It’s time to revolutionise political communications
David Cameron’s ‘on-the-phone-to-Obama’ selfie.
Society, culture and business are being transformed by the digital revolution, writes EngageSciences’s Richard Jones – yet our political system remains aloof and out of step. It’s time for some drastic changes.
In a new digital world, where consumers expect real-time engagement across any device they are operating on, companies that aren’t set up to engage with consumers in this way face extinction.
Although most of them don’t know it, politicians face exactly the same digital disruption as brands do. To most people the Westminster system appears to operate in a world where digital media doesn’t exist. They are ignoring the disruption caused by digital that’s revolutionising the way most industries operate. The result is a system more aloof and out of step than it’s ever been.
Digital has disrupted many sectors. Look at the taxi world with Uber, the app that’s transforming the taxi industry globally. It allows consumers to track private drivers, with exact estimates of their arrival before they order. Also it empowers taxi drivers to take fares when and where they want them.
Retail has been turned upside down by digital disruption with Amazon and Alibaba becoming two of the world’s biggest companies by providing more choice, consumer ratings and a digital shopping experience and delivery.
It’s really part of a wider protest vote against Westminster and our current political system.”
Even the banking industry, with its reputation for being adverse to change, has been embracing the developments brought about by the digital world, with apps that make it easier for customers to move their money and check their balances.
As for the media and marketing industry, I’m sure most readers understand the impact of digital on this sector.
Yet while digital media is radically changing the way we all operate it’s not filtered through to most politicians and the process they operate in. In my opinion, it’s a key reason why support for the main political parties – Conservatives, Labour and Liberal Democrats – is falling, and why the likes of former fringe parties, UKIP and the SNP, are starting to do so well. It’s really part of a wider protest vote against Westminster and our current political system.
The majority of politicians have no understanding of how Millennials and Generation Z consume content. Will most MPs have heard of 24 year-old vlogger, Zoella? Unlikely. And yet she has over six million subscribers to her YouTube channel – more than the daily print circulation of the Sun and Daily Mail combined.
Also, with elections every four or five years, involving two or three parties that are all vying for the swing vote, involvement in politics is completely at odds with the fact that choice and being heard is amplified in every other sphere of life for the younger digital native.
They live in a world where brands are crowdsourcing product ideas, where user generated content, ratings and reviews and the ‘social politic’ literally make or break companies, products and services in hours, days or weeks. This new breed of consumer wants instant impact and answers, something they can’t currently obtain via the current political process.
Compare the world the digital native inhabits to a political system tacitly calling itself democracy, except that to the digital native democracy doesn’t seem very democratic. Where is their choice? Where is their power to influence things at the touch of the button? Where is change even possible?
The digital native will not understand a system of representation that is hundreds of years old, reflecting the limits of technology available at its inception.
You voted for the representative in your area, who then travelled often hundreds of miles by horse to represent your area at Westminster for the next four years. That was the only form of representation possible in a world without modern technology. Politics today is as far away from that world of digital content, digital reviews and digital choice as you could possibly ever get.
You only need to watch Prime Minister’s Questions each week to get a sense of how closed the UK’s political system is and how remote politicians have become. As members of the house shout each other down, ordinary people have no opportunity to meaningfully engage with the debate.
For a British electorate increasingly disenchanted by the political system…social media offers the chance to start genuine and meaningful dialogue.”
In a participatory age, brought about by mobile and social, the current system is increasingly at odds with the real world. And it’s about to crack.
Devolution is driven not by nationalism, but by a desire to see more representation. Unfortunately it will only deliver more politicians on four year power cycles, with little input from the common man.
It’s actually the reverse of what the digital native requires in order for democracy to have a future. The London riots of 2011, I believe, were in part a reflection of the same problem. It illustrated disenchantment with the status quo and helplessness to invoke change.
So what’s the solution?
For a British electorate increasingly disenchanted by the political system and still reeling from the fallout over the expenses scandal, social media offers the chance to start genuine and meaningful dialogue. The problem has been that too many of our politicians do the bare minimum. In other words, they set up a Twitter or Facebook profile and then have PR and social media teams update them with boring and meaningless content. David Cameron’s embarrassing ‘on-the-phone-to-Obama’ selfie is just one example.
Why can’t some of the questions put to the Prime Minister at PMQs each week come from ordinary members of the public who send them via social media channels? One of the great successes of the Scottish Independence referendum was that large swathes of the electorate were encouraged to add their voice to each campaign. You could argue the televised debates between Alex Salmond and Alistair Darling were side shows, with the vast majority of conversations taking place between friends and family, particularly on social media.
If politicians are willing to embrace social, it has the potential to revolutionise the whole political process. But it needs to be more than just dialogue. The Scottish independence referendum had huge turn out because it reflected a real choice, not of parties but of policy. That has to be the only route for democracy to survive and thrive. Representation has to reflect the technology of today not of yesterday.
We’re already voting for the winners of various reality and talent shows on television, why can’t we do the same with key decisions on welfare, defence and public spending? Real choice, real power, real change.
The political elite will resist this of course. At the end of the day the interests of power and democracy are not well aligned. They will use arguments that belittle the electorate, they will say we are not educated enough to make key decisions.
However, I would argue that the Scottish referendum has shown that the common man can be both energised with politics and debate complex issues with detail if there is real choice and real power to effect change. What we need is political leaders to rise that love democracy more than power. I predict that won’t happen until digital natives are old enough to be in power.
Richard Jones is founder and CEO of EngageSciences.