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.

More Elections

In a week full of talk about the election, where every news programme runs 15mins on what happened on the campaign that day and there is soon to be the first live debate between the leaders of the main three parties, what has happened online? Something I've been watching is the fan sites on facebook. Since the end of last week the conservatives fan site has increased by roughly 3000 fans, the lib dems by 5000 and labour by a few thousand too. As I write the numbers stand at LD 19,456, C 42,830 and L 20,259. These numbers might seem big, but consider that even now Obama has over 8 million fans.

Those numbers and particularly their increase seem rather small considering this is the most important time for support of the parties in 5 years. Is politics compatible with the goal of many marketing campaigns these days: to make their comsumers into 'fans'? To see that brand as more than just the product but something that captures imagination and creates the fan-factor. Fans go to concerts, follow you, want to see you, want your autograph, have an emotional connection - think beatles fans, politics at the moment certainly seems unlikely to attract this kind of attention.