Pollies and the web - a few weeks ago we posted an entry about MySpace's politically focused 'Impact' channel. As we nudge closer to an election, we take another look at how the political parties are making the most (or not) of their web presence. Many thanks to Andrew McDonald, Internet Manager at Media Monitors for this round-up.
Forthcoming elections on both sides of the Pacific have produced a flurry of online activity by major (and minor) players & candidates. As one academic has noted:
THE worldwide web, which most of us think of as the Internet, turned 18 this year and like most 18-year-olds it appears to have finally got the vote.Before the campaign proper has even begun in Australia we’ve already seen YouTube video news releases, presidential-style campaign websites built around catchy slogans which feature blogs and video mash-ups as well as a dedicated political channel on MySpace. Whatever the hype about Politics 2.0, it’s important to remember that what we are viewing is still politics. The key driver of the extension of politics to the online world is the need for political parties to adapt to a changing media environment where audiences, especially amongst the young, are increasingly moving their media consumption online. Given the association of both YouTube and MySpace with younger demographics it’s interesting to look at some of the messages the parties have pushed through these channels.
In the case of the Coalition, John Howard has used the video news release to push a relatively small number of conventional messages such as policies on climate change, which is often identified in polling as being of particular concern to younger voters. There have also been releases on new policies such as the Defence Gap Year and the APERC summit. Each has used a more or less conventional “address to the nation” style and has been foreshadowed via traditional media sources to generate awareness and interest and offers limited opportunities for viewers to directly respond via comments. Much of the reaction to Mr Howard’s YouTube appearances by users of the site has come in the form of satirical video responses mocking his announcements, including official advertising from the Opposition.
In many respects the online campaign by Howard has, so far, really just an extension of traditional broadcast techniques - even forums designed for audience engagement have been strictly controlled. The Howard presence on the MySpace Impact Channel is a largely static Liberal Party page, with no personal branding or personalised content and few outgoing links apart from the official Liberal Party website (though other government members appear to have taken up the opportunity a little more enthusiastically). Sadly for them, the Liberal Party has only 9 friends so far.
On the other side the Kevin Rudd campaign has put far more effort into tailoring their presence on MySpace, As well as a detailed personal profile, there are numerous active elements such as video & audio a wealth of links to the official Kevin07 campaign site, using numerous possible points of interest from downloads to e-mail (“K-Mail”) newsletter registration and t-shirt sales. The Kevin Rudd team will most likely be pleased to have more than 15,000 friends. The official Kevin07 itself has far more content, featuring a blog with user comments and even allowing users to upload video content. Though what is actually posted to the site remains strictly controlled they have at least resisted the temptation to remove all negative comments.
One clue as to why the Kevin Rudd campaign has more aggressively (& effectively) targeted and tailored their online campaign can be gleaned form the subject of their initial (and so far only) blog post on the Impact Channel: an enrol to vote message urging voters to ensure they are properly enrolled ahead of the federal election. This theme is reinforced on the official Kevin07 site with prominent links to the Australian Electoral Commission site and is a message that Rudd has also taken to the airwaves via appearances on popular, youth oriented FM breakfast shows.
Why such a focus on voter enrolment? There has been much comment that recent legislative changes to close the electoral rolls earlier than in the past will disproportionately affect first time and younger voters, whom themselves tend to favour parties of the “left”. Clearly a key concern of the Rudd/Labor campaign in seeking to convert general interest (visits) to a specific action (votes) is to ensure that as many visitors as possible are (or become) eligible voters. The overall impact of this micro-campaign might be difficult to assess at this stage but we can look at some small measures of whether the message is getting through. Using Hitwise’s site profiling tools shows that both MySpace & Kevin07 are in the top 20 upstream referrer sites for visits to the AEC website & both are in the top 10 referrer upstream sites for the AEC’s enrolment verification site for the month of August. So it just might be that the Rudd campaign is having some success in ensuring that “every voter is counted”. Of course who the votes count for is still to be determined and may well be swayed in part by how well these initial forays online are followed up.
Track the media, monitor the message
