What’s your profile?

Following on from my previous post about politicians using social media to interact with voters, I would like to talk about two interesting aspects of digital media: a) how it encourages interaction between individuals that was previously unavailable in such a widespread way; and b) the flow on affects this has in terms of privacy, accountability and scrutiny – i.e. not only are people expected to communicate 24/7, but the messages that they send are more closely scrutinized. Take for example David Barker, the Liberal candidate in the seat of Chifly, who made racially vilifying comments on his Facebook page and was promptly dismissed (and rightly so) by the Liberal party. Not to mention the numerous instances of employees losing their jobs over casual remarks made on their Facebook pages that they doubtfully expected their bosses to discover.

The ABC has incorporated a Twitter live feed into its Q&A program, and while I can see how this helps the audience at home feel more as though they are part of the debate, I think that it cheapens the discussion because many of the ‘tweets’ are pretty meaningless – for example, “Imagining Bronwyn Bishop and John Howard doing it” commented by one viewer during the Monday 9th August program.

It’s not just politicians that are carefully managing their public profiles online. A recent article in The Sydney Morning Herald found that “Nearly 25 per cent of Gen Y guys said they actively manage their cyber profiles to project their ‘best self’ compared to 14 per cent of their female counterparts”. In a similar vein, this article profiles individuals who are juggling concerns over privacy online, whilst also attempting to be active participants through blogging and social media. It highlights how the potential to reach a large audience through online networks can be exciting and daunting at the same time.

The new age of online profiles, networking, dating, gaming, shopping etc. encourages participation and interaction across networks and between individuals. These WordPress blogs are a great example of the relative ease with which individuals can self-publish and reach an audience. I like that people can choose how, when, why and with who they interact online and will be interested to see what the future holds for digital and social media.

Twitter vs. Gillard

I was reading an interesting article about the role of social media in the context of political campaigning in the lead up to the 2010 election. With the advent of social media, political parties – like businesses, and celebrities – are increasingly engaging with their audience using social media like Facebook and Twitter. In terms of coverage it appears that the Labor Party is streets ahead of the opposition, with a 77 to 23 per cent domination of the social media landscape in terms of volume of conversation (based on data from 25th July 2010). On the day that Julia Gillard joined Twitter and the day that the election was called, there was a huge spike in volume on Twitter. So clearly people are listening and excited about engaging with politicians and political discourse online.

Is this shift from political coverage in traditional media to digital media improving the way political parties interact with the public? Or just providing a simplified version of policy and debate to attract otherwise uninterested voters? In her article, Tiphereth Gloria argues that:

“There’s poor form overall from both Liberal and Labor. They’ve both set up social channels but use them to broadcast messages just like they do in traditional media channels, and they let the emergent community monitor itself.”

Looking at the numbers in the lead up to this election, it would appear that the big winner in terms of popularity is Twitter.