Spalter: Mobile phone as tool for civic engagement

We're finding, not only in the United States but in governments around the world, more sophisticated and sensitive governments who understand the beneficial aspects of providing more not less access to transparency around technology platforms, particularly in the mobile space, that citizens can now interact with their legislators and governmental representatives in ways they never before could have done. They can keep in touch with the legislative voting records in real time of their elected representatives, and at the same time they can provide via their mobile platform very effective, targeted insight and analysis of what they think about votes that are pending or regulatory structures that are being discussed. We're seeing in the context of the United States' political dialogue, immigration reform, for example, has become a very important touch point for very important American constituencies, not least of which are the many millions of Hispanic American citizens that live in the United States who desperately want to find a more reasonable and progressive approach to how we both conceive of the policy framework for immigration but also the administration of immigration rules. It is significantly attributed to mobility, to mobile and wireless platforms, that the very atomised Hispanic American political constituencies in the United States have actually been able to become a united, cohesive political force around immigration. Mobility through crowd sourcing, through text-based, Spanish-language and English-language informational resources around what's going on in immigration reform issues. Many of the rallies, many of the efforts we've seen amongst the Hispanic American communities to not only educate their local publics but their legislators and media around immigration issues have largely been conceived and actually implemented on these wonderful new frameworks that are the mobile platforms and devices. The list truly goes on and on.