Comments on: Is the Internet really changing politics?

By: Jessica Thompson

Jessica Thompson — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 02:35:11 +0000

I think while social networks have changed politics a lot, often times you see social networks on sites where they'd be better served, for reasons of branding, by not having a social network. Although again and again I've seen political social networks fail, I started on recently. It's already on page one for the search 'social network of politics' which goes to show how very little some people think about SEO. Building a userbase will never been easy work and require work to get things kicked off.
Nick
http://www.graffiti-usa.com

By: Technology and human rights at Amnesty / we are social

Technology and human rights at Amnesty / we are social — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:17:41 +0000

[...] Keen enthusiastically cited Evgeny Morozov, who talked at last year’s Demos event on the internet’s effect on politics, and his critique of the Internet in oppressive [...]

By: ncvochlo

ncvochlo — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:16:43 +0000

Denny - some of the people behind Louder also work in NCVO's Campaigning Effectiveness Team - they run a number of programmes aimed at helping grassroots organisations develop campaigns, and provide a lot of support around evaluation/improvement.

NCVO also runs a number of events, networks and produces quite a few handy guides for campaigners. Most of these resources are free - the best place to start is http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/campaigningeffective....

One of the more interesting questions for me - is how the internet is changing campaigning - I've seen some inspired example of campaigns using new media this year (the Scouts are a great example) but I've also seen some really clumsy attempts (I put my hands up here I'm still a relative novice). As Chris says we need to not lose sight of some of the basics (what are you trying to achieve, who are you trying to influence, who will be with you, who will be against you and where can you make a difference) just because we using new technology. Our Campaigns Conference – more shameless plugging - (www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/newpolitics) will be exploring this and more.

By: ncvochlo

ncvochlo — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:16:43 +0000

By: Denny

Denny — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:47:22 +0000

So there are tools like louder.org.uk helping people to stitch together the technical elements of an online grassroots campaign… is there any kind of similar/comparable resource for the 'organisational' side of it, do you think? Obviously a political party can (probably) hire professionals to help them put together a plan – what could amateurs do to improve?

Other than trial and error, that is – obviously experience is one of the things a company like wearesocial can bring to bear which just won't be accessible or available to people running a local issue campaign in their spare time. I'm wondering if there's anything else that could make up some of the gap for those people.