Political Organizations and Social Media Scott Thomson – May 9Th, 2012
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Political Organizations and Social Media Scott Thomson – May 9th, 2012 Senator Claire McCaskill was one of the first politicians to join Twitter. In 2009, the news site Politico called her one of the most popular Twitterers on Capitol Hill: “No one else tweets with the regularity and honesty of this Missouri Democrat”.1 Back then she had 5,700 followers. Now she has more than 10 times that. She continues to send out almost daily updates, and although she doesn’t follow anyone, she occasionally replies to tweets sent to her and says she direct messages even more. Chuck Grassley is another prominent Capitol Hill tweeter. With a sometimes confusing mix of abbreviations, typos, and attacks on President Obama, he’s made himself one of the more entertaining users to follow in DC. Politico even ran an entire story called “12 of Sen. Chuck Grassley’s best tweets”.2 One that made the list was: When is PresO going to start running agsf DoNothing Democrat Senate i e no budget for 1060 days. No nrgBill Far fewer bills and votes But it turns out that these social media-savvy politicians are the exception rather than the norm. Although there’s been a lot of hype about how social media has changed politics, in most ways things are still the same. It’s become de rigueur for politicians from local mayors up to the president to have their own twitter feed, but few actually use their accounts to engage with their constituents in any meaningful way. It’s usually the press offices, not the officials themselves, which operates the social media accounts. The Obama campaign started regularly tweeting from the handle “@barackobama” back in 2007, but it wasn’t until Father’s Day 2011 that the now-President actually sent a tweet himself. This trend has only gotten worse after the 2011 “Weinergate incident”. Popular but controversial New York City congressman Anthony Weiner personally operated his Twitter account, tweeting back and forth with followers and posting the same kind of updates that normal users typically do. However, the married Weiner was also using his account to flirt with some of his female followers, and one day he accidentally tweeted an inappropriate picture onto his public feed that was intended to be a private message. He quickly deleted the tweet and blamed it on a “hacker”, but his story didn’t check out, and the damage was done. He resigned shortly afterwards. Since then, party leaders have strongly discouraged members from operating their own accounts. Most of the person-to- person interactions with constituents still happen in person at town halls and local meetings. When grassroots interest groups try to influence policy, they still use traditional avenues like meeting their congressman in person, sending a letter, or calling their office. The Internet has been held up as a great melting pot, one that can improve discourse by bringing people with different opinions together in a way that was never possible before. While there is certainly that potential, it hasn’t been borne out in reality. If anything, the Internet has made it easier for people to self-select who they associate with and what news they see. On Twitter, users usually choose to follow the people whose views they already agree with. Facebook will dynamically adjust the posts it shows you based on how you interact with them. If you consistently ignore everything your conservative friends post, Facebook will be less likely to show you things from them in the future. Wait long enough, and your news feed will turn into an echo chamber that could give you the impression of peer consensus when it doesn’t actually exist.3 Google, considered to be an independent authoritative search source, will personalize your results based on previous actions. But again, this may indirectly filter out results that contain views you disagree with, since you were less likely to click on them in the past. In an illuminating TED talk entitled “The Filter Bubble”, researcher Eli Pariser discussed the dangers of these algorithms and how they can subtly influence perception of what public opinion is.4 Some political figures even take active steps to achieve this effect. Former Alaska Governor and current Fox News contributor Sarah Palin is especially ruthless about curating her Facebook profile to remove any post that could be construed as negative. One time, as an experiment, I made a short but respectful comment on one her posts stating my belief that she drew the incorrect conclusion from the data she cited. My post was deleted within 60 seconds. What was left were hundreds of comments along the lines of “You go girl!!” And it wasn’t just me, others have tried this too.5 By reducing the cost of participation to a single mouse click, social media has lowered the bar for what it means to participate in a campaign. Some of these campaigns are just silly. When I was coming back from winter break in 2010, I noticed that my Facebook feed had been taken over by a very strange trend. Women, young and old, were updating their statuses to be just a single color. “Red” said one. “Blue”, said another. “Polka dot!”, said a third. I asked my roommate if he knew what it was about, and noticed the same thing but was equally clueless as to the point. After a quick Google search, I discovered that this was apparently a grassroots campaign to raise awareness of breast cancer. The women were posting what color their bra was, without explanation, and this was somehow supposed to educate Facebook users about the dangers of breast cancer. And it wasn’t limited to just my social circle. This had become a worldwide phenomenon. The Susan G. Komen foundation tried to track down the original source of the trend, to no avail. This struck me as a strange way to raise awareness of breast cancer since I had to look up what it was about, but I thought it was pretty cute. But then the same thing happened in October. I came back from class one day to find my feed taken over with posts like “I like it on the floor.”, “I like it in the backseat of the car”, and “I like it on the counter when I come home from work.” Again my roommate was clueless. My next-door neighbor - who I later found out “liked it on her desk” - informed me that these women were not broadcasting to the world their favorite place to “get it on” (as one immediately assumes), no, what they were actually posting was where they liked to put their purse. Like the last case, this double entendre was somehow supposed to raise awareness about the dangers of breast cancer. But did this really do anything raise awareness of breast cancer? It certainly got people talking about it, and it was discussed on a number of prominent news sites. Some women who participated said it made them feel connected and part of the larger movement. But instead, it may have actually done damage to the cause. Hundreds of thousands of women took part in this, and they may have gone to sleep thinking that they did their share in the fight to end this disease. But discussion doesn’t end breast cancer. Donating money towards research, or volunteering at a clinic does. When people sign an online petition or “Like” a politician’s Facebook page, do they actually support that cause, or do they simply wish to appear to support that cause? Anders Colding-Jorgensen, a psychologist and lecturer on social media at the University of Copenhagen, conducted an experiment on this phenomenon. He created a Facebook group entitled “No to Demolition of Stork Fountain”, which said opposed the demolition of the Copenhagen fountain and the construction of an H&M clothing store in its place. There was, of course, no such proposal being discussed. But within a few days, 300 people joined the group, which was clearly labeled as fake. By the end of the week it was 10,000. When it reached 27,000 he shut it down.6 Colding-Jorgensen concluded that the group was “in no way useful for horizontal discussion”. The Washington Post said of the experiment, “Users wanted not to educate themselves or figure out how to save the fountain, but to parade their own feelings of outrage around the cyber-public.”7 A similar real-world version of this from earlier in the decade was the Livestrong bracelets, first sold in 2004. Although distinctive yellow bracelets became just as much a fashion statement as a contribution to the fight for cancer, they still raised a significant amount of money for the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which contributes to cancer research organizations. But online movements have not been so fruitful. Malcolm Gladwell reported in 2010 that the Facebook page of the Save Darfur Coalition has 1,282,339 members, and its members have donated, on average, nine cents each. The 22,073 members of the next biggest Dafur charity have given thirty-five cents each. Help Save Darfur’s 2,797 members have donated fifteen cents, on average. He concluded, “Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice.” This doesn’t have to be the case. Social media has huge potential for political organizations, campaigns, and social causes, but like the Civil War generals that lost battles by using Napoleonic tactics, these organizations are trying to use 20th century communications strategy in the new world of social media.