“… too much political effort online simply mimics traditional marketing-driven campaigning – treating voters as little more than shoppers, and policies as slickly packaged products. The overlooked lesson of Obama’s campaign is that it treated voters as citizens with active roles in a democratic society rather than passive consumers swayed by party marketing.”
Source: The internet and politics: Revolution.com (Guardian editorial, 4 January 2010)
The above quote contains an important message for those who think that the simple act of using a technology of the moment is a magic gateway to progressing a political or policy agenda. “I know we’ll go on to Facebook, upload a podcast, and make a guest appearance on YouTube”.
As some political figures have already found engaging with social media for political purposes [YouTube video] can have distinctly unpredictable results with the artefact or social media contribution (or unexpected derivatives thereof) quickly becoming part of the many evolving and very long-lived digital archives that are emerging in democratic societies. But ignoring social media and such digital archives is also not an option for those who would court public support. Others may choose to leverage such systems and so a message perhaps intended for one context can can suddenly take on viral properties when injected into the social networking ether; as one US politician found to his cost in the 2006 Senate elections. [YouTube video]
Postscript (updated 22 January 2010)
See also the following NPR item Republican Politicians Make A Social Media Push which illustrates how US politicians are desperately trying to catch-up with the Obama team’s domination of this space.
