Breaking Open Political Language
One of the hidden gems of the UK’s Freeview television system is the Parliament Live TV channel. It’s often what you might end up watching after the pub shuts and there’s bugger all else on but it does throw up illuminating surprises from time to time. The 7 July 2009 session of the Public Administration Select Committee hardly sounds like something to quicken the pulse, nor probably ever made it into the mainstream press, but it’s well worth watching here.
Discussing the nature of government language, discourse, ‘narrative’, the role of the internet, Twitter, and whole lot more besides, this makes for a fascinating and relevant 1:18:21, if you have the time:
7 July 2009
NO, SIR HUMPHREY: PASC TO DISCUSS THE LANGUAGE OF GOVERNMENT WITH MATTHEW PARRIS, SIMON HOGGART, DAVID CRYSTAL AND THE PLAIN ENGLISH CAMPAIGN
The Public Administration Select Committee (PASC) is to hold a public hearing on how government uses – and misuses – language. Government is often criticised for lapsing into civil service speak, ministerial jargon or even sheer gobbledegook. The evidence session will consider the different varieties of official language, and what the language that government uses tells us about the way it sees and communicates with the wider world.
The session will be held on Thursday 9 July, at 10.00am in the Thatcher Room, Portcullis House. The witnesses will be:
• Matthew Parris, Times and Spectator columnist;
• Simon Hoggart, parliamentary sketchwriter for the Guardian;
• Professor David Crystal, noted academic expert on language and linguistics; and
• Marie Clair, Plain English Campaign.
PASC is conducting a short inquiry into Official Language, which is exploring the use of language in government. This includes how well government bodies communicate with the public in day-to-day life, as well as how people within government communicate with each other. As part of this inquiry, PASC made a public call for people to send in their examples of good and bad official language. Some of these examples are likely to be highlighted during the evidence session.
Full transcript available here.
Which all reminds me that the New Political Communication Unit posted details of the new issue of the Journal of Information Technology & Politics, a special issue on ‘Politics: Web 2.0′, details below:
- Introduction: The Internet and Politics in Flux – Andrew Chadwick
- Realizing the Social Internet: Online Social Networking Meets Offline Social Capital? – Josh Pasek, eian more, and Daniel Romer
- Typing Together? Clustering of Ideological Types in Online Social Networks – Brian J. Gaines and Jeffery J. Mondak
- Building an Architecture of Participation? Political Parties and Web 2.0 in Britain – Nigel A. Jackson and Darren G. Lilleker
- Norwegian Parties and Web 2.0 – Øyvind Kalnes
- The Labors of Internet-Assisted Activism: Overcommunication, Miscommunication, and Communicative Overload – Rasmus Kleis Nielsen
- Developing the “Good Citizen”: Digital Artifacts, Peer Networks, and Formal Organization During the 2003–2004 Howard Dean Campaign – Daniel Kreiss
- Lost in Technology? Political Parties and the Online Campaigns of Constituency Candidates in Germany’s Mixed Member Electoral System – Thomas Zittel
- Internet Election 2.0? Culture, Institutions, and Technology in the Korean Presidential Elections of 2002 and 2007 – Yeon-Ok Lee
- The Internet and Mobile Technologies in Election Campaigns: The GABRIELA Women’s Party During the 2007 Philippine Elections – Kavita Karan, Jacques D. M. Gimeno, and Edson Tandoc, Jr.
