SUSO

How are Britain's politicians are using social networking to ‘get down with the kids?’

W / Jean Hannah Edelstien

“What are you doing tonight?” my colleague asked me as I packed up my things to go home one evening in late October. “Want to come for a drink?”

“I can’t,” I said, feeling just a little bit self-important. “I have to go call some strangers in Virginia.” Thanks to MyBO.com, the amusingly-named website dedicated to the election of then-candidate Barack Obama, I had all the necessary tools to spend my nights phoning people on the other side of the Atlantic, in order to do my duty as an expat American citizen to beseech people to support my candidate.

The election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States has been widely recognised as a groundbreaking event in history. But in addition to the remarkable fact of Obama being the first African-American man to hold the office, communication policy wonks are also recognising the significance of Obama’s election – and, in particular, the campaign that came before it – in terms of how digital media and social networking has changed the way that parties will go about campaigning for ever. With the Labour government apparently stuck in a permanent state of the doldrums, only clinging on to power because of the failure of the Conservatives to counter them with even a smidge of dynamism, what lessons can those engaged in British politics take from the Obama campaign in an effort to make politics seem compelling to a new generation?

Speaking to the BBC in June of 2007, Professor Thomas Patterson of Harvard University noted that the Obama campaign’s employment of the Internet was particularly useful in terms of the efficacy with which it appealed to younger voters who were heavy users and consumers of ICT and new media. "Since the start of this campaign in early 2007, I think what we've seen is a second source of energy for young voters and that's the Obama campaign,” he remarked. And indeed, judging from the record turnouts of young voters on November 5th, it is clear that the strategy worked.

But when I talk to Peter Bradwell, a researcher at the London-based think tank Demos whose work focuses on social media, he notes that it is unwise to be distracted by the fancy online bells and whistles of the Obama campaign. At heart, behind the veneer of cutting-edge social networking, the movement was employing surprisingly old-fashioned techniques. “I think what…Obama did,” Bradwell says, “was firstly make it less about what he was telling people to do then to create the conditions for people to create the platforms themselves.” Thus, even Americans overseas like me felt they had no excuse but to engage in some old-fashioned cold-calling on behalf of their candidates.

“I think when you have a specific campaigning aim then it’s very important to think about how technology can help you achieve.”

But will British citizens be induced to pick up their phones for the next general election? Bradwell thinks that a serious sea change will be required on the behalf of the British political machine. “I think, it was a lot easier for Obama because he combined the kind of technological tools and approaches with managing to be an incredibly inspirational figure. You can’t really imagine either the Labour or the Tories finding that inspirational candidate – that’s a serious concern,” he points out. Though leaders of both parties have made efforts to use online media, their efforts have come across, so far, as clunky and slow. “They’re certainly not terrible initiatives – I just think they could be much better,” he says, of projects like Ask Your PM on Youtube, and David Cameron’s notorious webcam. And while Young Conservatives and Young Labour have Facebook groups for supporters, enrolment is surprisingly low in contrast to the million plus who signed on to register their support for Obama.

Ultimately, it seems, it is not just going to require greater uptake of technology by those in Westminster inner circles: a change in political culture is also required. It’s possible this might fall into place more easily when it is time for the next general election campaign, rendering online communication more purposeful. “I think when you have a specific campaigning aim then I think it’s very important to think about how technology can help you achieve,” Bradwell points out. Indeed, Obama’s weekly online addresses to the nation have thus far failed to garner equivalent buzz to his use of the Internet during the campaign, which seems to indicate that like their UK counterparts, Obama’s team has yet to quite pinpoint how best to use the medium to maintain public engagement in actual policymaking.

And thus it seems that we are still just at the beginning when it comes to the evolution of the role of social media in politics on both sides of the pond. Bradwell remains hopeful that the UK will make it work. “The optimist in me says that the kind dof pressure from all the enthusiasts for social media…the general geek community who really build websites like Ask Your PM, um they are inevitably. So the optimists in me hopes maybe it will happen. IT has to change, otherwise people will find other ways to express themselves.”

uk.youtube.com/downingst

www.my.barackobama.com