Assessing the potential of new social media.

• Author: Patten, Steve
• Position: Report

The Internet and social media are almost universally assumed to be essential to election campaigns and the work of parliamentarians, as well as being centrally important to how individual Canadians engage with politics. Indeed, it is regularly assumed that new information and communications technologies have transformed politics in ways that enhance the quality of democracy by connecting and engaging citizens with political processes that are more transparent and interactive than in the past. This article offers a partial assessment of the impact of the Internet, social networking and related information and communications technologies on politics, campaigning and parliamentarians. The perspective offered is rooted in a desire to avoid unfounded enthusiasm and unsubstantiated assumptions about the extent to which potentially interactive information and communications technologies have actually transformed politics.

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Thirty years ago before widespread access to high speed Internet, user-friendly e-mail programs, political weblogs, and social networking sites, the political theorist Benjamin Barber speculated that new information technologies had the potential to strengthen democracy by increasing public access to information that would enhance civic awareness and facilitating participatory dialogue and deliberation across great distances. (1) During the 1990s, as popular access to new information and communications technologies and the Internet became increasingly common, optimistic democrats believed we were on the cusp of a new era social and political democratization. Cyber-utopians believed computer-based information sharing and interaction would transform democratic politics.

Daniel Weitzner characterized the Internet as "a vast new forum for political discourse and activism which allows genuine interaction between voters and elected representatives." (2) In an era that was marked by deep frustration with formal politics and corporate dominated news media, there was hope that a new, more democratic civic ideal would result from computer-assisted exchanges of political news and information. Analysts speculated about the capacity of virtual communities of political engaged Internet citizens--netizens--to identify and deliberate on the issues of the day. Howard Rheingold even predicted that networked "cybercommunities" would give citizens the leverage needed to challenge the political and economic elite's control of powerful communications media. (3) The faithful believed this new age of supposedly egalitarian news and information dissemination would allow for the emergence of what Lawrence Grossman called an "electronic republic" in which Internet-based public dialogue and a more reflexive process of public opinion formation would alter the behaviour of politicians, empower citizens and deepen democracy. (4)

In terms of electoral politics, political scientists have equated the potential impact of the Internet-particularly since the emergence of the social media associated with the interactivity of Web 2.0--with the rise of television broadcasting in the mid 20th century. Brad Walchuk, for example, argues that not only will social media allow "parties to connect to voters and spread their word in entirely new ways," but it also allows for interactive two-way communications. (5) Reflecting on the interactive nature of social media, Canadian parliamentarians such as Carolyn Bennett have voiced their optimism about the possibility of harnessing social media to produce a more inclusive and dynamic public sphere and allow for the sort of responsive political relationships that enhance the efficacy of citizens and encourage political involvement. (6)

Of course, in more recent years, observers have offered more sober assessments of the impact that social media and new information technologies will have on democratic politics. (7) Carty, Cross and Young, for example, contend that while the capacity of television to reach mass audiences had a primarily positive and nationalizing effect on Canadian party politics, the Internet allows for increasingly targeted private political messages that are more fragmented and less transparent, (8) Still, in many circles, expectation continue to run high with regard to the positive potential for doing politics differently in the age of Internet-based social networking. Optimists remain confident that low-cost information production, egalitarian public conversations in cyberspace, new opportunities for political action, and interactive relationships between citizens and politicians will transform democracy.

The Initial Embrace

Canadian political parties were not early adopters of new information and communication technologies. All of the major parties had their own websites by 1997, but in the 1997 and 2000 elections those websites were little more than electronic brochures providing basic information on the leader, party policy, and how to get involved or make financial donations. The sophistication of these websites gradually increased, and in the 2004 election visitors had access to multimedia platforms that offered videos and regularly updated information on campaign activities. Still, while local campaigns and the media could use the parties' websites to stay in touch with the messaging and activities of the national campaign, beyond some simple online surveys, there were limited features aimed at creatively engaging voters. (9) The websites did not offer access to blogs or other creative interactive features; they were primarily unidirectional computer-based platforms for the mass dissemination of basic information and video content.

Surprisingly, little had changed by the time of the 2006 general election. Even though Facebook was established in 2004, YouTube in 2005, and Twitter in 2006, Canada's major parties failed to take advantage of social networking sites. Parties displayed minimal interest in making Canadian party websites more interactive. Tamara Small, a leading academic analyst of online campaigning, has described the parties' 2006 websites as Internet-base lawn signs that inform, but do not engage. The goal, it seems, was to disseminate information to the general public and respond to the demands of journalists who expected more and more efficient media relations. (10) Canadians interested in basic information on the leaders and party policy had convenient and speedy access the parties' web-based campaign materials, but no more than a tiny fraction of Canadians actually visited party websites.

It was not until 2007 that we saw the first indications that Canadian...