Seeking Trust

Finally there is to be an overhaul of MP's funding, perhaps the move is too late, and some may say too little (either in stringency or generosity) but the allowances are going to be converted into a flat rate. The announcement was not to the press gallery, and was not leaked prior to announcement, but was released in video format to be embedded on news sites etc (it is below), so why this new way of releasing an announcement?



Well here is my take. The video can be embedded, as said, it is short and easy to watch or listen to (1.28 minutes) and so the message can be delivered directly to the news audience by Brown without commentary. Also the whole thing could be shown on news bulletins, though this is unlikely after the first release which was broadcast on BBC24 etc. But also it is about trust. In theory, and perhaps the credibility Brown has is the question that may mediate this, a direct announcement is trusted. A politician looking sincerely into the camera, saying the things that many wanted to hear after the succession of near-scandals, places the speaker as someone in touch and to be trusted. Perhaps it is also timely given Brown's slump in the polls and his loss of credibility in running the economy; though this perhaps assumes too much strategy and quick thinking. It could be the start of a series of broadcasts, from any or all parties, first released to the media and then posted to YouTube maybe. Basically it is the ongoing party political broadcast, though without the introduction suggesting it is time to put the kettle on. Will it work is the big question?

Twitter and Nudge

I had a thought when putting a few additions into a lecture last week. The lecture was all about media effects in this modern age of message overload and media fragmentation and started with the rather jokey 'what do we know... Nothing' argument. However a thought evolved. It is said that nudge works, that is the simple and often immediate message that gets people to act in a certain way at that instant - the idea is that it is habit forming but it does not need to be. To me nudge could be applied to all manner of things from point of sale goodies (mmm Cadbury's Cream Eggs are in season again) to the classic example of the fly that is painted not only on the urinals of Schiphol Airport but also those on the campus of the University of Antwerp I noted (they help poor blokes such as me to hit said 'pot' in the optimum place to avoid unnecessary mess - not an admission of requiring a painted on fly of course but some apparently do). So that is nudge, fine, but that was clearly not the original thought. No, I was curious about whether there were any applications for electioneering? Well the closest thing is if you can capture floating voters who are signed up to Twitter and get alerts to their Blackberry. So here is the idea, will parties in the future be trying to discover which of their followers are loyal or not (could one indicator be if they follow more than one party or MP for example), would they then try to target tweets at those voters in a competition to be the last one to tweet before said voters enter the ballot box. So the question could this be a way that Twitter could be used as a Nudge tool to attempt to influence voting behaviour? Alternatively am I having a Lemsip fuelled moment of complete madness?

Ending the relationship

It saves £3 million a year, and that money will go into planting 10,000 trees in residential areas by 2012 (fitting nicely with the Conservative's new green ethos), but will the axing of the Mayor's personal Newspaper 'The Londoner' have a negative impact? Direct mail and direct communication is argued to be able to build a relationship of trust between sender and receiver. Receivers feel informed, and that someone cares about informing them, and also get a sense of transparency in what is happening. Livingstone's version of The Londoner was often criticised as being is propaganda tool (Pravda), but if this was true it did not have to have that function. While Boris Johnson's team pursue cost cutting, could the death of The Londoner be a saving he regrets later when the Evening Standard begins to criticise him and he is unable to directly communicate to the majority of Londoners? It is a question, and it is being debated on an Urban75 forum; interesting comments on both sides, and interesting example of the online public sphere in action.

The Facebook Experiment

There is a David Cameron fansite on Facebook, it is bland, non-interactive and I am surprised to say that it managed 710 fans, I was also a little surprised the party, or Cameron had bothered, given their use of other websites. Actually they had not. Mike Rouse came clean admitting it was "an exercise in proving that Facebook is a place that Cameron and his office and the wider Conservative Party (and politicians of other persuasions too for that matter) could come to engage with people" and he says he has "deliberately not advertised the group or added many applications to the page, just to show that 100 people could be reached just simply by having this page". It worked, his task is now to lobby Conservative Central office to get approval.

One problem though, why do people become fans of David Cameron or any politician? Not, as in the case of Adrian Sanders who I blogged about on Sunday, to get in contact with him or to interact; none of that goes on via his fansite. So a word of caution with this, Facebook is about social networking not promotion. There is already a backlash among members against the amount of applications that are really nothing more than advertising. Politicians should join if they want to network and use the network, but not just to have a profile sat there to say 'I'm here'. If you cant throw sheep at or play scrabble with them (metaphors for various applications), they are not real members.

Txt if ur up 4 it!

'Txt if ur up 4 it' was one gimmick that New Labour devised in 2001 for getting young voters to turnout. Basically it was sent out to all numbers that registered. US Democrat nominee hopeful John Edwards is going one step further. Edwards is said to have more than 13,000 supporters on his database, created by texting 'HOPE' to 30644, and is planning to send them all the message: “Will u donate $ to my campaign?”. Those who reply will then be diverted to a recorded message that tells them

“I’m calling to remind you that with just over a week before the end of the quarter the time to act is now. I’m not asking you to help us out-raise everyone else. I’m only asking you for what we need to get our message of real change out to voters in Iowa, New Hampshire, and other key states nationwide.”

Simon Pleasants asks "With cell phone messages becoming the latest tool in the race for cash among the campaigns, we have to wonder what the most popular reply will be in texting lingo for those who don’t want solicitations? There’s always the “$0,” as in zero, on the phone pad. Or, No tks, TTYL". Fair point, what this demonstrates is another aspect of the technology driven professional campaign that is using all resources to increase the chances of victory. Edwards is planning to start a dialogue later in the campaign, though some commentators feel this should have been the first stage, by asking people to phone in their comments and issues. hese, accompanied by Edwards' response, will be posted on his website so pulling people closer to his campaign.