Blogging and the Irish Election

damien

I'm helping to organise a one day conference called "Blogging the Election". Details here. At it, as well as guest speakers, we will have open discussions on whether blogs are useful for politicians as a means of communication, as a means of reading what the public are thinking, as a way of reaching new voters etc.

I'd like to get the opinion of posters here on their thoughts about blogging and politics. Do you think a blogger can make a difference in an election or could a whole load of bloggers? Is the political system so dinosaur-like in Ireland that blogs will just be a fad that never get taken seriously by politicians? Could Ireland potentially have their own version of Daily Kos or Guido Fawkes? How can blogs be used to change the way politics is organised in Ireland?

Mick86

The average TD strikes me as someone who has difficulty tying his own shoe laces. Using a computer would be way beyond their capabilities. Added to that is the fact that public opinion is irrelevant. TDs think what they are told to think and do what they are told by the Party Leadership. The majority of people who vote for these clowns do so because it's a family tradition or the candidate supposedly did them a favour.

Villain

Intersting topic.

Imo the majority of people involved and intersted in Politics in Ireland are in their later years, this is changing but slowly very slowly in fact. The majority of people I know that are under 30 or even 35 don't have any interest in Politics, now take the minority that are interested who might blog and you are left with an even smallery minority. Then you have those that are middle aged and are interested in Politics but don't use a PC outside of work.

What I'm "trying" to say is imo a lot of people who blog in Ireland are young and don't have an interest in politics and then you have those who have an interest but don't blog.

Now while I don't think many TD's are going to spend a large volume of time reading blogs on the net I'm sure many members of Political parties do and I'm sure they relay the general feelings back to the party.

Most potential TD's use chatting on the doorstep coming up to election as their method to "gauge public opinion" because they know who their talking to and they can target their local electorate to see what topics they want addressed. Whereas with Blogging they don't know who their talking to and they don't know where their from a lot of the time. All Politics is local when it comes to an Election imo, and while blogging can give an insight into the publics opinion I can't ever see it taking over from the door to door calling.

Just my 2 cents

zepp

To me the power of political blogging comes from A. Youth and B. a deviscive figure.

In america Bush provided B. If John McCain had one the republican nomination in 2000 blogging would not be what it is today.

We don't have such a figure the youth is the aspect we in Ireland have to work with. Now with Bebo we have seen that Irish youth is very open to the kind of social networking that blogging is. The trick is to get them interested in politics. considering that a large portion of the irish electorate comes into the under 30 age bracket. If it gets popular the politicans will listen.

flogen

irish1 wrote:

Intersting topic.

Imo the majority of people involved and intersted in Politics in Ireland are in their later years, this is changing but slowly very slowly in fact. The majority of people I know that are under 30 or even 35 don't have any interest in Politics, now take the minority that are interested who might blog and you are left with an even smallery minority. Then you have those that are middle aged and are interested in Politics but don't use a PC outside of work.

Yeah, I agree that blogging is possibly the most important piece of the puzzle to get young people involved in politics again.
The major issues are all there, Iraq (and Shannon), our future in the EU, housing, privacy, racism etc. as well as many, many others... I just think young people don't see the booth as a solution to them, and they're probably right in thinking this for the most part.
I do believe that blogs can have an influence on politics, not just the election... it will be small at first and perhaps indirect (getting more people involved for example), but I think the conference is a great way to get together, discuss the issues and people's ideas and just see what happens next.

I'm not sure if Ireland will have a 'Rathergate' moment, but I don't think that's all that important, we're getting there slowly and the importance of online discussion, on blogs and elsewhere, is driving individuals to rethink the accepted wisdom, ask the right questions at the right time and also pointing them in the direction of pressure and lobby groups that speak to them that they may have otherwise over looked.

billy the squid

I'm not sure if Ireland will have a 'Rathergate' moment, but I don't think that's all that important, we're getting there slowly and the importance of online discussion, on blogs and elsewhere, is driving individuals to rethink the accepted wisdom, ask the right questions at the right time and also pointing them in the direction of pressure and lobby groups that speak to them that they may have otherwise over looked.

I would imagine that our draconian libel laws would shut someone down if they were to try pull a "rathergate" in this country, unless they had the experience and knowledge that the mainstream media have availible to them.

What blogging allows though is the ability to have one's opinion published to the world whereas before you took a game of chance hoping the editor would choose to print your letter on the bottom right hand corner of Page 76 of the Independent, where as now, your opinion is on the front page and is picked up by search engines worldwide, making it more "in your face" than before.

With multiple bloggers around, it will be easier to find politicians inconsistancies, where as certain newspapers with a political slant might chose to ignore them.

lostexpectation

as I said before the biggest difference from Ireland to the US is not the internet coverage or the amount of politician bloggers its the cash fundraising element the spurred Deans interest in the blogosphere.

Invite and party political fundraiser to the event.