The Meshing of Politics and Social Media

Took in a session at the Mesh Conference today about the impact of social media on political campaigns. Naturally, the success that Barack Obama and his team had in using social media to raise funds and create a legion of active advocates is exemplary - but it's hardly representative.

As panelist Andrew Coyne, national editor and columnist at Maclean's magazine, noted - pouring cold water on all the social-media-is-changing-everything hype - blogs and Facebook and Twitter have, for the most part, simply reinforced many of the poor habits we have as a society in terms of conducting political debate. Just as in the offline universe, said Coyne, people gravitate to like-minded people online, which results in a bunch of partisans preaching to the converted. 

"What turns your mind to mush more than anything is only talking to people who think the same as you do," said Coyne. "When you only talk to people who think the same as you do, you become incapable of seeing how any reasonable person could possibly think differently."

I think Coyne hit at the essence of the poor shape of political discourse - whether it involves face-to-face communication or social media, it's not really a debate if all we do is shout at the top of our lungs and then plug our ears when someone with a different opinion starts speaking. It's not supposed to be like pro sports, where you have the team you cheer for and that's that. But that's largely what politics has become (maybe it's always been that way?).

Coyne said he saw the potential of social media to open up political debate to average Joes and Janes. But he said that all parties to the debate - politicians, reporters and citizens - have to elevate the political culture to a more civilized place before we see any real value from the technology. 

That's because technology itself isn't what changes the world. It's how people use it. If people want to harness the "power" of social media, Coyne said they should be mindful of an axiom that, when you think about it, applies equally to cave drawings: "Power comes from substance."