Us Now
| Us Now | |
|---|---|
| File:UsNowAvatar.jpg | |
| Directed by | Ivo Gormley |
| Produced by | Hugh Hartford (Banyak Films) |
| Edited by | Mark Atkins |
| Music by | Orlando Roberton |
Release dates | April, 2009 |
Running time | 60 minutes |
| Country | UK |
| Language | English |
Us Now is a documentary film project "about the power of mass collaboration, the government and the Internet"[1]
“ 'In a world in which information is like air, what happens to power?' ” the film asks, and takes a shot at answering the question partly by its case studies, and partly in the debates with politicians and thinkers organised around the film’s showings" (FT.com) [2]
The documentary weaves together lots of key thinkers on the power of the web, pushing the implication that people feel a sense of satisfaction when they are actually, rather than symbolically, involved in decision-making processes.[3] (Rebecca Frankel, editor of Channel 4's FourDocs)
As a Web 2.0 project all of the material generated during the project will be available to view online and the project will culminate in an hour long documentary to be released in April 2009.
Synopsis
The Us Now website describes the project as looking at how the internet could allow people to do away with politicians and run the government themselves. It says it will tell the stories of the online networks whose self-organising structures "threaten to change the fabric of government."
The project claims the founding principals of mass collaborative projects; transparency, self-selection, open-participation, are coming closer and closer to the mainstream of social and political lives. Us Now describes this transition and confronts politicians George Osborne and Ed Milliband with the possibilities for collaborative government as described by Don Tapscott and Clay Shirky amongst others.
Contributors
Saul Albert
Giles Andrews
Lee Bryant
Alan Cox
David Courtier-Dutton
William Heath
Shane Kelly
Charles Leadbeater [4]
Paul Miller
Sophia Parker
MT Rainey
Tom Steinberg
Matthew Taylor
Mikey Weinkove
References
- ^ Us Now website
- ^ http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/ae12516c-fedf-11dd-b19a-000077b07658.html Financial Times Review
- ^ http://blogs.channel4.com/fourdocs/2008/12/11/us-now-documentary-collection-action-via-the-internet/ FourDocs Review
- ^ We-think: The Power of Mass Creativity by Charles Leadbeater Profile Books: 2008. 256 pp.
- ^ Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky Allen Lane/Penguin: 2008. 336 pp.