Forget The Sun… Facebook could be the new election clincher

We’ve heard about Webcam, (cringe) and Sarah Brown’s tweets, dear ol’ Mr PM and his youtube attempts… But they seemed to me more like amusing follies, and unlikely to really make or break an election campaign.

But today, Channel 4 has been talking about the upcoming national voting session as “the first Facebook election”. It’s running the story because tomorrow Facebook is launching a page called “Democracy UK”, which will detail campaign news from each of the major parties.

When I was researching my PFW documentary, I asked a lot of young people about how they think Facebook could get young people more involved in politics. The general response was this: it worked for Obama, but it mainly  because he got young people to do a lot of canvassing via social media. This meant that it was young people talking to other young people through “young people’s” media. In contrast, the majority of people thought that Webcam was ridiculous, and that it seems like an embarrassing after-thought for politicians to shamelessly hunt votes by awkwardly jumping onto the social media band-wagon.

When I asked the same group of young people ways in which they would suggest getting British youth more involved in politics through social media, they all seemed to recognize the potential, but not one was able to suggest means of doing it. And I think that Democracy UK might well be right on the money!

Being able to inform yourself on party policy – by doing a simple search onto a Facebook page, whilst you’re chatting to your friends and admiring the glossy picture you have of yourself at the top of the screen – really brings policy to where the people are. The main reason that young people don’t vote, is because they’re not informed enough. (If you have any doubts about this, I’ve got an 8 minute documentary of pure radio genius to convince you of the point… ) If it’s not the over-arching reason, it’s certainly a factor. And I think that being able to casually peruse for party policy all within the comfort and safety of your own Facebook account, means there’s a good chance that young people at least will be more knowledgeable and more therefore perhaps more likely to vote in the coming election.

As channel 4 nimbly makes the point, there are 24 Facebook users in the UK. Almost as many people as the number who voted in the last election. Facebook could really make for some shiny electronic political capital.

Lydia