Internet Party to live stream its inner workings
- 28 June, 2017 06:00
The Internet Party, which announced in May that it would be contesting seats in the September 23rd general election, plans to live stream activity in its campaign office in the run-up to the election.
“The Internet Party is again raising the bar on political innovation in New Zealand,” it says. “The Party will regularly live-stream behind-the-scenes campaign activity in real time, starting June 27, 2017 at 8pm NZT via https://ipnz.live/stream.”
It adds: “In a move that would be unthinkable for old-paradigm political parties, the directors of the campaign will launch the stream by presenting the internal strategic and tactical plans the party has been developing and implementing over the course of 2017.”
There will also be an incoming link: the party says the move will give the public direct access to interact with the party leader and team, and provide a window to watch the party progress and grow.
It is inviting political science and media academics and students from around the world to observe and study its initiative, describing it as “an unprecedented chance to witness firsthand and participate in all the exciting (or not) action that takes place while running an election campaign.”
When it announced that it would contest the election the party did not name either candidates or the seats it would contest, At that time its web site had slots for six candidates. That number has now grown to 14. The only candidate identified is recently appointed party leader Suzie Dawson, but the site does not indicate which seat she will be contesting.
Her appointment was announced on 17 June with the party saying: “She currently resides in Moscow, Russia, where she has applied for temporary asylum due to severe persecution she reports being subjected to by those whose corruption she worked to expose.”
The story of her exile from New Zealand is told in her 2016 documentary 'Diary of a Person of Interest'. She is also the host of a new Web TV series about life in Russia called 'Kiwi In Moscow'.