The Internet as a political tool

[Eric de Haas]

After watching a documentary on Dutch television last week, I couldn't quite let go of Beppe Grillo. The Italian activist, blogger, comedian, actor and politician runs a blog that is ranked among the top ten of most visited blogs. After being banned from Italian television, his weblog generated an influential civil movement with millions of enthusiasts and active members. Grillo's themes include energy usage, political and corporate corruption, finance, freedom of speech, child labour, globalization, and technology. Next to the fact that he runs an activistic blog, which spawned the 5 star movement (environment, water, education, communication and transport) it is interesting to see how the combination of being a comedian/actor/blogger (reaching the public) works well with being an activist/politician/former accountant (teaching the public) besides the fact that this could give us a glimpse of how 'politics as we know it' could become superfluous.