This theme takes us outside PAC and PASCAL to ask how governance and opinion-forming occur nowadays. Who determines, and by what means how we think, what we believe and take for granted, what is on and off the agenda? What terms that we use are taken for granted? Who outside the PASCAL community listens to our discourse about learning and learning cities, then how do they act on what it suggests? If so, is this possibly local, piecemeal and gradualistic action of a kind that becomes a critical mass?
How much decision-making, and of the assumptions behind it, is transparent to everyone? What remains closed to ordinary citizens? Can we uncover how political and cultural processes work today; and as the PASCAL Observatory work with the grain to get results
What is the immediate and short-term, and what the deeper impact and power of the social media; of older media, lobbyists and ‘captains of industry’, as well as press barons? Does one medium and political channel trump the others?
Behind and beneath the hidden seats of power, is ‘civil society’ (CS) an engine for change, or just a sop? How can civil society, and a network CS body like PASCAL, be most effective? We want to know how to turn what James Powell calls maturing conversation into effective action. Can what we do help trigger a cultural paradigm shift whereby citizens and governing classes both see and act on the world differently?
This is connected with a Theme found under Development, learning and management of place what many people see as a vital problem and challenge:
Do local solutions help address the disillusion, even cynicism and crisis, of western democracy and leadership in this media and poll-driven era?
Ultimately all these questions connect in a complex fragmented world outside each box; we hope to add to and apply better understanding of some key issues along the way.
Printer-friendly version
I like Norman's idea of creating a petition site for key issues that need moving forward. I had hope, andd continue to hope, that discussion in the Forum would tease out things to make a real difference. We could then turn these issues into a new sub areas of OTB where we can get PASCAL to join other voices about what can be effectively changed and how best to do it. Perhaps, with Norman's knowledge of such sites he can set up a demonstration for us of how we should act to gain most impact.