Vote 1 for Social Media!

I recently went into a local election where I had no idea who the candidates were or what they stood for.  In the weeks coming up to the election I tried to find out.  I went through my usual channels I asked my friends, my family and then I went to Google.  I even tried watching the local news hoping that I could get some information but there was nothing… 

Come Election Day I voted for the names I liked the best and I wasn’t the only one.  My Facebook Newsfeed echoed the same concern, we the younger voters (even the more mature voters) had no idea who was to run our city and what they stood for.

Contrary to popular belief young people do care who is running their country (or their city).  In the book Millenial Makeover: How a Generation is Remaking America Mohammed (2006) said

‘Young people are not apathetic.  They don’t suffer from a lack of interest, but suffer from a lack of access’ (cited in Winograd, Morley Hais and Michael 2008, p. 164).

Let’s discuss a lack of access.  Young voters aren’t inaccessible when at any given time of the day they are connected to Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  Perhaps the younger voter is not accessible in a way that Australian politicians are promoting their cause. 

The younger generation of voters are defined by sharing.  They feel the need to share whatever comes to mind at any given time enabled by social networking sites (Winograd, Morley Hais and Michael 2008, p. 167).

Most recently a YouTube video captured by the ABC (2012) of Prime Minister Gillard’s speech went viral.  She gave a speech labelling opposition leader Tony Abbott as a misogynist defending both herself and the women of Australia against alleged sexist remarks made in the past.  The West Australian (2012) reported that the video resonated so strongly with the Australian public the video was viewed more than 300,000 times on YouTube within the first day and made its way into international headlines in the U.S, Canada, India and South Africa.

According to social media expert Dean Power the sharing of the video was key to its success.  The more a video is shared, the more likely it makes it onto most watched lists and through the velocity of sharing it gets even more attention as it becomes famous on the internet.

Politicians may be feeling the pressure that they need to provide entertainment as well as credibility.  As Ms Gillard has just proved the public responded when she stood up for what she believed in.  She delivered a speech that was both passionate and eloquent.  There wasn’t anything humorous about the speech, she was authentic and it’s this authenticity that the Australian public responded to. 

In the book Campaigning for President (2008) Garrett M. Graff, author of the ‘The First Campaign’ observed the working of American presidential candidate Howard Dean’s campaign in 2004 he noted that

‘Dean didn’t master the technology, but he understood the energy  that was going on online’(cited in Johnson D 2008, p. 153). 

It’s this energy and passion that grips people emotionally and makes people want to support a candidate and if social media is used the candidate’s message will reach more people.   

Graff made the important point that

‘Now as the media and media choices change, so politics must change’ (cited in Johnson D 2008, p. 153).

In 2007 the Australian Labour Party tried something unheard of in Australian politics they launched the social media campaign Kevin ’07.  The campaign involved YouTube videos, text messages, blogs and the infamous Kevin’07 t-shirts.  Though not nearly as sophisticated as American social media campaigns this was a new way of attracting the public particularly the younger vote. 

During Barack Obama’s election campaign the website MyBarackObama was set up where the user can register to vote and contact others within the site sharing their opinions and organising events persuading the undecided to join Obama’s campaign.  This is what theorist, Howard Rheingold describes as a virtual community as people are uniting online and coming together based on the common interest of their political party (Rheingold).

The communities are a part of what theorist Henry Jenkins calls a participatory culture (DMLResearchHub 2011).  They are participating in a cause that they believe in producing and sharing media creating these events and showing support through email, Facebook, Myspace, YouTube and creating entities such as ObamaGirl trying to persuade the undecided or the ‘non-believers’ to convert.

This year the Prime Minister must set a date for the federal election and judging from Julia Gillard’s and Tony Abbott’s Facebook pages (152, 201 fans & 27,946 fans) social media doesn’t appear to be their angle.  To capture the votes of the younger voter and the time poor it is imperative that they move some of their campaigning online and perhaps employ the participatory culture tactic as Obama did, letting his supporters boost his profile.  However, Australia has a long way to go before politicians start using the sorts of social media campaigning that American’s have adopted.  As they say Australia is 10 years behind America (maybe in this case 20).  Thanks for having a try Kevin!

(Hawkins 2012)