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Five years ago, at the time of the last general election, I was studying for my undergraduate degree. For the first time ever I felt the election buzz. Although I personally wasn\u2019t that interested, I found myself surrounded by people who couldn\u2019t shut up about it, and everyone, of course, was voting Lib Dem.<\/p>\n
This time around things are different. I\u2019m back at home, fully employed and paying attention due to my own genuine interest. This is in no small part down to the role of Social Media (and hours of TV satire and a determination to not let full time muppet and general pain in the arse, Nigel Farage have any sort of power). \u00a0The role of social media in this election has been much anticipated. We\u2019ve already seen how social media can be used to reflect the way votes are likely to go in our own light-hearted infographic. \u00a0However it is the use of social media to attract and persuade voters and to promote the campaigns of individual parties which has stirred up all the fuss.<\/p>\n
The 2015 election has been dubbed \u2018the social media election\u2019. This was partly due to the speculation and anticipation due to the rise in Social media\u2019s popularity over the last five years. 5 million people have joined Twitter \u00a0alone in the years since Britain last went to the polls. This has been key for political parties. It meant that parties and politicians had a direct way of speaking to people without having to trawl the streets. This was good for two reasons. Firstly it meant that the powerful elite of our society didn\u2019t have to go into areas where people shop in Aldi rather than Fortnum and Masons. Secondly, it meant that they could target specific demographics at the touch of a button. In particular they could target youths, or as they\u2019re known in Westminster, \u2018bloody hoodies\u2019. Youths are not a group politicians normally go near for fear of being mugged or stabbed but now they could talk to them without fear of physical contact.<\/p>\n
The televised debates in the last election boosted turn out by 65%, but only 44% of young people (aged 18-24) turned out to vote. It would therefore be amiss of parties not to take advantage of a primarily young person\u2019s medium to reach this audience. It was revealed fairly early on that our current lord and master, Mr Cameron and his Conservatives had spent \u00a3100,000 pounds on Facebook advertising, ten times that of Labour and 1000 times that of UKIP. \u00a0A recent article in the Guardian stated that Facebook has the potential to reach 9.2 million young people with one post and with UK adults spending a minimum of 1.33 hours on social media, spending obscene amounts on these platforms isn\u2019t exactly a bad idea.<\/p>\n
But it\u2019s not just paid promotion and it\u2019s not just Facebook. Politicians have taken to Twitter \u00a0to personally promote key party policies (or at least their social media managers have). This means for the first time in living history, politicians have been forced into giving short concise answers and policy announcements.<\/p>\n
Parties have also embraced the ways of YouTube. As you can imagine this means a lot of clips of speeches and cringe worthy videos of politicians looking to camera giving heart felt speeches \u201cto you, the voter\u201d *VOM*. The Conservatives channel is particularly bad for this. The video of David Cameron welcoming you to the channel actually makes me physically look away as if I were watching a man on Embarrassing Bodies with some disgusting skin complaint.\u00a0 Labour\u2019s channel is marginally more watchable. It displays a great deal more personality. For example the featured video is of Miliband playing pool with snooker favourite Ronnie O\u2019Sullivan. In fact celebrity support is something that Labour play on quite heavily with their channel featuring videos from people such as Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan and Jo Brand.\u00a0 The Lib Dem videos on the other hand focus very much more on the general public. Their featured video is the Clegg Meister visiting a school, followed by a video of him visiting animals. Everyone together now\u2026awwwww.<\/p>\n
Despite this use of social media many say that the \u2018Social media election\u2019 never came to fruition. The build-up has even been described as \u2018routine, predictable and over cautious\u2019. If that weren\u2019t bad enough much of it has been unpleasant.<\/p>\n
This is particularly evident on Twitter . Twitter as a PR and marketing tool can be and has been successful. For example a recent Twitter campaign prompted the petition to get leaders from smaller parties involved in the leaders\u2019 debates. However much of the party campaigning consists of mocking and bitching about other party leaders. A perfect example of this is the Twitter feed of the one and only Boris Johnson. Bo-Jo\u2019s feed consists mainly of jibes at Miliband, with his tweet referring to Miliband\u2019s wall of policies being a personal highlight (see image).\u00a0![\"ed\"](\"https:\/\/www.72point.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/ed1-294x300.png\")
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Obviously all parties\u2019 campaigns feature a certain number of put downs but this election is being referred to as one of the ugliest campaigns in history. One therefore has to wonder whether Twitter is doing nothing more than making things worse. After all with Twitter you get trolls. The only thing that gets met through the Twitter \u00a0bitching is the hope that there is a Malcom Tucker figure behind the scenes taking control of people\u2019s mobiles and blasting them with a particularly taboo outburst.<\/p>\n