Social Media & Political Action: When?
We haven’t really seen significant impact on politics in Canada, the USA or UK yet as a result of Social Media. You might be tempted to say “ah, but Obama used it well.” Yes, he did. But it was campaign stuff, slogans, videos, speeches. We’ve seen some effective use of Twitter in Egypt, Iran and attempts in Belorus.
In Canada the whole “prorogued” issue took off in Social Media and became a meme, and continues to thrive, albeit somewhat less so. But it didn’t result in the Prime Minister calling Parliament back. Discussions take place, there are plenty of political blogs, messages on Twitter and then there’s all those Facebook Groups; support this, protest that, save this. Nice. But still window dressing in the end.
I think there’s two factors at work here:
1) We’re still enamored with the capablities; making fun videos, sharing stuff, editing photo’s and such. I’d suggest we’re still in the “Honeymoon Phase” which I’ve suggested before. It’s all still new and fresh and fun. That will change.
2) It’s because it’s still in large part entertainment and to some degree, industrial media portrays it that way. Metrics to measure and understand Social Media are still in their infancy and there are no standards like there are with focus groups and polling mechanisms. That makes it hard for politicians and policy makers to take it seriously.
So if that’s the case, will Social Media become a serious contender for the attention of government policy makers and political parties? Absolutely.
One very important fact about Social Media: it enables the almost instantaneous formation of groups and the collaboration capabilities to enable consensus development.
We just haven’t seen real activism develop from a Facebook group that’s evolved into a determined political agenda resulting in regulatory, policy or legislative change.
That will happen. It’s starting. Some small groups are figuring that out. The US Government made a huge step with the Peer-To-Patent program. As government departments understand the collaborative and citizen-expert engagement advantages, Social Technologies will start to see deeper engagement between citizen and government. I give it 5-10 years. Look at how Innocentive is using such social technologies to solve problems.
What do you think?
(Author: G. Crouch)