Social Media and Politics ~ The You Economy

Friday, July 4, 2008

Social Media and Politics

8:47 AM Harry Seggu 2 comments

One of the things that I hate is Politics. It can really get dirty and I usually stay out of it. But, I would like to point out a few things in the development of Social Media and Politics in today's world. It is really interesting to observe how these events are unfolding over the past few years and how people are using it to gain popularity.

I would like to touch on the use of social media today (and not what they parties have done or not) by politicians and their parties. It is one of the most powerful form of media that we have today. The Internet has really changed the way we communicate and work. technology is changing and advancing from day to day and we all really need to adapt and keep up with this change. There are no two ways about it and we either do it or we don't! Period.

Case # 1

In the last British Election, we saw the labour party using Youtube.com as part of their political campaign and they were really successful in terms of promoting their campaign. I observed at that time that the British Government didn't even have any kind of 'multimedia status'. But they managed to pull through and utilised the availability of the social media. The labour Party components have also been successful in creating such pages and blogs online during their political campaign and it has proved to be a success.

One of them is Councillor James Alexander a Labour Party Candidate. He has his own Youtube page, which has about 424 subscribers. Then we have Labour: Vision, which also promotes the labour party and interviews and talks by other Labour candidates. And finally, 10 Downing Street, another Labour Party page, where you'll find exclusive films and features from No. 10 and the British Prime Minister.

In 2007, Tony Blair has even used the Internet to Congratulate Sarkozy on winning France's presidendial election (this video can be watched on the 10 Downing Street Page). The party and its candidates have done well by keeping up with the change of technology and the impact it has in the world today. They have also managed to adapt to the changes that have taken place and used it for their political campaign. Queen Elizabeth has also resorted to Youtube with her Christmas address, with hopes to reach the younger generation.

Case # 2

Now this second case scenario rally interests me. The Malaysian Government started the MSC (Multimedia Super Coridor) in 2006, which was designed to be a leapfrog Malaysia into the information and knowledge age.

This 'MSC status' seems to portray and provide that Malaysia is 'fit' and is 'some kind of a leader' in the information and knowledge arena. However, this was only backfired during the recent Malaysian elections in 2008, we saw a landslide victory and a political tsunami in Malaysian politics after 50 since independence.

You would assume that Malaysia's leading political party would resort to the use of the internet and social media as the British Labour Party did, but instead they didn't. It was admitted bluntly by the Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi that: "In the last election, we certainly lost the Internet war, the cyberwar," during an investors' conference. He also said that it was "a serious misjudgement" and that "It was a very, very serious mistake on our part", while the opposition parties, (e.g. Jeff Ooi won and became a Parliamentary Candidate), resorted to the use of blogs and social media as part of their campaign.

I was quite surprised by these remarks. How can the ruling political party that set the MSC, be so careless in the use of the internet and social media when they were the ones who implemented it? It doesn't seem to make sense.

It is just an old game, with new tools. How can one possibly ignore the facts and the tools that are readily available to you at this day of age? Are we just so ignorant still or are we going to adapt and use the tools available to us and stop making excuses?

Many other political parties like the Australian Democrats are resorting to the use of social media and it is becoming more and more common these days as it doesn't involve much in advertising costs. All you need is a computer and the internet connection to do so. One of the most remarkable promotion and the use of social media can be seen in the U.S. Presidential Campaign. It is arguable that part of Barack Obama success is due to use of social media, where he has made innovate use of social media, which includes pod casting, Twitter, Flickr, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube and others. There has also been a lot of online statistics showing forecasts of the winner of this current U.S. Presidential Campaign.

As you can see, the use of social media in politics is gaining it's dominance and momentum online. It is a viral game that is creating 'viral politics' and changing the way politics is run.