The Web, Social Networking & Politics
Just a few nights ago, Australia’s prime minister of 11.5 years, John Howard, was voted out and Kevin Rudd of the Labor party was voted in.
One of the key differences in the way the election campaigns were run was the use of the web and social networking quite heavily.
Howard used the traditional television-and-newspapers campaign in his attempt to win the public’s continued support. He lost.
Rudd used the Web 2.0 gamut (including a MySpace profile) in his bid pretty extensively. He won.
Was the election’s result simply because everyone is likely to get sick of any politician after nearly twelve years? Was it because the Labor party offered better policies? And how much did the social networking campaign really impact on the result?
It’s almost impossible to quantify, but I believe that it certainly would’ve had an impact on many of those in the younger age bracket who are new to politics, and perhaps taking an interest for the first time now that they are old enough to vote. In Australia, that’s 18 years and over.
I voted Rudd, but was never involved in his online campaigns at all - the first time I heard about them was when the press covered it because they thought it was way too strange. Truth is, as my American readers would know, American politicians are all doing this now and have been for some time.
However, the “Kevin 07″ catchphrase spread like wildfire through the net and really made a difference in the online component of the campaign.
We can never say for certain how many votes are to be attributed to social networking or blogging.
But we do know that he won, and that he was the only major candidate to use this tactic. What do you think?
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November 28th, 2007 at 8:14 am
I think it’s a combination of factors. I think Australians wanted what Howard would not do: sign Kyoto and Australia is a country that is in a very tenuous position with regard to catastrophic climate change.
I also think Australians want to distance themselves from America. And then I think it’s that Howard was planning to retire, even if he did get in.