Video Republic and a Charter for Digital Rights

Posted on | October 11, 2008 | Comments Off

Ewan’s delicious feed pointed us to a recent Demos report called Video Republic, which documents a year-long study of the explosion in user-generated video and the implications for public debate and citizenship now and into the future. The report was launched earlier in the week at the BFI and can be downloaded as a PDF on a Creative Commons licence from the link above.

Looking across Europe (focusing on the UK, Turkey, Germany, Romania and Finland) the report concludes that this is:

“….a new space for debate and expression dominated by young people.”

It is that ascendancy over this burgeoning space by young people that raises a number of issues not only for the continuing participation of those young people in the democratic process but also for the continued health of those very processes.

To quote the Demos website on the report:

“As young people experience greater freedoms online, many are choosing to “route around” political and cultural institutions rather than take them on directly. This poses a profound challenge to decision-makers, but it also creates new opportunities. For democracies starved of legitimacy, it offers hope for a new sphere of democratic expression and participation. With a range of recommendations for government, media and the private sector, this report outlines how we can channel the creativity locked inside the Video Republic.”

In response to this, Demos is seeking to set up an international summit in 2009 that will bring together ‘…internet pioneers, NGOs, international bodies and individuals with powers like Youtube, Google and China’ Youku to debate and draft a Charter of Digital Rights’.

And aside from the idea of the Charter, it also makes a number of recommendations that deserve wide discussion. The recommendations are (again quoting from the Demos site):

- Preparing young people for “digital citizenship”

Schools, universities and businesses should prepare young people for “digital citizenship” and an era where CVs may well be obsolete, enabling them to manage their online reputation. They should pass on guidance from recruitment agencies and other experts to help them make informed decisions about what they put online.

- Liberating the audiovisual creative commons

Broadcasters, both public and private, should release the audio-visual material gathering dust in their archives rather than ensnaring it in complex and expensive digital rights disputes.

- A digital copyright amnesty

There are some categories of older public service broadcast material that could be afforded Creative Commons status. This process could be encouraged by a digital rights amnesty where copyright holders relinquish ownership to the public.

- Tackling unsuitable content

Rather than looking to censor online content – which has been shown to be ineffective – regulation should be based on developing peer or community led censorship and age ratings. Video-hosting platforms should enable involve users in what content to include and exclude on their sites.

- Internet social responsibility

ISPs, video-hosting services and social networking sites should pool a small portion of their profits into a foundation to support video making, widen internet access.
A “virtual video-making academy” funded by the private sector would improve the quality of videos on and offline.

- Setting the statistics free

Most important information about online activity still remains out of reach of the public. Video-sharing platforms should collaborate with bodies such as national statistics agencies and academic institutions to release statistics.

- Connecting the “republic” with mainstream politics

Political figures need to avoid using online video to communicate in the same way that they would use television. Instead they should find innovative ways of harnessing the enthusiasm of their supporters.
Official bodies like the Central Office of Information should initiate the creation of short videos that detail the processes of democracy, decision making and public service in the UK.

The report is certainly worth getting hold of and reading, and the recommendations, while we will inevitably argue about the detail, and perhaps even the principles behind them, serve as a great starting point for a debate that will reverberate across those nations that cherish their liberal democratic heritage because, quite simply, the nature of democracy itself, and especially party democracy in all its forms, will inevitably shift under pressure from these new means of political expression and activism.

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