Transparency, Social Media and Cultural Patterns

Horrible Quality on Twitter Article in SvD

I read the article on the website of the Swedish newspaper SvD titled: ”Twitter-noviser missar väljare” [Twitter-novices misses voters]

Interesting how an article with such low quality can be posted on one of the bigger Swedish Newspapers. This clearly shows that traditional media has a poor understanding how social media works. It also shows the eagerness from traditional media to down-play the importance of social-media by releasing negative articles like these.

The aim of the article written on SvD was as a response to the recent employment of several social-media experts. The reporter wanted to test if there was a social-media presence from our Swedish politicians. The reporter decided to narrow down his research to one social media. The research that followed on Twitter was of very poor quality.

The reporter begins his research by starting up a completely new account on twitter. This new account he does not even take the effort to fill out completely. NO bio and NO picture. He continues by spamming out one message each to every politician on his list (81) within 3 hrs. The spam is only inter-punctuated by a few small tweets which the reporter probably believes are normal for Twitter:

Uppe med solen 12:06 PM Jan 20th from web
Tycker att det får räcka med snö nu 12:16 PM Jan 20th from web
Har ätit en god lunch med polarna 12:11 PM Jan 20th from web
Testar testar 12:27 PM Jan 20th from web
Haha 12:36 PM Jan 20th from web
Twitter ist fantastic 12:36 PM Jan 20th from web
tebax efter sen lunch 2:21 PM Jan 20th from web
mörkret faller, men vi går mot ljusare tider 2:31 PM Jan 20th from web
Lite tam riksdagsdebatt eller vad säger ni? 2:42 PM Jan 20th from web
Hej och hå teknikproblem 2:48 PM Jan 20th from web
Stopp på tuben 4:02 PM Jan 20th from web
På väg hem 3:07 PM Jan 20th from web
Börjar tröttna på survädret 3:06 PM Jan 20th from web

The only thing to notice here is the reporters poor understanding of what people tweet, the fact that the SvD reporter counts being up at 12pm as ”waking up with the sun” and that they apparently eat lunch twice at SvD:)

The list of politicians on Twitter that the reporters use contains 81 people, some of these not updated in a VERY LONG time!
E.g. last tweet: Jun 1st, 2009, May 27th, 2009, May 31st, 2009 <- not sure why he expects a reply from DEAD accounts.
He still sends these accounts a message to get his statistics inflated a bit. He later in the body adds his definition of an active account which he sets as active within the last month(!) Real-time social-media activity dies a lot quicker then that. When he subtracts his definition of dead accounts he ends up with 59 ”active” politicians.

A revised conclusion for the ”research” done by SvD’s reporter.
13/59 replied to a ”spam account” with no bio or picture. Seeing that it was obviously not a voter with serious questions  I believe the reporter should be happy with the response rate, especially when those 59 accounts are adjusted to only the ‘real’ active accounts instead of including all updated within the last month. For those 13 politicians who actively took the time to write a response the questions asked the reporter didn’t even reply back and thank them.

Social media is about discussion, don’t claim someone doesn’t know it if you clearly don’t know it either!

Political Communication in Facebook and by Piratpartiet

We had a workshop about political communication where we chose to do some interviews on political communication and social media. The interview with Zana was done over e-mail and the one with Anna was taken over the phone. Both interviews were done in Swedish and translated into English by me. I’m happy to correct any misstakes I might have made in the translation if you point them out.

The two interviews were conducted with:
Zana Hussan, who started one of Sweden’s biggest Facebook groups ”Sverigedemokraterna i Riksdagen – Nej Tack!”
Anna Troberg, Vice Vice Chairman of Piratpartiet

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Interview with Zana Hussan
The Facebook group ”Sverigedemokraterna i Riksdagen – Nej tack!” was created by Zana Hussan on August 31st 2009. The group is in response to ”Sverigedemokraterna” (SD), who is an extreme right party trying to get into the Swedish parliament. The aim of the group is to show that SD is not wanted in the parliament according to the group members. The group has no political ties and is open for everyone that wants to renounce the party. The group managed to reach 300.000 members in its’ first five months which is a significant amount compared to the population of Sweden of 9M inhabitants. The ”anti-group” that started in response to this group managed to reach 16.000 members.

”…large groups will remain latent and ineffective if not mobilized by selective incentives” (”Democracy and Lobbying in the European Union” by Karolina Karr, p. 46)

”I had been thinking a long time about there being no organization or movement on internet collecting Sweden against racism, xenophobia and especially against ”Sverigedemokraterna”. Xenophobia isn’t a left or right question but a question for all of Sweden. I wanted to do my part in this which is why I created this Facebook group with an ambitious goal of collecting the broad Sweden with everything from the stockbroker to the assistant nurse”

Zana writes that he wants the group to be a rally point for discussions and actions where everyone is welcome to debate. Members are able and encouraged to share articles, arguments, experiences and strategies. Zana stresses the importance of not being quiet to the members of the group.

”People who are members in the group can achieve something by showing that they refuse to be quiet and thereby actively taking a stance for diversity and against racism. I constantly encourage people to become members of a political party or an organization to have a better influence in society”

Interview with Anna Troberg
Piratpartiet is a Swedish political party that started in 2006 to limit intellectual property and enhance the rights for a private life. Piratpartiet has from their upstart been in the forefront of internet and has had a big presence in social media. Politometern just listed the most influential political blogs in Sweden where Piratpartiet was listed in 10 places in the top 25, this despite that the party has only existed since 2006.

Anna Troberg told us that Piratpartiet uses social media for a lot of their political communication. One of the reasons for them working mainly with social media is that newly started parties in Sweden have very limited resources, the other reason is because of it being an effective way of communicating. She also emphasized that even if they had more resources they would keep using social media to the same extent as today. Blogs, Facebook and Twitter often create a discussion climate where people have an ability to express themselves in a deliberative democracy. Anna believes that through social media the political communication of smaller parties has been simplified but that the traditional parties have a hard time adjusting.

Piratpartiet has an official Facebook group  with 20.000 members and an official Twitter account. Their twitter account is most of the time updated through their Skype channel which is accessible to 70-80 of their members. Piratpartiet also set up a ”live web page” to monitor and inform people about what is being said about the party.

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Some Conclusions
Social media will become more and more important, not only in political communication but also in other areas of society. There is a lot of talk about social media and the effect it will have on this coming election in September and many are inspired by Barack Obama’s campaigning for presidency in 2008. Social media has a big effect as a creator of public opinion which can easily be seen by a group on Facebook managing to rally 300.000 members or by Piratpartiet managing to get 7% of Swedish votes in the EU-election. The ”two step flow of communications” also maintains an important part in the spreading of information through opinion leaders who passes it on to a greater mass.

The importance of having a big network and several channels to reach people is of bigger importance today. Internet makes the line between a political actor and a citizen very uncertain. A user of social media can easily express their opinions and get others to follow their lead. Groups are created between like-minded people that enhance and strengthen their power. Citizens gain more power and politicians must realize the importance and possibilities that this new digital era gives to democracy.

Inspiration for Week 4

Bake Club

Great example of cross-subsidy in the ”free economy”. Butter brand @lurpakbutter creates interactive bake club web-site http://bit.ly/7VEjBV
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The Collaboration Toolkit

In this digital age we work more and more by ourselves from a distance. We still meet up every now and then, but a lot of our projects and work are done from home. Normally when there’s a group-project we do some of the work by ourselves at home and then meet up (or via e-mail) and compare what we have done in order to merge the texts into one document. This way of working makes us lose a lot of time on catching up and comparing documents to see what to merge.

In this digital age we need to make use of the technology available to make our work more effective. Working from a distance does not have to be ”solo” work anymore. Tools exist that allow us to collaborate in real-time with each other. I’ll here present 3 of the best collaboration tools: Etherpad, Skype and Dropbox.

Etherpad
This tool works as a collaborative real-time notepad. It allows several persons to work on the same word document at the same time and thereby eliminates the need to waste time on merging versions. It also makes the work more effective since you can directly get the input of others instead of having to wait for a meeting. Etherpad also allows chatting and keeps track of the changes you make which means you can go back to a previous version of the document if needed. The bad part about Etherpad is that it creates a tricky address to remember for your pad, BUT this can be solved by using an url shortener and making a custom name for the link. Etherpad recently decided they were going to close down the service but they made the code available which means you can find it at piratepad.net and a few other places now.

Skype
Sometimes it is hard to put your work into writing and sometimes you need a more direct feedback then the written word. This is when Skype comes to use. Skype is basically ip-telephony where you can call each other for free. It also allows transmission of your web-cam which means you can use body-language as well, if needed.

Dropbox
This tool helps you store all your files and documents in a secure way which is easily shareable. Dropbox works just as a normal folder on your desktop BUT it also uploads everything you put into the folder onto your account on the web. Thereby it eliminates the need for you to remember to make back-ups (which we NEVER remember). The other positive side is that you can install Dropbox on a second computer as well and then it synchronizes all the items in the Dropbox between the two computers! You can suddenly reach all the files needed on all your computers (as well as other, more temporary, computers through your account on the web). Dropbox also allows you to share folders between each other which means that ALL files made for the project group can be synchronized between each other.

These three tools are great for increasing productivity and efficiency in a group. Each one of these will help you a lot but the real synergy effect comes when you integrate the tools. An example of this could be:

Calling someone on Skype about the word document they just uploaded in the shared Dropbox folder and suggesting you two can  work a bit on the formulation on the introduction. I copy the text into a pad on Etherpad and start editing it in real-time together whilst talking over Skype, motivating the changes made to the document and discussing which one is best.

Do you have any other good collaboration tools that you use?

Edit: Collecting some more tools here

Inspiration for Week 3

Synergy and the importance of discussing

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Amplifying how cheap and small the cooper is by guerilla marketing.

http://netdna.webdesignerdepot.com/uploads/paper_art/5.jpg

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It’s not always as it looks. Great use of 3d.

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Changing the perspective

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Sounds that are not normally noticed

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Characters building a brand

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What have you been inspired by lately?