Bits and pieces

Lots of interesting articles to keep up with these days:

On democracy and society: An extremely thoughtful piece on balancing citizen participation with delegating expertise in a democracy, by Mike Ananny, a new media PhD student at Stanford.  Here's another good one, on the rise and fall of GDP as a good way to measure social progress.  I'm also trying to sort out my views on this piece that attempts to link good government (that elusive old thing!) with well-being.

UK fever: While some prominent Canadians muse about the possibilies inspired by the Conservative/Lib Dem coalition government across the pond, the UK cites Canada's example in outlining how to approach their "savage" spending cuts.  On the coalition, here is a discussion on coalition possibilities from The Current, an op-ed piece by Taylor Owen on why Canada is unlikely to see a coalition (pay particular attention to point number five). And on the deficit, a piece from The Guardian on the UK taking a Canadian-style hatchet to their deficit.

On the news: This piece charts how a few news start-ups are putting prices on stories, and in doing so, explores some potential new business models for news online (they're not pretty).  And interviews with the editors of the Globe, The Toronto Star and the National Post, from the Ryerson Review of Journalism.

On the web: Why the open web is to downtown as apps are to the suburbs.