The BC Leadership Race and the Politics of Facebook
It is now just over 2 weeks before the BC Leadership elections and it is time to start some guessing as to who will take the laurels. I have always found that, in elections it feels like one is fighting in the dark; other than scattered and unrelaible polls, there is no indicator one can look to to see how one is doing.
One completely unscientific predictor is the number of friends each of the candidates has on facebook. Here are the standings as of October 4.
Ben West: 584
Damian Kettlewell: 170
Sylvaine Zimmerman: 132
Jane Sterk: 36
Jack Etkin: none
Now, one may argue that social networking via facebook is not an reliable indicator of political choice; one may become friends with more than one candidate as a means to evaluate their choice. It is not an indication of political involvement; those who are friends of facebook may not necessarily be members of the Green Party of BC and thus not allowed to vote.
However, friends in facebook is a list of contacts whereby a candidate can solicit volunteers, money and support from a member’s network. So even if those within one’s facebook network are not members of the party, they can exercise significant influence on the campaign.
It will be interesting to see how facebook friends translate into Green Party votes. If there is a correlation, then it will be Ben West by a landslide; if there is no correlation, then there will be doubt cast on facebook as a tool of political efficacy.
October 5th, 2007 at 8:08 am
The emphasis being on “unscientific”.
I think you’re just tripping out on yet another digital medium, a glorified form of e-mail.
People can say anything they want - and, of course, Facebook is ideal for “soft activism” (i.e. where no real committments are made, no money is donated, no one needs to show up at an actual debate).
Having said that, the ‘mainstream’ media here in Ontario finally started to mention the MMP referendum, with less than a week to go in the elections. And I finally saw one (yes, 1) poster downtown Ottawa that was pro-MMP. I guess the MMP people were too busy talking to each other on Facebook or something like that…
October 5th, 2007 at 11:36 am
All I’m saying is that we are starting to see the use of facebook in a political leadership race. In no way am I glorifying the technology. I merely point out that we will be able to see if facebook recruitement mirrors the results.
If Ben West gets his ass handed to him, then I think that the credibility of facebook as a campaign tool will be seriously diminished.
Don’t get me started on the MMP campaign. The Greens flew in Jeanette Fitsimmons, co-Leader of the Green Party in New Zealand, a country that successfully transitioned to MMP from FPTP.
There was virtually no media coverage of her visit and tour despite strong efforts by the MMP folks and the Greens to set up press conferences.
The failure of the media to cover the MMP thing, the failure of Elections Ontario to aedequately promote MMP all stinks of a set up.