Comments on: 2007: The (Second) Last TV Election

By: Stilgherrian · 2007: Social media goes mainstream (except for business and politics)

Mon, 24 Dec 2007 11:36:51 +0000

[...] before the federal election, I said that politicians only see social media as a kind of TV, another outlet for their centrally-planned Soviet-style “campaigns”. Businesses have [...]

By: Stilgherrian

Stilgherrian — Wed, 31 Oct 2007 01:11:07 +0000

@Nick Cowie: Nice point. Yes, people are usually very surprised to discover that the tools they use for recreation are also used for more serious purposes by corporations, politicians, criminals, law enforcement agencies, serial killers, spooks…

While the Central Committees of the parties really don’t “get” social media yet, they still get their campaign workers involved. In the same way that they organise people to phone in to talkback radio, they ask them to comment on blogs — particularly the well-read political blogs.

However it’s really obvious when this happens because the people use the same language as the politicians’ “message of the day”. Genuine talkback callers and blog commenters don’t repeat the slogans word for word.

By: Nick Cowie

Nick Cowie — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 13:07:23 +0000

What got me at PodCamp was the surprise/shock from the audience that political activists from Australia’s major parties would make use of web 2.0 social networking tools, to influence peoples voting.

I am sure it is happening now, not on the level that Goebbels would approve or what could be done if the parties actually understood how the web and social networking worked. Think a political version or three of lonelygirl13, targeting a specific audience with a specific message.