Whitlam Institute meets Matt Bai at the US Consulate

American political writer and author Matt Bai met with Whitlam Institute staff, academics, students and community representatives at the United States Consulate in Sydney to share his experiences of modern presidential politics and technology.

Matt Bai, writer on national politics for The New York Times Magazine recently visited Sydney. Matt has been covering the 2008 US presidential campaign. He is the author of THE ARGUMENT: Billionaires, Bloggers, and the Battle to Remake Democratic Politics which was a NewYork Times Notable Book for 2007.

This event was a unique opportunity to hear from one of America’s leading political writers on his experiences and insights into the impact of new technologies, particularly the internet, on the way citizens participate in the American democratic process.

Guests attending, many of whom have been collaborating with the Institute on its Imagining a New Democracy project, had the opportunity to share with Matt their experiences of civic participation in the Australian context and explore commonalities of experience and possibilities for future engagement in democratic processes.