BOOK REVIEW: The Politics-to-Go Handbook: A Guide to Using Mobile Technology in Politics

As far as politics and technology goes, the one medium that I had little exposure to before coming to Georgetown was the world of mobile politics. While the combination of widely available mobile technology and political action seems like a natural fit, it wasn't something that I'd had any kind of personal relationship with. That all changed upon reading yet another of IPDI's fantastically effective handbooks. Like most of IPDI's work, this handbook is designed for practical application, and is generally free from both the Utopian technological determinism and over-skeptical Luddite warnings that poison many works on political technology. The authors of this book realize that, like everything else in the world of political action, mobile technology represents one possible approach to political media. While not a magic bullet by itself, mobile technology can be used effectively in tandem with other technologies, and is particularly well-suited to organizing specific actions and alerting supporters of opportunities for independent activism.

While much of the book deals with ways in which campaigns themeselves can use mobile technology as part of their digital strategy, time is also devoted to examining the effects of mobile proliferation on things like citizen journalism. In a world where everyone has a camera/recording device in their pocket, the opportunities for event-related spin are reduced. One only needs to look as far as George Allen and the infamous Macaca moment, or even to the "Don't tase me, bro!" debacle at the University of Florida, to realize the potential that unfiltered transmission grants to the world of news coverage.

Time is also spent examining the United States' relative lack of mobile penetration, an interesting read for anyone interested in the quagmire that is the American telecom industry. With our current tangle of service providers, it's no wonder that the potential for mobile activism in the US is nowhere near that of other, more effectively linked countries like Korea. However, that is a diatribe for another day.

For anyone who doesn't have time to read the entire handbook (hint: make time.), here's a handy executive summary that hits the highlights. Pay special attention to numbers one, three, five, and eight. Just sayin'.