courtesy of kozinets.net

If it weren’t for social media, I wouldn’t be here writing this nor would you be there reading it. If it weren’t for social media, we’d probably still rely on letter correspondence to communicate with friends and relatives overseas. If it weren’t for social media, we’d have to depend on the tired mediums of radio, television and newspapers for information. If it weren’t for social media, blogging, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter would be reduced to strange words possibly used in dirty verbal exchanges between nerdy bogans ( – If I catch ya in MySpace, I’ll blog ya, ya Twitter! – Not if I Facebook ya first!”) and the virtual democracy would cease to exist.

The rise of social media as a powerful way to promulgate public opinion and reflect social sentiment is symptomatic of society’s increased ‘democratisation’ in the Digital Age. Not only does the term imply the public’s participation in the creation and dissemination of content but it also allows a diversity of information to be produced and consumed. From citizen journalism articles, personal blogging and social networking sites, social media has the innate capacity to make you, the reader become the author as well as publisher and ultimately the master of your virtual domain. Social media can also be referred to as ‘user-generated content’ (UGC) or ‘consumer-generated media’ (CGM) where the public has complete control of what they wish to communicate within cyberspace.

Perhaps the greatest differences between social media and traditional mass media (such as print and audiovisual media) lie in the very characteristics that make blogging and social networking websites so ‘attractive’. First off, the speedy delivery of information on the Net makes for faster and immediate access to content, totally beating that of the publication of newspapers. Cyberspace also contains a wealth of useful as well as useless data, emphasising how the greater democratic freedom in the virtual realm is capable of churning content of varying significance. Moreover, it enables an ‘imagined community’ to thrive, rendering an invisible and transcendental public consciousness aware of its online capacities. It’s for these very reasons that social media has changed the political landscape, cultivating a democratic space where the people and the politicians like to play.

Samuel Chambers speaks of the respatialisation of democracy that virtually absorbs the human right of freedom of speech within cyberspace and thus, the facilitation of public opinion. The internet is also a highly interactive medium that is heavily dependent on its users to function. Unlike traditional forms of communication, new media assures the web community that they have the power to publish information; as if enabling the concept of the ‘voice of the masses’ to be digitally manifested. The idea that the Generation-Y or those of the Information Age are more likely to be technology savvy than their older counterparts suggests the substantial influence of new media in helping create a sense of youth awareness and political activism. The emergence of programs such as Blogger, MySpace and Facebook are testament to the net’s capability to appease a younger demographic as well as provide new avenues for political exploitation. Social media has generated a virtual imagined community that knows no geographical bounds.

If there is one particular source of content on the net that is more frequented than others, then it is the old mighty blog that informs as well as educated. The art of blogging realises that there are no central organisations or hierarchical modes of power (unlike mass media) and hardly any ideological consensus when it comes to publishing content. As a result, this produces a plethora of perspectives that converge or diverge at different points. If blogging is open to pluralist points of view, then democracy is exercised at its fullest. It’s been estimated that there are over a million bloggers online who publish about 275,000 new posts on a daily basis.

Popular sites for independent creation and ‘personal reflection’ include Blogger and MySpace with the latter being a huge hit amongst adolescents who felt that they could openly flourish in a privatised virtual environment. (If media and politics have digitally transgressed into the modern age, surely adolescent rites of passage have also become technologically appropriated?) There are also other specifically themed blogs which aim to report on more pertinent issues as well as stimulate discussions amongst its members. Examples include The Drudge Report, (which boasts to have been the first to break news about the Lewinksy/Clinton scandal), Slate, and The New Republic. Regardless of its latent subjectivity, personal blogs which report from a certain political leaning should not be discredited for its bias, but instead be seen as reflecting the multiple perspectives of the social consciousness. Nowadays, political commentators assess and shape their views on developments in political processes such as elections, according to the discussion boards and posts circulating around cyberspace.

On a more local note, Australian grass-roots web blog, GetUp with its reports on relevant local matters and news is proof of the substantial impact of blogging in Australian national politics. Their disclaimer states “Get Up is a new force on the Australian political landscape – a non-partisan, multi-issue, member-driven organisation using new technologies to facilitate meaningful and effective political action”. With a hip and easy-to-use interface and a group of writers attuned to the interests of young Australians, GetUp is empowering a disillusioned youth population to become active in domestic affairs. In a self-assessment report which summarises the organisation’s impact in the 2007 elections, GetUp was able to commission polling on a range of significant issues which politically characterised the year such as the trial of David Hicks, climate change and same sex equality. They also noted a 15-25 per cent increase in internet usage during the election period. Get Up’s efforts in covering domestic topics and its active role in assisting the Australian youth demographic in voicing their public opinion through interactive and online engagement exemplifies a sense of public responsibility that translates nationally, as well as it does virtually.

Policy analyst, David Anderson in writing about the importance of the youth vote and online interaction in the 2004 USA elections writes “In the 21^st century, thousands of college students will be speaking – in restaurants, on discussion boards and via petitions. And when this rally occurs…candidates and the media will start listening”. Right, the quote may be slightly Americanised, but let’s replace ‘college’ with ‘university’ and ‘restaurants’ with ‘pubs’. What Anderson is getting at is pretty profound; his concept of a ‘virtual rally’ signifies the paramount importance of social media in mobilising Generation Y to become politically enlightened and active. It’s not only the scions of society that are urged to become ideologically involved, the world of politics and its traditional methods of influencing public opinion are also prompted to move along with the trends of the ‘cyberspace crowd’.

Facebook isn’t just a phenomenon, it’s a form of social media that can potentially move the masses in a politically subtle yet far more entertaining way. As a social networking website, you instantly have access to friends and family under the pretence of ‘social purposes’ stalk them through their photos as well as play character-defining quizzes online. While it may not necessarily have the same density of political information in comparison to web blogs, Facebook provides a unique insight into the lengths political campaigns are willing to go to in order to promote a cult of identity and foster youth support. Funnily enough, in the web blog ‘Pickled Politics – Current Affairs for a Progressive Generation’, a discussion thread was established raising the questions ‘How will Facebook change politics?’ A member aptly referred to the political nature inherent in the formation of groups via Facebook “being a group links likeminded people together and shows level of support for something”. Although this depicts the unifying capacity of group pages on Facebook, connecting members who share the same perspectives, it could also be susceptible to something a bit more sinister.

As Facebook is popular with political activists from a range of conflicting ideologies, it can also enable the development of seemingly ‘unfavourable’ parties. Web writer Alex Hilton writes “Facebook has the facility to form ‘secret’ groups that don’t show up on listings, and there is no doubt that the BNP (British National Party) is capable of taking advantage of this…Should Facebook and other networking sites be responsible in any way for the activities and ideas promoted and facilitated by their services?” I should mention that the unpopularity of the British National Party is comparable with that of Family First in Australia (extremely right wing, super pro-white). Virtual democracy permits all factions, despite their political leanings to have their say online. While the BNP crafting some sort of secret exclusive Facebook group is seemingly harmless, it raises the issue – at what point should social media acknowledge responsibility for any malicious influence it subjects on naïve users? If anything, freedom of speech is a default online liberty where democracy rules.

Political campaigns are also jumping on the Facebook wagon. As mentioned before, political parties are slowly catching on to the technologically adept Generation Y, honing new techniques to engage with the public. Remember Kevin ’07 and the infamous Chaser stunt where Chas brought fifty of Kevin Rudd’s alleged Facebook ‘friends’ to his house for a ‘surprise sleepover’? Who would’ve thought that Kevin was cool enough to rack up 5000 friends (maximum number of ‘friends’ that the site allows) on Facebook and over 200 000 on MySpace? Garnering support from youth collectives vis a vis Facebook is indicative of the political campaign’s changing ways to adapt with new media and technologies. By reaching out to the adolescent crowd, the Rudd campaign was willing to attempt to relate to the tech vogues of the youth vote, leading to the creation of a political cult of identity humanised by a Facebook profile.

In a TIME.com article about political campaigning online, the son of a Democrat candidate who was in charge of his father’s Facebook ‘profile’ rationalises the degree to which political icons identify to their younger followers. “Young people don’t see campaigns investing in them; it’s the perception that they’re not worth the campaigns’ money. When young people see that we are making an effort to communicate with them, they appreciate that we understand that their vote matters”. Political marketing has seen the light at the end of the campaigning tunnel, where parties acknowledge that sure, the Y-Generation is the future and is perhaps the fundamental key in mobilising the youth vote for obtaining victory.

The political infiltration of Twitter on the other hand, operates in the same manner Facebook does, that is through the overt humanisation of the political member and their perceived capacity to ‘truly’ relate to the ways of the public, even if that’s just in the technological sense. Twitter has its own politics page symmetrically designed with lines of 140 characters or less based on breaking news headlines and direct comments by if not politicians, political affiliates. For example, just today Karl Rove, former adviser to George W. Bush writes “Preparing 4 long day of book writing. Manuscript is due 2 publisher soon & I must have a productive wk—which means less Twitter!” In this sense, as fellow users, we gain direct access to their opinion or train of thought, something that could be considered quite intimate for a politician to share with a ‘pleb’.

Social media it seems, is integral in humanising the ‘distanced other’, that is, the political icon whose innate job is to relate to the masses in the first place. Contradictions aside, social media is indispensable to the political mechanisms which needs to reach out to the public audience and essentially, the youth demography to maintain an online credibility in a growing virtual democracy. “Politicians must learn to go where there votes are. If their voters want to hear the issues and their take on them, they should deliver it to them in a format that they can readily accept and understand”, quips media writer Bridget Wright. It turns out politicians are listening to us after all.