Did online media have any effect in this election?

takun

How much if any impact do you think online media - by which I mean the full panoply including news sources, blogs, party websites, social media, forums etc - have on this campaign?

I've this nagging feeling that FG are going to consider their online campaign a raving success, given the outcome of the election, but do you think they got their result in spite of it or because of it? What if any influence did the 'talk to us' approach on their website have? Did the valentine cards win or loss votes or not matter? Did the 'impale Enda on traffic cones' game change anyone's mind?

I kind of think they did well despite of the awfulness of much of what they did, but maybe I'm wrong, and it really was the way to do things.

Did they or any party do anything on line that struck you as particular good or effective?

The Brigadier

I blame boards.ie

Killer Pigeon

With FG putting advertisments on gmail and beside youtube videos I say it could have had some effect.

RandolphEsq

I don't think it would have had a massive effect on the result since the largest demographic are the old folks. The younger people aren't as fickle to be swayed by a little online advertisement; they'd be more into doing a fair bit of research. FG doing so well at Labour's expense was as a result of Gilmore and their fear campaign against FG. And openly being aligned with the Unions didn't help.

d'Oracle

I'd imagine it had more or less the same effect that any other medium had.

Like, we have more media sources. Thats about it.
Just a big section is of considerably lower quality.

JBnaglfar

The only online media that had any impact on my vote was party websites, and only to read policies. FG's 'social media' stuff was laughable, (I mean that literally) and I really hope that its not considered a success by FG and others. However, I fear it will and be used again.

This is not meant to bash other uses of online media if they work, but personally if I go to a party's website, I just want to read their policies and get out.

thebman

It was FG's policies that convinced me to vote for them espeically on political reform.

I'm not convinced they'll deliver on it though and will not be voting for them next time if they don't.

Online media, FG's website before the revamp and the other party websites were what I used to read up on candidates.

CDfm

RandolphEsq wrote: »

I don't think it would have had a massive effect on the result since the largest demographic are the old folks. The younger people aren't as fickle to be swayed by a little online advertisement; they'd be more into doing a fair bit of research. FG doing so well at Labour's expense was as a result of Gilmore and their fear campaign against FG. And openly being aligned with the Unions didn't help.

And old folks do not use the internet - my old folks do & they are long retired.

I thought the valentines day card was a hoot & a piece of genius.

And labours campaign worked too.

A cynic might say it was very coordinated and that co-ordination hit Fianna Fail -who were in disarray.

Dyr

Online media is hyped by people who describe themselves as e-consultants, social trending advisors or suchlike waffle. I followed the election online, but so what? It's just another delivery system for content.

sophiekearns

I think the Fine Gael social media campaign tapped in to a certain demographic's vote. People without much interest in current affairs were almost had to be tricked into hearing the FG message by getting them to go online laugh at the cringworthy valentines cards or play the game where the cartoon Enda ran around collecting votes! Once online thay were plied with reasons to vote FG .. very smart!

Very interesting report here on how the much vaunted twitter campaigns panned out for candidates - http://www.politweets.ie/2011/02/are-election-2011s-top-tweeters-converting-tweets-to-votes/

Blowfish

It depends on what type of influence you are talking about.

There were very few instances of parties using online media particularly well. Most of them just set up the standard webpage, twitter and facebook account and used them to say 'check out my interview from <insert TV station/newspaper>' and 'Vote me #1!'. This approach effectively is attempting to apply traditional medias one way communication into an inherantly 2 way online media. It's pretty useless trying to do this as it just comes across as irrelevant spam. If they engaged in the discussion more, they would get a better return from it.

If you look at it on a larger scale though, the likes of here, politics.ie, thepropertypin, twitter, various blogs etc. have for years had debates from all angles and constantly brings up issues and facts which 'traditional' media sources have either overlooked or ignored. Given that, a lot of online media's influence would be opinions formed from the sources and debates which are away from the parties targetted campaigns.

sophiekearns

Blowfish, I think this politweets article backs up your point about very few parties or candidates using social media very well http://www.politweets.ie/2011/02/are...eets-to-votes/ ...

Lots of candidates just tweeting for the sake of tweeting, they heard twitter is the place to be so they are going to tweet more than the next candidate ... load of rubbish and got the majority of them nowhere. According to politweets just 1 of the top 10 tweeting candidates got elected.

However I think FG did used social media very well. There are plenty of sites where you can have a serious political discussion. FG used social media to get their message to people who don't watch or read news or politics..

IMO there is a big demographic there. How many actually went out and voted afterwards ... who knows? but they managed to hit them with simplyfied messages and put themselves in with a shout of winning their votes ... that in itself was success.

DeVore

Bambi wrote: »

Online media is hyped by people who describe themselves as e-consultants, social trending advisors or suchlike waffle. I followed the election online, but so what? It's just another delivery system for content.

And thats the problem.

They have only learned to use one direction of it. When a party comes along who really understands it, then we are going to have our Obama moment.

DeV.

Permabear

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Blowfish

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

That would only be true if Dylan actually used social media well, which quite frankly he didn't, despite his claims.

The odd tweet, a couple of youtube videos and a single interview with boards really isn't anything to write home about.

CDfm

He actually didn't use it well.

His Wikipedia entry references showed a very capable guy and that did not translate well with even wikipedia calling it a fanpage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dylan_Haskins.

hardCopy

Fine Gael's social media was all quantity and no quality. Parts of it were verging on spam, e.g. dozens of FG candidates simultaneously sending identical tweets at one point, did they think they had enough to create a trend?

Enda-Mario? Deleting comments on facebook?

Social media is supposed to be interactive it's not like old media where you can afford to ignore feedback.

I voted for them, but not because of their online campaign.

DeVore

Plus, he might have really engaged with the populace but only a very slim segment can vote for him.

I dont think you can extrapolate from one candidate, particularly a candidate who was an outlier to begin with (very non-traditional in many ways).

DeV.

Permabear

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DeVore

Did you see many smaller parties or Independents getting on our national broadcaster or face time in debates??

Our media is already massively against the little guy, social media gives them an opportunity to even the playing field.

DeV.

Permabear

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hardCopy

I think it's a great tool to maintain contact with voters on top of the traditional canvassing etc. Timewise, candidates are lucky if they get to every address in the constituency, never mind seeing everyone twice. If you can get your (potential) constituents to follow you it allows you a chance to comment on emerging news and issues.

Sites like the journal and candidate.ie make it easy for voters to follow their candidates.

If someone has decent ideas it can be a great way to routinely keep in touch with your constituents.

There is a potential risk though, if you get hit with hard questions your answers are left open for all to see. I don't think there is an appetite among many irish politicians for that level of feedback/debate. You can speak off-record to the old media, you can't do that on the internet.

DeVore

There shouldnt BE an off the record to old media. Its a means to foster a chillingly cosy arrangement where by politicians wont give a journo face time if he asks too many hard questions... in return they slip them "off the record" tidbits for publication, anonymously.


But back on topic, this is as clear as I can put it


Solid policies + traditional canvassing + social media interaction > Solid policies + traditional canvassing

and by "better" I mean better for us, the electorate. We should be demanding they answer our questions. In time, they'll *have* to.

DeV.

Blowfish

Personally, I think that the primary thing that parties need to realise is that if you compare the methods used to garner votes, the one that social media is most simlar to is not radio/TV/newspaper articles. It is in fact most similar to door-to-door canvassing.

Essentially, social media does to door-to-door canvassing what television did to giving a speech at the local town hall.

This is precisely why if used well it has huge potential for Irish politics.

johnmcdnl

Killer Pigeon wrote: »

With FG putting advertisments on gmail and beside youtube videos I say it could have had some effect.

i agree with this - they lost my vote over this

having to see ads for Leo Vradkar everytime I went near youtube made me despite the man - and add in that I couldn't even vote for Leo to begin with...


but in the broader picture online media had very little if anything to do with the results from what I've seen

Annasopra

DeVore wrote: »

Did you see many smaller parties or Independents getting on our national broadcaster or face time in debates??

Our media is already massively against the little guy, social media gives them an opportunity to even the playing field.

DeV.

Stephen Donnelly was never off the national media