-creating Democracy @ Dialogue Café 0 Reply

Technology and social media are tools for ‘co-creation’ – they enable people to come together and collaborate in new and different ways. Nowhere has the power of social media been more strongly felt than in North Africa and the Middle East. In the last few months, students, protestors and activists have been making use of social media tools and platforms – such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube – to organise themselves, call for change and disseminate information about what has been happening across the region.

In this way, social media enabled a revolution – but could it enable a democracy? Can social media and other technologies be used to co-create a democracy and strengthen civic society? How can social media and other technologies be used to support government “by” and “with” the people and not just “for” the people? What are the key challenges facing the transition to democracy can these be overcome through citizen engagement?

These are some of the challenges and issues we discussed at Dialogue Café on the 24th and 25th May in the two sessions we organised as part of the SIX Spring School 2011.  

In Cairo we were joined by, amongst others, Tarek Osman who talked about the longer-term social, economic and political factors, which contributed to the revolution. See here for his article on the subject and here for his latest article on sectarianism in Egypt.

In Lisbon we were joined by President Jorge Sampaio, High Representative for the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and journalists Pedro Lomba and Bruno Faria Lopes. In Doha, we were joined by Yomna Taher and Ahmed Ashour from Al Jazeera Talk and students from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar in Doha. In Rio we were joined by Mayra Jucá from Viva Rio and Oona Castro from OvermundoLab and in Amsterdam we were joined by Thomas Loudon and Arend Jan van den Beld, founders of the VJ Movement, a global community for journalists and citizen journalists.