Social media and parliament

19.8.2010 www.kasvi.org Social Media and Parliament Jyrki J.J. Kasvi Parliament of Finland, Committee for the Future

Social media is as revolutionary as the printing press
Creates new media and new culture and changes societies
Wikimedia Commons

15 years of Internet elections
1993 USA: First campaign to use email
1994 USA: First candidate web page
1995 Pioneering election: First campaign web pages as a curiosity
1996 First voting application (YLE) in an EU election
1997 First city council members through a web campaign
1998 USA: First successful web campaign
1999 WWW election: Hand made candidate web pages
2000 USA: million $ campaing money from web
2000 USA: first party to have a million supporters in Internet
2003 Voting application election:
Who writes the questions?
First member of parliament through a web campaign
Parties were still totally lost
2007 Blog elections: Interaction with and between voters
Good and terrible campaign videos
Copy-pasting traditional campaigns to the web
2008 facebook elections: several city council members elected
2009 USA: organising and managing the campaign with social media
2011 Twitter?

http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~wexteen/vaalit99.html
http://live.nuorsuom.fi/

19.8.2010 www.kasvi.org The power of social media
Google
Yahoo
Facebook (Social media)‏
YouTube (Video sharing)‏
Windows Live
Wikipedia (Social encyclopedia)‏
Blogger (blog service)‏
Microsoft Network
Myspace (Social media)‏
Twitter (micro blog service)‏
Rapidshare (file sharing)‏
Microsoft Corporation
WordPress (blog service)‏
Bing
eBay
16. Craiglist (ad community)‏ 17. Amazon 18. Flickr (photo sharing)‏ 19. AOL 20. hi5 (Social media)‏ 21. The Internet Movie Database 22. Photobucket (photo sharing)‏ 23. Go 24. BBC Newsline 25. Doubleclick 26. Ask 27. YouPorn (social porn media)‏ 28. Pornhub (social porn media)‏ 29. Blogspot (photo sharing)‏ 30. Conduit Alexa top-30 (English) ‏

From IRC Gallery to twitter
In 2007 IRC Gallery was the most used social media
Works still fine if you are trying to contact the younger voters
Spread your own “ihqu-sälä”,!
Remember to visit your profile often and answer _all_ the questions
Facebook is the most popular social media at the moment
Remember to open your facebook profile to all users
Management of your “friends” and invitations to different happenings are very useful funtionalities
Do you want a closed support group profile or a public fan page or both
Micro blogs are getting lots of new users
With twitter people can follow and comment on a politicians life live
Requires constant online life with appropriate tools

Opportunities for digital democracy
New technologies involve new people in governance
New tools for public awareness and interaction
Participative and deliberative democracy
Citizen can follow political processes, get background information and participate in public debate
Challenge: How to include less active people in decision making
Interactive ”amateur” media or edited broadcasting media
Anyone can become a mass media provider
New interactive participative media create new social cultures
Network identities, cultures, even nations replace geographical identities and corresponding nation states

Challenges
Populistic pollcracy is replacing democracy
Constant direct interaction with voters does not necessarily encourage informed, compromise seeking decision making
Democratic legislative process is way too slow
e.g. the new Finnish modem hijacking prevention law
Easy to pick only those information sources that support our preconceptions
e.g. CNN vs. Fox and U.S. public debate on Iraq
As ICT becomes ubiquitous, the digital divide evolves into an activity divide
ICT gives active people more opportunities to be active members of the society
ICT gives passive people more opportunities to be passive.

Informing Participation feedback Public debate Political decision making Civil servant preparation Knowledge management Interaction “ Back office” “ Front office” “ Client office” ” Old democracy”

From campaigns to politics
First Internet was used only for election campaigns
” Thank you to all who voted for me” for four years
Slowly web pages were updated also between elections
The web pages were still a kind of an online political archive
It is impossible to produce the content in a few months
Technical updates were often neglected
Blogging has made campaigns interactive
All did not quit after the elections
Social media allows constant contact with voters and supporters
Reporting political activity and getting feedback
Social media and cloud computing for group and party
Creating communities and sharing and creating information

Social media on two fronts Voters MP Campaing manager Media manager Support group Support group cloud services

Muista henkilörekisterin hallinta Do not forget data protection laws you have made!

Lähtökohta
Enää ei ole nettikansaa
–
On vain kansaa

19.5.2010 www.kasvi.org (Epä)sosiaalinen media Unsocial Media

Unsocial Media
Social media seems to bring out the worst in some people
The flame wars of the 1980's usenet
Many politicians have been forced to disable comments in their blogs and other social media
Social capital has not developed as fast as social media
Asymmetric faceless communication is psychologically challenging
Younger generations have already developed better manners in the web
Anonymity is essential for democracy
But the same laws apply as in any public space, slander is slander

Wikimedia Commons Memetic civil movements

Go 2 EDSA. Wear Blck
Spontaneus self coordinated memetic civic movements can spring up and wither down within days
Viral messaging: An SMS ”Go 2 EDSA. Wear Blck” in 2001 was essential for the resignation of Estrada
Red shirts in support of Myanmar monks
Copyright law demonstrations in Finland
Politicians have trouble to address a leaderless self coordinating ”mob”
” Who the f*** is machinating this?”
No wonder many governments fear social media
Iran, China, Myanmar, Saudi Arabia etc.
In Iran, twitter, YouTube and blogs have been essential

Wikimedia Commons No leaders to arrest

Person and Politician

Person and politician
A balance between two things in social media
Private life – reflections on day-to-day life
Political life – commenting political issues
Citizens know much more about their politicians than ever before
Party offices cannot review every tweet
Voters can follow MPs' lives 24/7
Surprise surprise – they are human beings
Drawing the line somewhere between
” Till Lindeman is blowing the Arena away #Rammstein”
” My hair is hurting – gotta pass the plenum today”
Having two profiles in social media
One for friends and family and one for voters and media

Social net life
Social media is cheap
But Internet ad campaigns can be very expensive
Social media is laborious
Following and interacting with other politicians net life may take hours every day
Requires particularly cultural skills
Internet has its own culture and norms
Even writing style and conventions are different
Humour and self irony are appreciated
Too polished style and backfire
Internet communication is interactive and continuous
You have to update and follow others several times a day!
You cannot come to the web only before elections
Every comment – even slander – is a direct contact with a voter

Anything can be misused
In Internet anybody can become a mass media
Easy to spread anonymous lies
Negative viral messages spread fast
Seen particularly in presidential elections
Internet social culture is still weak
Open discussion forums are easy to take over
Discussions deterioraty easily to flame wars
Data security of political web sites is weak
” Who on Earth would like to break to my web site?”
Web site spoiling and counterfeiting has already started
Face facebook or twitter accounts
A plea for fair play in the web!

19.8.2010 www.kasvi.org Sukupuolten välinen digikuilu? Discussion U.S. Army Photo

http://www.sosyalmedyapazarlama.com	108
http://www.siyasimedya.com	12
http://blog.henryalzamora.net	5
http://hiddentreasure2.blogspot.com	2
http://kogaion.dcti.ro	1

Social media and parliament

by Jyrki J.J. Kasvi on Aug 19, 2010

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Social media and parliament — Presentation Transcript