baldysblog.co.uk

There was much talk during the American Presidential Campaign as to how Barak Obama and his team had “harnessed the web” to help him secure his victory. He had not just used it to project his message but also as an effective means of fund raising. The question being posed in the UK was whether a British politician or Party, could do the same.

For a whole number of reasons, I was already looking into various aspects of this for my own reasons and if of interest, in the following I will share my thoughts:

Electing a US President

Obviously in the States, the electorate vote separately for the President and for the Members who sit on Capitol Hill. Technically, the electorate do not vote for the President directly in the sense that the winner is the one who gets most votes nationally, the arrangement is slightly different.

Each State has a voting college with a specific number of votes to cast at the national level dependent upon the size of their population. In each State, the “first past the post” in the popular vote, gathers all the “College Votes” so that it is possible for a candidate to “win the popular vote” at a national level and yet not gain the Presidency.

However, all that said, in the US people vote directly for the US President, in the UK we do not vote directly for the Prime Minister, we vote for a local candidate and the Leader of the largest party within Parliament is invited by Her Majesty to form a Government.

Why It Can Work in the US

Because effectively the voters elect the President directly, campaigns are national rather than local, so that “special interest groups” such Pro-Life, Pro-Choice, Gay, Straight, Women’s Groups, NRA, Black, Hispanic, Jewish, Catholic and so forth can be specifically targeted by the campaign and therefore the web as a ‘message medium’ is excellent.

Just as one site may deliver its pages in multiple languages English, French, German, Italian, Chinese, Spanish etc so too it could deliver specific pitches to particular interest groups by creating particular sections of the site that answer the question: “What’s in it for ME !”

Also if people have bought into the campaign, a web site is a useful way collecting ‘campaign donations’. Unfortunately and because of our electoral system, virtually none of this can or does work in the UK where in reality all campaigns are local. Unless one has a constituency where there are heavy concentrations of say Asian immigrants, Irish or, whatever, there is no point in targeting an “Asian or Irish” vote in the UK at the national level.

But there is More in a UK Context…

One of my Sons has worked as a technical journalist on both photographic and computer magazines and he would talk about the demographic or target audiences. Apparently the majority of people who by photographic magazines are male, middle class and over 50, they have both the time and money to pursue their interest, younger people don’t.

When it comes to email, people like myself took to it easily from a background of letter writing and therefore I suppose too, blogging but younger people aren’t interested in either, for them it is Text Messaging, Instant Messaging, Facebook, You Tube and Twitter, keeping personal contact but in tiny bursts.

However it is more than that, it is not just young people who have a short attention span and no desire for intellectual activity, older web users are little better. I have always been interested in the “mail in readers opinions” on the Telegraph, Guardian and Independent because they give people ‘space’ to express themselves.

Over the past 6 months, I have on the odd occasion been a bit naughty in trying to wind people up to see where it goes and I have come to some definite conclusions from my experiences:

The people who contribute to these Comment/Blog sections are likely retired or, economically inactive in some ways, the patterns are quite clear based upon their frequency of posting plus the time of day they post. What a lot of them seem to like is the idea of belonging to a “virtual club” with some kind of anonymous avatar/persona, very rarely their actual name.

What is also noticeable is that the vast majority with the odd delightful exception, are very fixed in their ideas and not amenable to consider alternatives also, before they post, they never seem to read what other people say who have already posted, they are not open minded and prepared to be “challenged”, are often very stubborn.

A Conclusion

I do not see that for new and “breakthrough” political ideas that the web has much to offer the British Political scene and even for established political parties, I suspect that they will only be preaching to the converted, a Labour supporter is hardly likely to look at the Tory web site and vice versa.

For information most probably would expect to get it from the TV and newspapers although they as businesses are in such a mess not knowing whether they are Arthur or Martha, they are not very reliable either. In time things may change but right now and whilst not to be ignored, the web has limited political pull in the UK.

Why My Interest ?

I decided that I wanted to radically overhaul this blog a good 6-7 months ago not just in terms of a radical “new look” which is easily done in WordPress but given the potential of multi-media to concentrate on just one main theme. Politically my main passion would be the British Constitution and the current mess we are in due to idiot politicians and the EU.

However and despite their importance, “constitutions” are only of interest to a minority so that regardless of the media you use, trying to get any traction on that as a subject is not very likely and besides which, I tend to write rather long blogs…so what to do as my “specialist subject” ?

In fact whilst doing a visual design change to this blog I will continue as currently using it as a personal space for my various jottings but as I have two other web “Domains” to play with I have decided to concentrate most of my efforts in a totally new direction – the Somerset Levels.

Although because of my Mother whom I can’t leave for any duration because of her poor health, I can start to build a “template” for the site by just concentrating on where I am and then later when I have greater freedom, explore, photograph, film and write up the “Levels” as it is today and its history which should be helpful for people who visit the area.