GE2010 Extended Article. Part i: The International Social Media 'Climate'

How did the three main political parties engage the electorate through use of digital media tools during the United Kingdom’s 2010 General Election?


Introduction

The General Election in the United Kingdom on 6th May 2010 came at the end of a month of campaigning. This campaign was the first election campaign to include televised Prime Ministerial debates. It was also the first election to be held since Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and other Web 2.0 start-ups became household names and widely used in the United Kingdom. It was widely reported that this election campaign would be the first ‘Social Media Election’ in the United Kingdom. Channel Four News’ article of March 24th 2010 sums up the hype:

“As the election in the UK draws closer, all eyes are on our three major political parties - Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats - to see how they will harness the power of social media and the internet.” (Channel Four News Website, 24th March 2010.)

The Telegraph newspaper ran a similar piece on 6th April 2010 with the headline “Facebook, Twitter and other social media will have an unprecedented impact on the General Election campaign.” (Telegraph, 6th April 2010.)

The aim of this extended article is to explore how the three main parties did in fact use digital media tools during the 2010 General Election Campaign. It will highlight the climate in which the campaigns were conducted, emphasising changes in international usage of social media since the last General Election, ask how and why the three main political parties engaged with potential voters and evaluate critically where they did and did not use social media and digital tools to fully engage voters in the course of the General Election Campaigns.

The International Social Media ‘Climate’

The past 10 years have seen a dramatic increase in the uptake of social media. In fact, the term itself was seldom used even 10 years ago. The Web 2.0 'revolution' which is characterised by the shift from corporately controlled content to massively user-generated content on the Internet has had a dramatic effect on the way that politics and news in general is created and engaged with. There has been an undoubted shift from news controlled almost exclusively by professional reporters and traditional media networks, to widely available user-generated content and the proliferation of non-professional opinion. The individual has seemingly been empowered to affect the mainstream news ‘cycle’ and can now broadcast their own thoughts and ideas, often for free, nearly always without any kind of editorial supervision.

Perhaps the most widely broadcast and written about examples of social media use in political spheres have been the American Presidential Elections of 2004 and 2008. The 'Dean for America' presidential campaign was the first fully to embrace internet campaigning and use social media tools to allow the public to engage with their campaign. Through the use of their own website, 'www.deanforamerica.com' the campaign encouraged online engagement and donations, as well as creating sites such as 'dean.tv' where they posted videos from the campaign and encouraged supporters to post their own videos and engage with the 'community', whilst using all these methods to create new supporters and activists 'on the ground' (This was before YouTube existed). Joe Trippi, the campaign manager, reflects on the campaign at its end:

"Now, here it is at the end of 2003 and we're actually on top, ahead in the polls, raking in more than $50 million, $15.8 million in this fund-raising quarter alone - a record - most of it from small donations of $100 or less. And whose fundraising records are we beating? Our own! From the quarter before." (Joe Trippi, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, 2004.)

The small donations had largely come from supporters on the internet giving what they could afford. The campaign did much to galvanise support from those who could not afford the £2500 giving limits that exist in the US Presidential Races. This was in stark contrast to their Republican opponents who largely received their money through events that were designed to attract the donations of large amounts, often at the limit for each individual.

The ‘Dean for America’ campaign only existed during the Democratic Primary stage of the Election. Governor Dean was eliminated from the race and John Kerry went on challenge George W. Bush in the Presidential Election, but the ‘seed had been sown’ and the 2008 Presidential race built upon the successes seen in the use of the Internet in the 2004 race, particularly on the Democratic side.

David Plouffe, campaign manager on the Obama for America campaign put it like this:
"So many people are living their lives through technology, how can we expect their interaction with politics to be the one exception?" (David Plouffe, The Audacity to Win 2009.)

The nature of the ‘Obama for America’ campaign lent itself to the organising potential of the internet and social networks, where events can be advertised and talked about and friends can easily recommend candidates to others within their networks. The Obama campaign strategy made use of large organisations ‘on the ground’, consisting largely of volunteers: local people talking to local people. The internet enabled early supporters of Obama to engage with the campaign:

“...our grassroots supporters had already been organizing on their own through our social networking site, mybarackobama.com or MyBO. It made easier our decision to send a modest amount of staff into these states- they would not have to start from scratch with only a few assets to call in.” (David Plouffe, 2009.)

The campaign organisation also made use of and attracted huge crowds to rally events which could be advertised and registered for online. The online portion of the campaign had direct relevance to the operations of the Obama campaign across the states that were fiercely contested during the election.

The Obama Campaign broke the Democratic Primary records of the ‘Dean for America’ campaign in terms of fundraising and also engaged large demographics that had either never voted before or were independent voters. Plouffe sums up how important the internet was to the campaign:

“Technology played a key role in our success. Reaching an audience involves more than just figuring out who your audience is; it also means knowing how to find them. Part of the reason our campaign was so successful is that we were able to identify early that many of the people who we wanted to reach were spending more of their time on the Internet. We realized that a smart, and large, Internet presence was the best way to provide people with the opportunity and the tools to get involved in the campaign...We met people where they lived, instead of forcing them to deviate from their habits or lifestyle to seek us out.” (David Plouffe, 2009.)

Embracing the "bottom-up" nature of the Internet

"The companies that will thrive - the companies that are thriving - are those that embrace the bottom-up nature of the Internet culture." In the final chapter of his book Joe Trippi outlines what was learnt through the course of the Dean Campaign in the prospective 2004 Presidential election campaign, which acted as a pioneer and record breaker in use of the Internet.

As they are very relevant to business and non-profit sectors alike, I will write tomorrow in more depth on his seven points for businesses/instiutions/candidates. Trippi argues that the companies that "...make the turn[to embracing the bottom-up internet culture] will be those that figure out how to empower their customers to have a say in the products they buy and use." That as a result customers will become part of the process, naturally forming a community around the product or service. And that your company will improve for it. Customers will offer better and more appropriate ideas than your organistion alone can produce.

The idea that so many businesses and charities seem to be missing is that we the users and customers can be part of so much and can be far more engaged than at any time previously by what the internet makes possible. Where feedback can be instant. Where ideas can be discussed and improved upon without the need for formed and polished presentation beforehand. In which customers are valued and given ownership and sense of belonging. Do you agree? Are you engaging on the Internet?

Real Engagement?

Of the top fifteen political influencers on twitter seven are Labour, with only three Lib-dem and one Conservative according to Edelman's public affairs team. Fascinating as Labour appear to be so far behind on support on Facebook now: Conservative 54,000, Lib Dem 52,000, Labour 27,000 ('likes' rather than 'fans' now as Facebook have just changed their system).

Matthew Eltringham's blog post on CoJo has been asking questions of just how much people are really engaging: "Beyond the activities of the major parties, there's a mixed picture of just how much people are themselves engaging with the online election." A good point and one which sorts the politicians from the public; politicians are engaging on these sites but are the voters being engaged by their involvement?

I think to some extent yes, but it is not the 'groundswell' that I've been reading about behind the Dean campaign's use of the internet where they provided a space for "...these young people who wanted to do something [but] were not being mobilized and didn't feel empowered"(Trippi, 2004).

I'm not saying that the American system is right, there are many better ways for British people to engage than the American large scale and Presidentially focussed elections but there is not a grassroots movement happening here. So far TV is having a far larger effect on the election than the internet, demonstrably by the effects of the first election debate.

TRWNBT

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is an engaging and thought-provoking book for anyone interested in Politics, the Internet or anything in between(technology, post-modern culture etc) written by Joe Trippi who "unwittingly found [him]self in the right spot at the beginning of the twenty-first century, maybe the one guy who might have a chance at pulling together this grassroots, nuts-and-bolts, knock-on-doors, send-e-mails, use-the-Internet bulletin board-website political movement thing." (TRWNBT, 2004)

From Howard Dean's campaign manager in the 2004 US presidential election, this book could be seen as a campaign memoire of sorts but is far wider in its scope than that. I'm half way through but thoroughly recommend it. Do you 'get it'? Do you get the internet's power? Do you get the potential of the internet as a social space and tool for change and good in our twenty first century society? Is your organisation 'of' the internet or just 'on' it? What's the difference? Do I 'get it', even though I'm studying it, do I understand that potential and how 'real' an experience online interaction is for so many people?