Will social media change campaign reporting?

Ten thousand US 'citizen journalists' covered the 2008 Presidential Election campaign for the Huffington Post's successful Off the Bus initiative. Scoops suddenly appeared when politicians had dropped their guard, as Obama learned when he made an off-hand comment about the bitterness he believed existed in white working-class communities.

UK politicians already know there is rarely a time when 'off the record' can be guaranteed: technology is constantly switched on and poised for Tweeting or blogging. And with a much shorter General Election campaign in the UK, an ill-judged comment could spell disaster for a candidate. There was a report that the Conservatives had told their candidates that any blogs or Tweets must be vetted beforehand. But the Tories have since said they only warned their candidates to be careful.

Social media can't be controlled: the question is whether the parties have the infrastructure in place to respond to attacks or mistakes honestly and with transparency. Steven Hill quotes the long-time Democratic Party campaign manager Joe Trippi, who argues that social media "demands authenticity, and television for the most part demanded fake. Authenticity is something politicians have not been used to."

Certainly news organisations will be scouring Twitter and political blogs for potential leads, and I'm sure there will be a couple of headline-inducing gaffes before the Election. The days of heavily controlled campaigning and water-tight spin doctoring are gone, and, as a result, coverage of the campaign will perhaps be more interesting.

I worry, however, that political coverage will be unduly focused on the great slip-up of 2010, and that, while searching for mistakes and off-the-cuff comments, journalists are reinforcing the apathy of many voters towards the main political parties.

I'm hopeful that, in addition to recording gaffs, social media can provide new ways of reporting politics which might re-engage some voters.

There are many issues which affect voter turnout, but research has shown that reporting which focuses mainly on the horse race - who is in front, and the twists and turns of electioneering - rather than the issues can lead to increased apathy and disengagement. 

The news media can play a role in changing the way voters engage with politics by introducing more inclusive coverage, putting voters at the centre rather than relying on simply replicating the combative political posturing which defines modern election campaigns.

In an era of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and AudioBoo, crowdsourcing is simple and can result in some powerful content. The real constituency experts live in the constituencies. What are the unique problems in the different areas? What do those problems look like? Examples of this type of reporting exist, such as the New York Times' Living With Less multimedia page, or, closer to home, BBC Bristol's Flickr group, which asked people to upload photographs of their local communities and unearthed amazing stories which resonated with the communities which had inspired them.

There are many innovative ideas for covering this election in ways that would treat the audience as part of the process rather than simply bystanders.

Fact-checking has been demonstrated to improve the level of political discourse and engage the audience. It's now an established part of political reporting in the US after a group of academics demonstrated that voters wanted trusted guides to help them navigate through the apparently contradictory reports about the same policies from opposing parties. In the UK, in October last year, Channel 4 News fact-checked Nick Griffin's claims on BBC1's Question Time, providing a useful resource for people engaged with the issues he raised on the programme. Now C4 News has its own fact-checking blog edited by political correspondent Cathy Newman. 

The back and forth of the debates will be very different if fact-checkers are dissecting the statistics and providing a real sense of what is being offered by the parties. It will also force the politicians to be more careful with their language and promises.

If candidates, parties and news organisations start embracing the tools offered by social media to really listen and connect, they could provide new forums for people to talk about their concerns and ideas. Young people have repeatedly shown they are political on issues such as the Iraq war, Make Poverty History and the environment - but they're not necessarily party political.

The overlooked lesson of Obama's campaign is that it treated voters as citizens with the power to influence change. In the UK, I've yet to see any of the political parties or news organisation use technology effectively to engage voters or audiences by placing their experiences and concerns at the centre of their campaigning or coverage. Social media tools could achieve these goals simply and cheaply through some innovative crowdsourcing ideas.

I really don't believe 2010 will be the first 'social media election', and I don't believe the headline the morning after should say 'it was Twitter wot won it'. Maybe in five years time, but by then the landscape will be unrecognisable. These 'tools' we use now will be fully integrated and connected. There will be no choice about whether to use social media in five years time. 

But I'd like to think that, while we won't be able to compare the 2010 Election directly with Obama 2008, there might be a few examples of what is possible when social media is used to listen and engage rather than simply broadcast - by the parties themselves as well as news organisations.

This is the second of Claire Wardle's posts on social media and the election. The first is here.