Pollie Wanna Twitter!?

Before I begin I’d like to move away from Obama 08’ and Kevin 07’ for a moment and look briefly at countries that limit social media. In the West leaders can get into office because of successful social media campaigns. But places like China, North Korea, Cuba, etcetera, can help keep people in office from prohibiting certain social media. This fact alone further strengthens the logic that social media in a democracy can move the masses to vote, but if used in a dictatorship, would get the masses questioning the whole system.

Here is an example of some of China's internet regulations.

1. Inciting to resist or breaking the Constitution or laws or the implementation of administrative regulations;
2. Inciting to overthrow the government or the socialist system;
3. Inciting division of the country, harming national unification;
4. Inciting hatred or discrimination among nationalities or harming the unity of the nationalities;
5. Making falsehoods or distorting the truth, spreading rumours, destroying the order of society;
6. Promoting feudal superstitions, sexually suggestive material, gambling, violence, murder;
7. Terrorism or inciting others to criminal activity; openly insulting other people or distorting the truth to slander people;
8. Injuring the reputation of state organizations;

In autocracies rulers try to keep its citizens sheltered from the outside world and try to keep people from mass communicating. Famous theologian Erasmus once quipped,” In the land of the blind, the eyed man is king.” Imagine for a moment if the President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, had a Facebook and YouTube account. How would he answer questions on Facebook about atrocities in Tibet? Or how would he handle any video parodies about Tiananmen Square? That sort of authority defiance leads to jail or worse. In contrast, if you went onto Julia Gillard’s Facebook, Google+ or Twitter account and questioned her about pulling out funding for universities this year, you should get an answer, not a firing squad.

Now focusing on America and Australia. Social media is a weapon of choice for politicians, especially if you wish to reach 18-30 year olds. In most westernised countries, not using social media as part of your campaign is a death wish. As traditional media loses its grip on society, digital media strengthens day by day. The best political campaigners have covered all angles. A good balance of traditional and digital media is paramount. It is very crucial that imagery used in traditional media is not automatically duplicated into the digital realm. A saxophone playing, womaniser like Clinton would work well on YouTube, but a stuffy, straight laced John Howard wouldn’t. You need to find the right social platform for the right political figure. In saying that, you also need to know when to keep away from certain platforms too. As a politician if you get too close to the public you may risk losing certain elements of control. I liken it to the times I have had part-time work; the boss never wants to be your friend. Why? Because bosses are afraid they will lose your respect, you will take liberties and it will blur the lines between employer and employee. Ship captains call this mutiny.

Traditional campaigns cost a fortune, social media campaigns are cheap, but take a bit of time

to construct. Independents can’t afford too much traditional campaigning, so social media has become more important. Social media can get a team that does analytics and find people in the electorate to target and use them as a vehicle to spread the word. Clay Shirky talks of the leader of the herd mentality. Some research says social media is more important than phoning, door knocks, handing out cards and outdoor advertising.Obama went to YouTube to be noticed and admired by young voters. In America, where voting is not mandatory, winning over non-voters is as important as persuading voters to change parties. The Kevin 07 campaign was also successful and he was seen as hip and with the times for doing it. Both pollies used YouTube and found success whereas in 07' John Howard failed. The Liberal party was just putting boring speeches up which was the right platform, but wrong content. It is important to balance entertainment with credibility. I do not want to see Abbott is budgie smugglers again. According to Jim Macnamara, professor of public communication at the University of Technology Sydney “The key to social media is being sociable – not distributing packaged slogans and polemic."

It is interesting as a spectator to see people do parodies of pollies on YouTube. Even if politicians were not campaigning in social media, those parodies would still exist. When politicians enter social media, a world constructed by society and the fifth estate, pollies can be on a slippery slop in that environment. The below YouTube video shows Mitt Romney as an elite, sycophantic person far removed from normal society. MyBarackObama.com 2008, paved the way with how to do it. It made republicans look backward and out-dated. In US you need to get people to vote, then vote for you, unlike Australia. Obama, with the help of Mary Joyce I might add, got the under 30’s and the ethnic vote to get him over the line. Peer to peer techniques aimed at specific targets were used as he had Latino campaigners persuading Latino's, elderly to the elderly and so on. This is a huge benefit of social media for politicians, they can directly address certain demographics and segments.

According to Greg Jericho (aka, Grog’s Gamut, his blogging pseudonym), “many Australian politicians have joined twitter, but only a few have embraced the medium with any verve.”  Julia Gillard is an example of a pollie who regularly tweets, as you can observe from  her twitter account. On a slow day, 5 tweets, but on a busy day, like budget day or when the white sheet came out, up to 20. Mind you, most, if not all of those tweets, would be on her behalf. As Pauline Mathewson noted on her Dragonist blog when referring to pollie Tony Burke's tweet skills, “it is not easy for a politician to hit the right not on twitter. Some think it’s just another megaphone with which to blast criticisms at their opponents. Others use it to mouth their own party’s meaningless pap and propaganda. But Bourke has got the right balance. He uses it to make real connections with real people.” In saying this, one must be careful not to over tweet, give away too much personal information and not give the impression you have nothing better to do. Also once something is tweeted it is there forever, making flip flopping more difficult. Social media is about finding the right balance and placing the right imagery and characteristics in the correct context. One would expect pollies to talk with the people on social media, not talk at them. It is my contention that society doesn't view politicians as real people,'one of us', so it feels odd to see them in a realm we have claimed as our own.

References

Abbott, Jason P. The Political Economy of the Internet in Asia and the Pacific Digital Divides, Economic Competitiveness and Security Challenges. New York: Praeger, 2004.

Jericho, G. 2012 'How many votes are there on Twitter?' in The rise of the Fifth Estate: social media and blogging in Australian politics, Scribe Publications Pty Ltd, Australia, EBL eBook Library.

McNamara, J, 2010, The Sydney Morning Herald, Pollies Still Missing the Point Of Social Media,  http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/pollies-still-missing-the-point-of-social-media-20100804-11dkt.html

Young, S. 2010, 'New, political reporting and the internet' in How Australia decides: election reporting and the media, Cambridge University Press, Australia, EBL eBook Library viewed 28 February 2012, pp 203-228.

Images

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Image 2. http://themes.siiimple.com/360/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Barack-Obama2.jpeg

Image 3.

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Image 4. https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRZ0Gj8ltBjXIj3vQFEbnZ4lgRQRt_4zIVMmJZIDSUs5kZ7Hjr4rg

Youtube

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAyAeaUwBPY