Political comms and social media
Social media is said to be central to the new age of “digital democracy”. And as someone who works in political comms, my inbox often gets filled with adverts for workshops, seminars and panel discussions on just that (slightly nebulous) topic. But what effect has social media actually had on the world of politics?
Well, Twitter, for example, has completely changed how political parties’ online press operations operate. The Conservatives employ Ric Holden – a shadowy yet omnipresent figure with a first class honours degree in Labour-bashing – to provide 24/7 services berating, trolling and generally putting the wind up political opponents. The approach is mobile, aggressive and on the button (literally); one frequent wheeze with an emphasis on real-time audience participation is the #LabourSongs hashtag, with which followers are encouraged to send in mocking puns of popular song titles. Recent submissions in response to the Paul Flowers/Co-Op drugs fiasco, for example, included: “(Mili) Band on the Run”, “You Don’t Send Me Flowers Anymore” and the utterly fantastic “Bong of a Preacher Man”.
Elsewhere – presumably taking his cue from Guido Fawkes, another master of the Twitter dark arts – Holden puts his opponents on the spot by publicly asking awkward questions (“Dear @EdBallsMP How many times have you met Paul Flowers? Do you still consider him a ‘political friend’? And will you return the Co-Op cash?” etc). And despite being slow to wake up, Labour’s sluggish Twitter operation has recently started employing similarly forthright tactics.
However, even Mr Holden – despite being the official mouthpiece of Conservative Central HQ – has only 23,750 followers. That’s a fair bit short of UK-wide “digital democracy”, particularly when of that number, those who aren’t London-based journalists, MPs, lobbyists, NGOs and civil servants are likely to be Conservative supporters anyway. And furthermore, government statistics suggest that in 2012, around 20% of people in Britain didn’t actually have internet access at all.
So, ever conscious of the need to reach out to “the people”, political strategists should be wary that Twitter might actually have the reverse effect of concentrating information in an ever-smaller circle of media-savvy, London-based professionals. And seeing as those people all follow each other, it could even act as a kind of digital echo chamber that merely amplifies the conventional wisdom of the Westminster Village, by the Westminster Village and for the Westminster Village.
In summary then, (Twitter still hasn’t taught me the art of brevity), although social media’s importance as a tool will continue to grow, political parties would do well to not forget about more traditional campaigning and promotional methods just yet. Democracy, it seems, still mainly happens on the doorstep.