School Captain Judgement Day
Splendid morning,
School Captain Elections are right around the corner. Two power hungry candidates Sophie Cardell & Jeremy Turner are counting on our votes, and you know I am here to judge them.
Shall we begin?
Sophie Cardell
Excluding the nana glasses, Cardell’s pantsuit shows real courage. Her policies on mental health days and forming a LGBTI+ support group have promise. However, Cardell is unintentionally sabotaging herself.
“Social media isn’t accessible on school computers, so it is irrelevant to my campaign”
Still sporting a Motorola flip phone, Cardell lives under a rock with Patrick Star.
In Australia, politics on social media run relatively freely. Twitter has become the “World’s biggest political debate chamber” thanks to the hashtag ‘#Auspol’(Australian Politics) as it provides a sense of homophily. In contrast, North Korea have been caught astroturfing (Keller, Schoch, Stier & Yang 2017, p.564). Astroturfing is the “hidden propaganda by powerful political actors aimed at mimicking typical supporters” (Keller, Schoch, Stier & Yang 2017, p.564). Basically, Cardell could create a Twitter account posing to be a supporter and push her nana glasses agenda.
Cardell’s ignorance will cost her, as political expression on social media “improves the utility of political information seeking” (Dalisay, Kushin & Yamamoto 2015, pp.896). Generation Z will bin your flyer, but they’ll retweet you, attracting new supporters.
My advice to Cardell is to jump on social media, or that Motorola phone won’t be the only thing getting flipped.
Jeremy Turner
Unlike Cardell, Turner realises “politicians can no longer afford to ignore the electoral leverage of the Twittersphere” (Jericho 2012, pp.306). Social media strategies allow politicians to create a brand, and interact with fellow candidates, current issues, and fans. Turner can use platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to collect data and profile users in order to target them (Jericho 2012, pp.308) .
However I didn’t say Turner was using his platform thoughtfully. Instead, he like many politicians are using it as a megaphone to blast opponents and mouth meaningless propaganda (Jericho 2012, pp.307). Turner is the Donald Trump of Shelferry College, if you will.
Both Trump and Turner have chosen an “amateurism” strategy (Enli 2017, pp.54). While Trump relied on his guaranteed media coverage to be heard, Turner relies on his popular ‘Jock’ status and his Dad’s school bribes donations.
Despite this, Turner constantly interacts with the public. This worked for Trump’s campaign as a quarter of his tweets were retweets, with 78% of them written by ordinary users (Enli 2017, pp.54) . He is also taking a leaf of out of Hilary Clinton’s book, organising a Youtube video. The video ‘trend’ has increased significantly since the 2012 election cycle (Enli 2017, pp.52) . Sadly, Turner doesn’t have enough brain cells to replicate a message stronger than Clinton’s Mirrors campaign, which amassed 5 million views.
My advice to Turner is to approach the position seriously, as Daddy can’t buy you manners.
So there you have it folks, the future of Shelferry College lies in their hands. Looks a bit grim doesn’t it.
