#onlinedemocracyornoise

Let me set the scene – it’s a few days before the end of the working year, and there is a combination of exhaustion, relief and excitement for the imminent holidays among colleagues. Then  in random unison…….we get, not one but two unsolicited text messages from Clive Palmer’s United Australia Party (UAP) proclaiming support for a ban on unsolicited text messages! 

Clive himself, hailed the campaign as a success for the UAP, claiming that after the scatter-gun distribution of 5.6 million texts, 265,000 people looked at his party’s website for longer than one minute, and only 3,000 formal complaints were received ( Sweeney & Doran, 2019).

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-14/clive-palmer-says-to-expect-more-text-messages/10714048

I think this twitter summed up my sentiment fairly  well

 If the measure of success was the number of hits on the websites (as inferred above by UAP), then how does this translate to civil and democratic participation with the goal of “making Australia great”?   Or am I, along with others just caught up in the entertainment (or irony) of the campaign, that we don’t stop to think or expect a political party to achieve goals that improve our way of life? Political science professor, Jodi Dean (2013) terms this as reflexivity, and one element to her argument that social media are not powerful forces for egalitarian purposes.  Dean(2013) asserts that the pleasure and pain psychological drives in individuals can mean we are caught in the experience and not the content.

Known as an Australian wealthy businessman come politician, does Palmer’s obtrusive campaign demonstrate an ostentatious lifestyle both on and off the political stage, and one far removed from most of the population? Jodi Dean (2013) asserts that democracy is a political slogan, and that the convergence of communication and capitalism has materialized into the formation of “communication capitalism”.  Further, Dean draws a comparison to industrial capitalism, in which she states there was an exploitation of workers, communication capitalism is an exploitation of communication (cite video).

“We pay with attention, and cost is focus”    (Dean, 2013)

The UAP, along with other politicians may be using social media and digital platforms to appeal and attract younger votes.   As Jericho (2013, p.256) claims, Malcom Gladwell was right in saying that social media are never going to change things if political activists don’t relate to the offline world.  Although Gladwell adds that social media may be the spark that lights the fire needed for social movement (Jericho 2013, p.258).

In a US study of politics on social media by Kruse et al (2017, p. 62), information collected from millennials and generation Xers found that they avoid political discourse online due to the following influences; fear of online harassment and workplace surveillance;  only engage with politically similar others, or a “hug box” mentality; and they consider social media as a happy place for light interactions.

Although social media may strengthen existing social movements, there is little evidence  suggesting their role in encouraging civil political discourse. 

“Social media moving political attention away from the doing to the appearing” (Dean, 2013)

 Democracy or noise?  You choose.

 References

DCU School of Communication 2013, IAMCR 2013 Plenary No. 3 - Jodi Dean, 3 July, viewed 26 September 2018, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5ABPuNQ6IU>.

Jericho, G 2012, 'How many votes are there on Twitter?', in The Rise of the Fifth Estate, Scribe, Victoria, Australia.

Lisa M. Kruse, Dawn R. Norris & Jonathan R. Flinchum (2018) Social Media as a Public Sphere? Politics on Social Media, The Sociological Quarterly, 59:1, 62-84, DOI: 10.1080/00380253.2017.1383143