OIL & WATER = POLITICS & SOCIAL MEDIA

Politics and Social Media is equivalent to Oil and Water. To let the beaucratic, single-minded, egotistical, incompetent leaders of our country loose on social media without any PR filtering is a high risk to the successful future of any political campaign.

 Don’t get me wrong Politicians have a tough job. They are trying to do right by a nation with constant scrutiny from their opposition. Prior to social media Politicians would rely heavily on PR activities to connect to their public. These activities were highly orchestrated to a level where the Politician would be told what to wear, what to say and how to smile. Their responses would be scripted and rehearsed.  

 Introduce Social Media into the mix and the free flowing thoughts of Politicians are fodder for the public. Social media can be a powerful Political tool, which could make or break a campaign.

As explained by the Media Scholar Henry Jenkins - Politicians can use ‘participatory culture’ to be linked to potential voters via social media. Ordinary people can connect or ‘participate’ with politicians via their social media sites. They can consume what the Politicians or their Communications teams are creating and in turn potential voters can contribute directly to the campaigns via social media – feel connected to the campaign. In the case of Barack Obamas 2008 campaign the majority of the campaign was run and won because of social media.  

A survey revealed that 30 percent of registered voters were encouraged to vote for Obama or Romney by friends and family through postings on the social media sites (Kennedy 2012)

 13 million emails, nearly 4 million donors, 2 million members of the My.BarackObama.com social network and tens of thousands of engaged activists changed the American political landscape via its digital activism.

Without the Internet Obama could not have afforded to win the number of voters that he did. As Howard Rheingold explains the power of collaboration;

Cooperation interaction = survival of the fittest in business

Rheingold’s theory relies on the interaction of the people in the communities, Politicians like Obama have had great success in this field and other Politicians can do well by learning from this campaign. 

In order for politicians to be a Social Media success, they don’t need to be young or nice to look at, they need to be genuine, natural and unscripted and know and believe in their Parties policies enough to confidently voice their own opinions. Unlike this babbling response from ‘The Talented Mr Shorten’ LINK

REFERENCES

Kennedy, K 2013, ‘Use it or Lose it: Social Media in the 2012 US Election’ Pulitzer Centre. Viewed 4 January 2014 <http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/social-media-role-young-voters-increase-future-US-elections-Obama-Facebook-Twitter>

Liberal Party TV, 26 April 2012. ‘The Talented Mr Shorten’, You Tube. Viewed 4 January2014 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFELLK8htKM>

Rheingold, H Feb 2008.  TED,  ‘Howard Rheingold - The new power of collaboration’ 1.41, viewed 4 January 2014 <http://www.ted.com/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html>