"UK_Election is now friends with SocialMedia!"

17th February, 2010 by Webmaster

If at the last election someone had told you that the next election could be decided by the use of social media and sites such as Facebook, your response probably would have been, “What‘s a face book?” Even when Gordon Brown was appointed prime minister, only two and a half years ago, the idea of Facebook (newly available to people outside of University) and Twitter (only a year into it’s existence) being so politically important would seem ludicrous. Yet social media has quickly become one of the most vital and exciting issues in how to approach the upcoming election. However, as with any new development, it leaves massive questions over how effectively the UK political parties will use social media as well as the potential problems they will face. In the next fortnight, I’ll be looking at whether social media is a silver bullet for British politics, or just another red herring.

Foremost in the political parties’ minds will be how to make the most effective use of social media. It is seen by many as a
promising way to reach the ever-increasing apathetic portion of the electorate. It is also, perhaps crucially for Labour considering the poor state of their finances, an exciting tool for cost-effective promotions; by using the vast, ever-increasing reach that social network sites possess promotional campaigns can cost virtually nothing. It is something the political parties are trying to utilise, creating sites such as ConservativeHome and Leftfootforward as well as the political leaders’ rather cringe-inducing posts on “webCameron and the “Number 10 Channel” on Youtube.