Pushing the limits or creating new frontiers?
Is online technology changing the face of democracy as we know it?
The impact of online technologies on the democratic process was the topic of discussion for ESOMAR’s first North American World Research Roundtable. Held on Tuesday 10 June, 2008 at the Hôtel Place D’Armes in Montréal - Democracy Online: Pushing the limits or creating new frontiers – brought together six experts from the US, Canada and Europe to debate whether online technology is influencing the behavior of voters and consumers.
Over the last decade the emergence of blogs, social networking sites, special interest advocacy, on-line fund raising, email, mobile communication and on-line polling have changed the way people inter-act with each other. If indeed the medium is the message, then how will the WWW change the political landscape?
Will the e-outreach to millions of individuals increase or hamper the growth of democratic expression? Do we now need to respond differently to voters who are more interactive, more informed, more demanding and impatient? What are the new techniques of marketing research and surveys on the Internet? And how will democracy emerge over the next five years?
Using real life case studies of the recent US presidential race, the declining rate of political participation in Canada and lessons learnt from the 2007 French presidential election, this roundtable sought to bring clarity to the debate and to answer some of these challenging questions.
The Panel
The last year has been an active election period across the US and Europe with much discussion among media and political circles on the role of online technology in influencing election outcomes. To provide in-depth insight and balanced opinion on the topic, ESOMAR brought together an international panel of experts in political campaigning, opinion polling and sociology. The discussion was moderated by Jean-Marc Léger, President & CEO of Léger Marketing in Montreal and panellists included Kathleen A. Frankovic, Director of Surveys and Producer at CBS News in New York; Thierry Vedel, Head of Research, CNRS au CEVIPOF in Paris; Nikita James Nanos, President & CEO at Nanos Research in Ottawa, and John Parisella, President BCP, Strategic Consultant and a member of the campaign team for Barak Obama.
Debate
The point of debate that dominated the three hour discussion was whether online technology alone has a strong influencing role on the actual behavior of voters. What became clear through the various panellists’ experiences is that although online technology is an extremely valuable tool to connect with broader audiences, in quicker timeframes, it did not alone change voting behavior.
The strongest example of the effectiveness of online campaigning was seen in the fundraising activities of Barak Obama. According to Kathleen Frankovic, Obama’s strategy of calling for small monthly donations using online debit subscriptions combined with mobile phone donations and Facebook contributions saw him raise a staggering 30 million US dollars per month. Using the word of mouth approach enabled by various social networking sites he was also able to enlist the support of 1 million volunteers and 1.3 million donors.
However, as John Parisella later commented, it was not the online communications strategy itself that secured the win for Obama, rather the content and authenticity of his policies. The role of online technology such as YouTube and MySpace were able to play a role by spreading his visionary speeches to a wider audience than those present. They were not, however, responsible for the content itself nor did they ensure the genuine nature of the message.
This point was taken one step further by Nik Nanos who commented that trends in Canada demonstrate that technology can have no real influence on voting behavior. He explains that although Canada has embraced social networking more strongly than most other nations, recording 26.5% participation rate on Facebook, it continues to face declining rates of political participation amongst its citizens. He sees the strength of online technology as a tool to re-energise the Canadian voting environment by offering an incubator for grass-roots engagement. This comes at a time where citizens are disillusioned in local politics and cynical of the opinion polling process. He stresses along with John Parisella the role of technology as a reflection of society’s opinions not a definer and in some cases not a true indicator of reality. The ability for citizens to participate in discussions outside the traditional public space, without censorship or legal threat can also result in rumor, conjecture and speculation being reported as truth, not only online but also in mainstream media.
Kathleen Frankovic picked up on the point of the role of discussion in non-traditional public space. She explains that online chat rooms, social networks and other virtual discussion sites are now the first place journalists visit to find out what the public is thinking about certain issues. There is no longer a dependency on main stream national dailies, television and radio for this information nor is the press as easily able to influence public discussion by limiting media coverage or printing biased reportage for one candidate. She also discussed the use of online space as a testing ground by candidates of potential policies within their constituency, giving campaign strategists valuable information about the feeling of voters when designing their policy portfolio.
Thierry Vedel added to this discussion, commenting that online technology is not a new means of communication, but rather an alternative means of communication among other more “traditional” ones, such as TV and meetings. He referred to the discussion that took place at a previous ESOMAR roundtable covering the issue during the 2007 French presidential election. There, Nicolas Sarkozy‘s party created sarkozy.fr (the portal of UMP sites featuring a true web TV dedicated to the candidate), debat-sarkozy.fr (debate with Sarkozy – where internet users can post questions for Sarkozy) and supportersdesarkozy.fr (supporters of Sarkozy – a site aimed at encouraging people to recruit supporters of Sarkozy). In this instance the use of such blogs encouraged the development of political opinion and it is this opinion that can lead to new ideas. He sees new media as a tool to transmit and share their ideas and therefore politicians will absolutely have to take this into consideration in the future.
According to John Parisella it is these enabling characteristics of online technology that are central to predicting the future role they may play in political activity. He makes a comparison to the Kennedy era where the introduction of the television changed the way politicians spoke to their audience. He sees the development of online public space as a similar revolution and that what will remain important is how this change is managed.
Technology alone can bring better engagement, closer connections with global audiences and increased visibility for candidates across most divides, however if the message does not ring true then the technology can not do more than deliver it. Giving Obama as an example he explains that it is the transformational nature of his speeches and his approach to US politics that has brought him victory, not the transitional power of modern technology.
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