Whose political revolution?

y LAUREN HARRISS

SOCIAL media is media that promotes social interaction. It uses highly accessible publishing techniques which both enables and generates exchanges of information. In essence, social media uses web-based technologies to transform media from traditional monologues into dialogues.

Although the emergence of social media has been a largely publicised phenomenon there lacks a sufficient degree of analysis as to its impact on traditional media constituencies. This essay analyses and compares the potential of social media in regards to direct political campaigning by politicians, against the actual impact social media has had on the political arena. This essay also examines whether social media is truly an alternate to traditional media or if in fact it is best utilized by members of mass media.

Andreas Kaplan and Michael Haenlein define social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content” (Kaplan & Haenelin, 2010). Hence, theoretically social media has the ability to transform political campaigning, allowing political candidates to by-pass traditional media as well as any other potential filtering agents. This enables information to be directly conveyed to whichever audience it is intended, which during election campaigns is of course voters. However the theoretical extent of social media and the impact it has had in reality are vastly different. Although there has been much speculation that the 2010 Australian federal election would be the ‘Twitter Election’, where votes would be won and lost through social media networks on an unprecedented scale, reality suggests that such assertions were exaggerated. As it transpired, social media may not have been capitalised on by the majority of candidates.

Matthew Gain argues that social media has been a massively underutilized platform for connecting with and influencing the voting decisions of Australians. “Social media was seen simply as something to dabble with on the periphery of the campaign. It was not integrated, or used nearly as effectively as it could have been (Gain, 2010). A brief consideration of party leaders’ social media sites supports such an opinion. Tony Abbott virtually stopped using social media early in the election campaign. He produced a diminutive amount of ‘tweets’ that were few and far between (twitter.com/TonyAbottMHR), and even fewer Facebook entries (facebook.com/Tony-Abbott). Alternatively, Julia Gillard ‘tweeted,’ ‘facebooked’ and even ‘YouTubed’ quite regularly, though the format was usually reminiscent of a press release and difficult to consider interactive or social (mypolitician.com.au/Julia-Gillard). However the effect of this apparent oversight as to the usefulness of social media as a direct campaign method needs to be discussed. Figures show Malcolm Turnbull, who it can be argued used social media frequently and effectively to communicate with his electorate, had a swing of 11.5% to him at the election. Joe Hockey, who also frequented Twitter, had a swing in his electorate of 8.6% while Julia Gillard was the beneficiary of a 4.5% swing. However in contrast, there was the 4% swing away from Kevin Rudd who is also a well known user of social media, and a 5% swing occurred in Tony Abbott’s favour, who, as already noted, neglected social media for a large part of the election campaign (AEC, 2010).

Therefore when examining the political influence of social media it is necessary to consider the idea that its use by candidates in the 2010 election may be insignificant. It can be argued that many candidates in the 2010 Australian federal election had Facebook and Twitter accounts in the same way John Howard had a YouTube channel in the 2007, it exists because one would look out-of-touch without it, not because it is comprehensively viewed as a powerful campaign medium. Additionally, results are varied as to whether or not such an attitude affected candidate’s chances and, if indeed, Australian politics has encountered a political campaigning revolution.

Darryl Adams argues that the political arena is undeniably “seeing a revolution, but not of the election process. It is a revolution of the way the process is being viewed and analysed, and it is what the people promoting the social media revolution promise. However, it is still being funded by big media” (Adams, 2010). Therefore the communication revolution the social media phenomenon was initially thought to signify, an ideological anticipation that social media would enable the greater public to bypass conventional media avenues and communicate directly with sources, could in fact be occurring through revolutionary techniques of information gathering by traditional mass media. This suggests that Twitter and other such networks have the greatest influence on political campaigning through the inclusion of social media as a legitimate source for major news outlets. Adams agrees that journalists are the most effective users of social media in that many consider it as both a source of news and means for broadcasting. “Where Twitter is being used well in the election… is with coverage of the events by journalists. At the coalface, people like Latika Bourke, Ben Packham and Alison Rehn, and in the back lines with Leigh Sales, David Koch, Annabel Crabb, and the doyen of the press gallery — Laurie Oakes — have revolutionised election coverage for the better” (Adams, 2010).

There is no doubt that social media has revolutionised political communication and that election campaigning and consequent media coverage will continue to evolve as more capabilities of social media are recognised and utilised. Andrew Chadwick notes that “we now need to incorporate more subtle, fluid, and voluminous phenomena: online social networking profiles, blog posts, wiki edits, YouTube videos, Flickr photos, Delicious bookmarks, and Twitter status updates, to list but a few”(Chadwick, 2009). Indeed in recent years previously inconceivable methods of communication have been developed and participated in on an unparalleled dimension. Theories regarding the usefulness of Facebook and Twitter would have been, for the most part, meaningless during the 2007 election, as Facebook was still largely restricted to university students, and Twitter having only been launched in March 2006. However current use of social media will no doubt in the future be considered as merely the inauguration of an immeasurably useful political implement, with large elements of it, as yet, unexplored.

Bibliography

Adams, D. (20/7/2010): “The Twitter election. Or is it?” ZD Net.
http://www.zdnet.com.au/the-twitter-election-or-is-it-339304662.htm
Accessed: 3/9/2010.

AEC Virtual Tally Room (August 2010):“The Official 2010 Federal Election Results” http://vtr.aec.gov.au/
Accessed: 2.9.2010

Chadwick, A. (July 2009): “The Internet and Politics in Flux”. Journal of Information Technology and Politics”, Routledge; Taylor and Francis Group.

Facebook (August 2010): Used in analysis of information.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/JuliaGillard/161674172327?ref=ts
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tony-Abbott/109517449074268?ref=ts

Gain, M. (21/8/2010): “Social media and Election 2010: a missed opportunity”, Edelman’s Political Tweet Level.
http://election.tweetlevel.com.au/2010/08/social-media-and-election-2010-a-missed-opportunity/
Accessed: 3/9/2010

Herrick, C. (10/8/2010): “Federal Election 2010: Liberal Party's social media strategy.” IDG Communications.
http://www.computerworld.com.au/article/356409/federal_election_2010_liberal_party_social_media_strategy/
Accessed: 1/9/2010

Kaplan Andreas M. & Haenlein Michael, (2010): “Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of social media”, Business Horizons, Vol. 53, Issue 1.

MyPolitician (August 2010): Used in analysis of information.
http://www.mypolitician.com.au/

Twitter (August 2010): Used in analysis of information.
http://twitter.com/JuliaGillard
http://twitter.com/JoeHockey
http://twitter.com/KRuddMP
http://twitter.com/TurnbullMalcolm
http://twitter.com/TonyAbbottMHR