Static Caravan, Boulmer, Northumberland (CC) Matt Jones

San Francisco, just before the 1906 earthquake

Brunton Airfield, Northumberland.

Urbis, Manchester

powerlinerflyers from wes johnson on Vimeo.

Mark 1 Telescope Control Room, Jodrell Bank, Cheshire. Circa 1957.

Photo of Banky artwork by Dr Case (cc). Flickr.

Watching the watchers: Inside Westminster’s CCTV control centre

The bloggers were a major force for political change in the United States, and in the run up to the US election, the presidential candidates were listening to them. They helped shape public opinion, an army of geeks facilitated a faultless online campaign and now Obama is revolutionising how the web is used to communicate to the American people.

Why do we seem so far away from such a grassroots effort in the UK? After all, it is something we need as the recession bites and our civil liberties are being eroded by a government bent on control though the pretence of protecting us, secure beneath watchful eyes.

It seems to me that UK blogs, ones which might affect change and have UK politicians listening, have and continue to be marginalised – not necessarily intentionally – by our large public service broadcasting and news organisation, the BBC.

The BBC’s significance to UK web users is huge; much like it fostered the UK home computing revolution in the eighties, it has been playing a key role in internet literacy since the mid nineties. Because of this, I believe that web surfing habits in the UK are kind of gravitationally bound to it.

Take, for example, the surge in the number of Twitter users in recent months after cross-media patronage by the BBC. No doubt it did the same for the blogging phenomenon towards the start of the decade, but it’s always Auntie Beeb that’s ruffling the hair of these new and potentially powerful online communication tools. The BBC’s approach seems to be a) how can we integrate this popular technology into the services provide, but b) make sure it doesn’t impact on our status as a major service provider so that we can continue to justify the licence fee.

Particularly at the start of the decade, much of the British media treated bloggers as self-serving loons who had nothing to say except for uninformed gossip and dull introspections on on their lives (much like what the Daily Mail says about Twitterers these days).

Of course, it irks professional journalists to see amateurs publishing opinion pieces without rigorous fact checking and sub-editing in place. In America, on the other hand, where quality journalism is spread very thinly or not at all and where there is no public service broadcaster people call Auntie, bloggers are seen both as a valuable source of the truth and as a powerful force for political change.

As a nation, we need this respect for the independent voice. After all, it’s the people that affect  change in a democracy, and we now have the technology for everyone’s voice to be heard.

With a controlling government, one which actively seeks to conceal information that is in the public interest, and one which threatens to take away our civil liberties (just listen to any interview with Jacqui Smith), we need a change.

So, let’s make our voices heard, preferably not just using proprietary and rather unstable platforms like Twitter.

Pauline Oliveros was a pioneer of electronic music in the 1960s. This is Alien Bog / Beautiful Soop from 1967 (Spotify link).

BBC Transmitting Station, Daventry circa. 1930. Unknown photographer. Source.

Kinoautomat (1967), the first interactive film. Tyneside Cinema, 5 March 8pm.

YouTube – South Pole Lunar Time-Lapse by Glen Kinoshita

These are instructions on how to find Comet Lulin on the 1st of March 2009. To find it, look to the north and find The Plough. Draw a line between the stars that form the start of the dip and extend the line until you see the next brightest star, which is Regulus. Just up from Regulus at the 1 o’clock  position, you’ll see Comet Lulin. It’s past its brightest point as it moves away from the Sun, so you’ll need very good conditions to have a chance of seeing it.

The Earth eclipsing the Sun, as viewed from the Moon.

Mark Thomas: Download this card, warning police that if a stop and search is intrusive or malicious, you will take action | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk