Social media and media platforms help many causes, whether it is the plight of a man needing 1,000,000 likes on Facebook so his wife will let him build a man cave or simply a girl trying to get some fast cash by selling her unwanted clothes. However when social media first kicked off 10 years ago not many people would have guessed it would help the cause of hopeful politicians in their run for election.
Since Barack Obamas successful 2008 campaign for Presidency many other political figures have engaged social media as a useful tool for their own political campaigns. Obama used SMS, YouTube videos, a personal blog and Twitter to reach a wider and younger audience and used these platforms to start a conversation between Democrats and Republicans. It wasn’t even just official party sources that created interest in the campaign, many unofficial collaborations sparked viral viewings. Obama Girl being one of them. The need for entertainment as well as credibility in American politics found their way into Australia with the Kevin07 campaign. Comparing Rudd’s Twitter and Facebook with a variety of serious and entertaining posts to the Liberal oppositions boring run of the mill policy based posts it’s no wonder Rudd was elected in. Much like Obama he was something new and different from the same old, conservative men we had seen before, I mean he appeared on Rove Live!
As helpful as it can be, social media can also be detrimental if the wrong thing comes to light or goes viral. Tina Fey’s impersonation of Sarah Palin was the end any slight chance she still might have had of becoming Vice President. Even though she never actually said this Palin is known as saying “I can see Russia from my house” after Fey said it. In Australia hate pages on Facebook have been started for Tony Abbott and every slightly misogynist thing he says goes viral (as it should!). People living in the public eye are now scrutinised more than ever with every second person owning a video phone and recording everything you do. Celebrities, politicians and even ordinary people can gain negative or positive attention at any moment for one slip up or misread situation. Social media can also improve these situations though when the person in the spotlight can explain their side of the story bypassing mainstream media outlets and their possibly biased representations.
We can conclude that social media is not however, the be all and end all of political campaigning. Having suffered through 8 years of Bush madness and the fact that Obama was the first African American candidate definitely helped his cause! Social Media campaigning is a cost effective way of engaging a younger, wider audience but at the end of the day you won’t win an election based on the amount of likes and shares you receive on the internet! Although upon reflection Arnold Schwarzenegger did win California so maybe it helps?
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Reaching out and connecting to a wider audience is vital in political campaigns. If no one feels connected to you no one would vote for you. But nowadays politicians have the helpful tool that is the internet and through that they can connect to a much larger audience than ever before. Take Barrack Obama for instance; in 2008 I remember thinking that even I would vote for him and he wasn’t trying to win my state over.
Most young voters are a part of digital communities and networks and are easily influenced by what they see online on social media sites. They don’t turn to newspapers and traditional media outlets for their information, insteas they bypass them and they look on Facebook and YouTube and what the ‘common man’ thinks. To engage young voters politicians are joining in the online world and participate. However there is a downside. The hate for Tony Abbot at the moment is only fuelled by more comments and likes and memes on Facebook by university students. And that’s the thing, as much as the politicians need to join the online game it comes with its risks because they can’t control the message they are sending.
Traditional media outlets allowed the journalists and the heads of the companies that own the newspapers and TV stations etc. to control what message was sent. However with social media where everybody can have an opinion there is little or no control over the content and message that is being received. This can damage a politicians carefully constructed image as photo being leaked of them in an unfortunate pose or a clip of them saying something stupid can go viral and quickly.
But does this help Australia’s political agenda and participation methods of the population? Are we as a country now more informed of the government’s actions or just the opinionated Facebookers view point? If more people were more informed and educated about politics then we would have more people thinking of ways to improve it, but these days people are just more concerned with what inappropriate thing Tony Abbot said or did. I am all for more education about politics for the common man but I don’t think social media is the way to go.
