Editorial Articles

The 2010 general election will very much be the first digital election the UK has seen. But not in the way the main parties think.

By digital election we really mean one where online communities, commentary and tools play a significant role in the democratic process. In the last US presidential election that happened because online tools were used (famously MyBarackObama.com) to help organise real world communities, and to solicit and manage small donations given against specific issues.

The main political parties in the UK seem to be just trying to lazily copy the US formula – and it doesn’t seem to be working. Perhaps that’s because the UK isn’t the US. It’s a different society, a different culture, a different political process, even just a different year (there’s been a recession after all). Or perhaps it’s because the online tools didn’t win the election for Obama; Obama won the election for Obama. He was a new, fresh, positive, charismatic, substantial candidate with a clearly defined campaign platform that had unifying cultural relevance.

UK 2010 isn’t going to be that kind of election. There isn’t anything new, or fresh, or positive going on – despite the public’s appetite for it, after expensesgate. No, it’s the same old political class, peddling the same old policies, with a veneer of PR difference between them. And it feels tired and negative. This election won’t be won, it will be lost. In the absence of any real policies or characters, cultural awareness and poise will be the measure by which capability is judged. The election will be won by the party or leader who makes the fewest gaffs, who looks least ridiculous.

Digital media will provide a crucible for the analysis, and satirisation of every move the leading characters make. It’s started already, with the mumsnet community dismantling Gordon Brown for dodging a question about biscuits. Or with MyDavidCameron.com pillorying Cameron’s overtly airbrushed photo on a campaign poster, and providing tools for people to easily ‘remix’ their own parodies of it. Twitter, then Facebook, then email will be the tools by which these memes spread. This is guerrilla, viral politics.

Is this an overly dark view? Maybe. There are more positive and interesting politics, and political uses of digital media, happening at the fringes. Green candidates have made good use of single issue social media campaigns. And I’m hopeful that, next time around, there’ll be candidates to believe in, and that digital tools can then play a more constructive and positive role.

But for this election, candidates need to be learning their digital media lessons not from Obama’s election campaign, but from how Rage Against The Machine beat the X-Factor to Christmas No. 1.

Glyn Britton
Strategy Director, Albion