With the election buzz heating up and a constant mob of
campaigners at ever corner, it seems only logical to write a blog post about
it. I have only been of voting age for two years now and experienced one
election in that time, and honestly, its just overwhelming. Not only do we need
to sort through the copious campaign information from each party, but whose is
to say any of these guys are being honest? Fortunately for me I ran across a
twitter post linking me to an interactive interview with the four main
candidates (PC, Wildrose, Liberal and NDP). The post was simple: An over-coffee
interview hitting on the main issue facing Alberta. This was perfect for
someone like me as I could listen to the party platforms whilst checking my
emails/twitter/facebook/eclass. Unlike my mother and the majority of her
generation, I didn’t read the paper, or watch the news or read pamphlets to
gain party information because those things don’t really have a major role in
my life. Students like myself are always on the go. My iphone is my third lung
and I do everything with it so if you can get information to me via my iphone, I’m
yours! Because the role of social media in politics intrigued me so much I
began searching the web for some positive examples. I ran across a blog called
Interactive Multimedia Technology written by Lynn Marentette. She blogs about
every modern technology and social media. One of her blog posts sparked my
interest.
TED talk. Jennifer Pehkla discussed her involvement in the
program Code for Government and the growing use of apps to make government more
efficient and effective. http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang///id/1381
Code
for Government encourages the use of apps to make government more effective as
citizens can now take a more active role in their communities. Pehkla brings up
a crucial point, ”there is a generation out there that’s grown up on the
internet and they know that its not that hard to do things together you just
have to architect the systems that way”. We are moving from united within a
nation to united internationally; I can tweet to people in china and share
photos on flickr with people in Norway. The point Pehkla is trying to get at is that my
generation is pro participatory citizenship; we are just lacking the gateway
(social media and technology).
Back
to the Alberta election. I came across an interview with the Wildrose leader
Danielle Smith and Liberal leader Raj Sherman. The article titled “Social Media and Technology in Alberta's Provincial Election: The Leaders View”,
touched on topics such as the use of twitter and Facebook, old campaign tools
vs. new campaign tools and both politicians thoughts. I was disappointed to
learn that neither leader really thought social media tools were all that
useful. In fact, both strongly preferred old methods such as “demon dialing”,
“telephone town halls” and lawn signs. I understand the point both politicians
were trying to make, that older voters still want face-to-face but the fact
that technology is a mere “compliment” to their campaigns is kind of insulting.
For a young generation that relies, lives, breathes on the Internet I would
like to be a more important consideration. Young voters can be reached and are
not self-absorbed, they are quite the opposite or why would we log in to Facebook
to read about OTHER people’s lives. We are a social generation, an involved
generation. But like Jennifer Pehkla said we need a government that facilitates
that type of citizenship. There are companies that design apps for this type of
thing one example being purple forge. How awesome would it be to, while riding
the bus, pull up an app that shows the major issues of the day and allows you
to directly contact your MLA. I want to know if you are closing down a school, need
snow shovellers in my community, what your doing to decrease crime and drug use
on stony plain road. This is where I live; and similar to the say I have when I tweet,
I want to to have a say in my community and city in a way that is convenient
and directly at my fingertips.
To read about another bloggers thoughts on the growth of social media and technology check out this blog!
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