social media and parliament

19.8.2010 www.kasvi.org 1

Social Mediaand Parliament

Jyrki J.J. KasviParliament of Finland, Committee for the Future


Social media is as revolutionaryas the printing press

Creates new mediaand new cultureand 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/

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


The power of social media

1. Google 2. Yahoo 3. Facebook (Social media)4. YouTube (Video sharing)5. Windows Live6. Wikipedia (Social encyclopedia)7. Blogger (blog service)8. Microsoft Network9. Myspace (Social media)10. Twitter (micro blog service)11. Rapidshare (file sharing)12. Microsoft Corporation13. WordPress (blog service)14. Bing15. eBay

16. Craiglist (ad community)17. Amazon18. Flickr (photo sharing)19. AOL20. hi5 (Social media)21. The Internet Movie Database22. Photobucket (photo sharing)23. Go24. BBC Newsline25. Doubleclick26. Ask27. 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

19.8.2010 www.kasvi.org

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

19.8.2010 www.kasvi.org

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

Par

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Public debate

Politicaldecisionmaking

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

VotersMPCampaingmanager

Mediamanager

Support group

Support group cloud services


Muista henkilörekisterin hallinta

Do not forgetdata protectionlaws you havemade!


Lähtökohta

Enää ei ole nettikansaa –

On vain kansaa


(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!


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