VoterMedia.orgに参加
明けましておめでとうございます。
年明け早々、いいスタートが出来た。
去年からコンタクトを取り始めた、Mark Latham氏がFounderのNon-profit Organization, VoterMedia.orgでWebsite Developmentとして、参加することになった。
About VoterMedia.org
VoterMedia.org was founded by Mark Latham in 2006, to develop the idea of voter funded media as a way of improving governance in democracies and corporations. It evolved from the Corporate Monitoring Project (founded 1996) which focused mainly on corporations.
Global Voter Media Platformから引用
We can reduce corruption and improve the policies of our governments and corporations by creating a better information system for voters.
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[Global Voter Media Platform (GVMP)] will not itself generate information, but will act as a conduit between information providers (media) and voters. Existing media have inadequate incentive for serving voter interests. GVMP will provide that incentive by letting voters allocate collective funds among various competing media.
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Why do governments and corporations so often fail to serve even the interests of their own voters? Citizens elect political leaders, and shareowners elect corporate boards. These voting mechanisms are supposed to encourage elected leaders to serve the voters’ interests. But we can not exercise our voting power effectively if we don’t understand what our leaders are doing. Most of us are too busy to investigate that ourselves, so we depend on the media to inform us. Thus the media are a key component of our democratic system of checks and balances.
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However, … our media are inadequate and getting worse.
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Economic analysis confirms that private sector media incentives are insufficient for serving the public interest:
“…freedom of choice, understood in market terms, is an incomplete solution when we are dealing with a public good, like national defense or clean air. Information about public issues has some of the characteristics of a public good, even in an era with diverse options. … It is well known that if we rely entirely on free markets, we will not have enough national defense and our air will be excessively dirty. … Because of the ‘public good’ features of information, no single person has a sufficient incentive to pay for the benefits that he receives. The result is simple and clear: The market will produce too little information.”
– Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech, Cass Sunstein (1993; pp. 68-70)・・・
My proposal is to add a new hybrid media sector, with open entry and competition like the private sector, but publicly funded like the public sector. We can solve the public sector governance conundrum by letting voters allocate the funding among the competing media organizations. This makes the media accountable to citizens yet independent of politicians
政治の不正を防ぐために有権者に出来る最も直接的なことは、正しい候補者を選挙で選ぶ事。
しかし、選挙で取り上げらている問題や候補者の正確な情報が分からない為に、有権者は正しい投票が出来なかったり、投票率が低かったりする。そんな問題をGlobal Voter Media Platformはメディアと有権者を結ぶプラットフォームを作り、より良い情報をメディアが有権者に提供出来る環境を作る。
それによってより良い選挙結果を導き、世の中を良くしていこうっていう試み。
SFU Computer Science studentの二人と僕で、このGVMPのweb developmentを進めることになった。
まだまだ始まったばっかりで、Web Development自体初めてだけど、凄く興味のある分野で、経験豊富なMarkとSFUの二人と一緒に面白いことが出来る楽しみで今は一杯です。
Ruby on Railsもこれから勉強して、Computer Science キャリアの第一歩を踏み出したいと思います。
こんな感じで今年も引き続き、行動第一の年にするんで、どうぞ宜しくお願いします。
