It’s no particular secret that those of us in the UK are in the middle of a run-up to a General Election, and this year it looks like the internet – and particularly social media – is set to play a vital role, which is great news for the tech savvy among us.
We’re all used to the party political direct mail machine creaking into gear and keeping up a steady flow of letters, leaflets and postcards through our letterboxes every few years, but this time around everyone seems to have also cottoned on to the power of the internet to spread the word.
The venerable news organisations will likely do their usual sterling job of reporting on political movements and breaking down party manifestos for us, of course, and the Electoral Commission’s About My Vote website provides excellent information on voter registration. But nothing will beat the social web for instant, real-person response to political machinations and for the ability for political parties to connect (if they’re savvy…) with potential voters.
Take Facebook, for example. The BBC reports that the Electoral Commission has worked with Facebook to create the Democracy UK Facebook group, designed to encourage younger people to register to vote. It’s a perfect marriage of medium and target demographic – everyone wants to snare the first time voters, and Facebook’s the ideal place to not only find them but make it easy for them to register to vote. Whoever’s behind the Democracy UK Facebook page is making a real effort to keep people engaged, posting regular polls and encouraging political discussion.
Besides the Electoral Commission’s commendable effort, rummage a little on Facebook (or just check your news feed if your friends and family are politically involved types!) and you’ll find a plethora of political groups springing up and links to ‘who should you vote for?’ quizzes and widgets appearing all over the place.
It’s not just Facebook, either. Twitter is proving to be the perfect arena for political discussion. If you’re on Twitter and have an active timeline, chances are you’ll already have seen various links doing the rounds and your timeline becoming suddenly political when Question Time’s on (#bbcqt is the hashtag of choice, if you’re interested – don’t forget that Twitter is uncensored, though!). If you’re not and you fancy seeing what all the fuss is about – look what happens if you do a Twitter search for the Election’s hashtag, #GE2010. Everyone’s at it!
So much so, that Tweetminster has been set up to monitor political tweeting trends. Take a look at the electoral map to see which parties are canvassing in your region, or scroll down to see timelines containing tweets from MPs and PPCs. You can even put in your postcode and they’ll tell you if your local Parliamentary candidates tweet- so you can get things straight from the horse’s mouth without having to deal with doorknockers thrusting their rosettes at you.
As the BBC also reports, it’s already been noted by the major political parties that the social media response to this year’s televised debates will be extremely important to the perceived success of the candidates. The recent chancellors’ debate dominated the Twitter timeline for the duration, with over 11,000 tweets sent. Expect the campaigners and party faithful to be out in force to attempt to steer the direction of timeline in favour of their leaders during the potential PM debates later on.
I don’t think I’ve ever had, or seen, so many politics-based conversations between ordinary potential voters – and their would-be political representatives – as in the run up to General Election 2010, all thanks to the rise of social media online. And that’s got to be a good thing, hasn’t it?
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