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Stephen Mayne, John Thwaites, Fran Bailey, OurCommunity.com.au, CC
in
“Communities in Control ”
Open
Ged Kearney, ACTU, Secure Jobs. Better Future., Josh Peak
in
“Secure jobs for a better future”
Closed
Cr Cathy Oke, City of Melbourne
in
“Rio Plus 20 Agenda”
Responses up
Crikey, House of Representatives, Adam Bandt MP, Your question
in
“The People's Question”
Responses up
Campbell Newman
in
“The Queensland Agenda”
Responses up
Andrew Demetriou, Amanda Vanstone, Charlie Pickering
in
“The Australian Republic”
Responses up
Anna Bligh
in
“The Queensland Agenda - Part 1”
Responses up
Prof. Noam Chomsky, Deakin University
in
“Contours Of Global Order”
Responses up
666 ABC Canberra, UC, Canberra Refugee Support, Julie Posetti
in
“Reporting Refugees”
Responses up
John Merritt, EPA
in
“EPA Victoria”
Responses up
Robert Manne, The Quarterly Essay
in
“Bad News”
Responses up
Andrew Demetriou, Kevin Sheedy, Matthew Richardson
in
“AFL Finals Panel ”
Responses up
The Climate Agenda, Michael Bachelard, Misha Schubert, Deborah Gough
in
“The Sunday Age”
Responses up
You?, Greg Hywood, Mark Scott, Sophie Black
in
“Australian Media Leaders”
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Kelly O’Dwyer, Deb O’Neill , Larissa Waters
in
“Women in Politics”
Responses up
David Thodey
in
“Telstra CEO David Thodey”
Responses up
The Hon. Martin Dixon MP, Vic SRC
in
“Victorian Education Minister”
Responses up
Margaret Simons, Anna Krien, Tim Soutphommasane
in
“Quarterly Essay”
Responses up
Malcolm Fraser
in
“Renewing Democracy”
Responses up
Q&A
in
“Q&A - After The Budget - May 16th”
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The Project
We are connected to each other like never before. Facebook, Twitter and other social media keep us constantly networked.
At the same time we are disconnected from politics and from our leaders like never before. Politics is driven by the 24-hour media cycle, polling, sound bites and superficiality.
Our generation is disconnected from democracy, and apathetic about politics like never before.
OurSay.org is here to change that. It’s time for us to have our say.
OurSay.org was started by a team of young, media savvy high-flyers passionate about harnessing the power of social media to revitalise critical participation in our democracy.
OurSay is inspired by citizen journalism. OurSay rests on three beliefs.
- Leaders require a new set of skills to meet community expectations. They are are not proactive on issues, and are unlikely to take political risks.
- The media is fascinated with fast-paced, controversial and conflict-based content. This means that holding leaders to account, conducting thorough investigations, and developing depth of debate falls by the wayside.
- Citizens are perceived as consumers of mass media rather than as active producers and digesters of genuine issues.
Inspired by Jay Rosen’s catch-cry of letting the people set the citizens’ agenda, OurSay.org is creating a culture of active media engagement, and developing critical debate over a longer period of time than the 24-hour media cycle.
OurSay.org aims to hold politicians accountable for developing and tracking arguments and issues – not just to provide soundbites for the next two-party preferred leader poll.
OurSay believes that social media is where we are the most connected, where we speak our minds, where we form our opinions.
Social media is the new political frontier.
OurSay.org is creating a culture of active participation in our democracy, our government, our future.
Interfacing social media with traditional media, OurSay.org is redefining the political landscape in Australia.
OurSay – Our Story
Frustrated by political apathy and unassertive media, Gautam Raju, Eyal Halamish, Matthew Gordon and Linh Do came up with a vision to connect social media with active participation in democracy. They were inspired by sites which connect citizens directly to their elected leaders, such as www.openaustralia.org, www.fixmystreet.com, Whitehouse 2.0, Open for Questions and www.theyworkforyou.com. These young media movers and shakers teamed up with the technical wizardry of Squareweave’s Luke Giuliani to create OurSay.org.
OurSay.org burst onto the Australian political scene during the 2010 Federal election. OurSay got the three leading candidates for the seat of Melbourne to respond to the OurSay community’s top-voted questions.
OurSay.org also made its presence felt during the Victorian State elections in December 2010. The top three candidates for the seat of Brunswick responded to the top-voted questions on OurSay.org. This led to a partnership with the ABC’s Q&A.
Since then OurSay.org has partnered with The Sunday Age to come up with top-voted questions for Ten Questions for the Climate Change Agenda. Andrew Bolt participated in the debate through OurSay.org and more than 5000 people participated in the discussion.
OurSay is an exciting new platform for critical debate, and is making a mark reinvigorating the Australian political scene. Get involved in the debate on Australia’s most cutting edge political platform at OurSay.org.
