Social networking gets political

I've just caught up on the story (via Simon Collister) that the Tory party are planning to launch a social networking site to discuss major issues like climate change, and to facilitate activities including volunteering. Here's why I think this has importance beyond the way the Conservative Party positions itself "as an alternative to Labour's 'nanny' state approach" as BrandRepublic puts it in the original story - although that is interesting enough. These are just immediate thoughts from recent links and what's in my head at the moment ... more welcome....

• Social networking sites - where people have their own online space and can network with others for fun, serious business, or a mix of the two - are attracting a lot of users and investment. (MySpace, Ecademy and lots more)
• Blog communities are developing to complement other forms of online communities, where again there is a mix of personal and collective space.
• The idea that crowds of people may be better, in some situations, at formulating ideas and making decisions is getting a lot of attention through the book The Wisdom of Crowds. Dave Pollard has a very useful analysis of what works best with crowds, groups and individuals.
• Policy Unplugged is exploring the mix of face-to-face social conferencing with blog communities ... and no doubt others are too.
• Nonprofit organisations are looking at social networking. NCVO is currently researching the significance for the sector, organisations in the east Midlands have a collaboration site

Pause for a moment ... all the above mean that there is a growing body of people across age groups, sectors and professions who are beginning to be comfortable with the development of relationships, ideas and actions through a mix of existing and new contacts, mediated by using a mix of different ways of communicating.
Then add in the approach being develop by the leading think tank Demos, with a web site ideally suited to feed and respond to all of the above ... because people can blend different items from blog posts, events, publications into their own contributions and so into whatever social networking platform they wish.
All this is a step beyond more conventional e-participation or e-democracy, where people are usually responding to something generated by government or another power-holding body. Influence isn't just more bottom-up it's potentially coming from all sides.
The ideas and practices of social networking are more developed in the US, and there is some analysis: Will social networks change politics? However, the focus is usually just on the online environment - candidates in MySpace, discussion in the networks etc. I think things get more interesting as the online-offline division starts to go (mixing meetings and blogging), and when old-style research and policy development becomes interactive and transparent as Demos is attempting to do.
This does, of course, raise yet another form of the digital divide. If social networking is a sphere of influence those with networking skills may become disproportionately influential. Of course, it was always thus ... just the nature of the clubs is changing.

Comments

[Graham Lally]

Similarly, should I reply here, on the mailing list, or via my blog? :) Here will do, I guess. Feel free to re-post this reply anywhere...

"Will social networks change politics?" Or rather, will politics change social networks?

I suggested earlier this week that social networks - especially those that are built on top of more media-centric ideas - will become more "purposed", integrated with content and hardware providers. I suspect the same idea can be applied along competitive political lines - in both cases, popularity of the "product" is attached inherently to the service provider rather than to the content being produced (in the same way Flickr and YouTube are valued now, but with more control).

The second aspect is the possibly hypothetical belief that all people come together in social network spaces. In reality, it seems to me that social networking spaces usually etsbalish and.or encourage borders to spring up between people - either according to the service that people choose to use (e.g. MySpace or Tribe) or in the spheres they interact with - i.e. users tend to prefer finding people of similar persuasion, rather than exploring a diverse range of opinions. I wonder if either of these are at odds with the Tory's apparent aim of getting people to interact with not each other, but with the party-cum-service provider.

In short, the question is: is this really a workable/feasible approach to developing policies? Or is it just the adoption of more buzz, in what could actually turn out to simply be a lame "viral" marketing stunt? What will it do that less viral, but more diverse communication methods (such as forums and mailing lists) can't achieve?

[Polzoo]

Polzoo.com is a political social networking site. The focus is to create good content, spur discussion and connect members. The site is still in beta testing but loose ends will be wrapped up soon.