The Netherlands is almost ready to vote. Will this election campaign go down in history as the campaign in which social media finally broke through? In this eighth part in the series on social media and the elections, we look at how interactively politicians should use social media during the election campaign.
Since the campaign of US President Barack Obama in 2008, there have been high expectations about the role that social media can play in strengthening the bond between citizens and politicians and in making citizens active in election campaigns. Unlike traditional media, social media enable a dialogue between politicians and their supporters. In this way, citizens could play a more important role in the political process.
Our own research shows that Dutch politicians in 2011 still have a long way to go: they are mainly concerned with sending their own message, listen poorly or are extremely selective. They also indicate that they hardly know what to do with the large amounts of messages they receive from citizens. As a result, the opportunities offered by social media remain underutilized. Is that bad?
Looking for Henk and Ingrid
Let us consider a politician who only uses social media to send his own hong kong telegram data message and does not seek interaction with his supporters: Geert Wilders. He does not follow anyone on Twitter and does not answer any questions or comments. In order to determine whether this is a bad thing, we first have to look at who Wilders could interact with: who is present on Twitter and who makes statements about Wilders and the PVV? This question is not easy to answer.