There is a lot of hype about the impact of social media, YouTube, Facebook, Blogs and the like on influencing the upcoming elections here in Australia. How about try interest rates, unemployment, house values, perception of wealth, access to health care, job security, cost of groceries, education, access to health care........ basic stuff.
All the other stuff is on the margin.
2 comments:
I hear you, but candidates have to tell stories about interest rates, unemployment, etc to win government. This will be the first Australian Federal election in which social media will be an important forum in which those stories are told. In the process, social media will affect how those stories are told, not least by putting them on a same footing as the stories told by voters, activists, cynics, and absolutely anyone else.
Hi Colin, social media itself is not one of the issues. What I was getting at on my blog is that social media offer channels to discuss the issues, they're just not being used properly in Australia.
I would like to agree with Steven that social media will offer important forums for debate in the coming federal election but, as I said on the blog, there's little sign of our politicians being savvy enough to use it. If the channels do become important, it'll be because activists become more savvy than they have been so far.
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