NEW MEDIA, OLD NEWS

04/03/2010

 

So much for those who believe debate is the wellspring of democracy.

 

As it turns out, even the most diverse mix of digital media fanatics and old guard hacks essentially agree that Britain’s purported first New Media election will not be so new after all. 

 

For one, according to City University Professor Ivor Gaber, speaking at a Media Society / City University / Media Trust event, British electoral politics are notoriously slow to adapt.  It took well into the 1970s for campaigners to even begin to harness the power of television.  With British politics always so unfashionably late, it is no surprise to Tory New Media Head Rishi Saha that Web 2.0’s earliest ancestors, email and meta-search engines, are set to have the most impact on the 2010 election.  Call it the empiricist time lag.

 

Maybe the Conservatives, counting Saha among them, are just playing to type, clinging nostalgically to what they perceive as older, more authentic modes of political engagement.

 

Yet it seems others are just as tribal.  Google homer DJ Collins thinks it will be a new media election, and rightfully so; democracy, in his words, “needs democratising.”  Whereas BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson believes the entire discussion is nothing more than “self-important narcissistic tosh.” 

 

Either way, 4 out of 5 experts agree, with Collins the sole dissenting voice, that broadcast, broadband and broadsheet are all mutually reinforcing entities.  Stories gather steam, and more intriguingly, soot, with the aid of Hitchcock’s ever present eye - without camera phones there would be no Guardian exposé on police brutality; likewise, without broadcast media, no source for the endless loops of Obama’s Special Olympic bowling or Gordon Brown’s lone tear.

 

 Debating the debate

 

“While Twitter will make it easier to follow the ground war, the debates will ultimately pull the campaign back to TV,” says Gaber.

 

Most agree the televised debates will have a decisive impact on the campaign.  They remain incredulous, however, over whether or not it is a positive step in British politics.

 

Rupa Huq brings up Jean Baudrillard – his Simulacra and Simulation tells the story of a populace so overwhelmed with images and information that they can no longer grasp reality, let alone make decisions for themselves.  In this scenario, alluding to the way American, and more presently, Italian, elections are run, politics become precisely about the three G’s of celebrity: gossip, gaffes and guffaws.

 

By proxy, jumping on what Robinson calls “personal politics,” internet media simply follows broadcast’s lead, turning a seemingly innocent incident into a mammoth conflagration.

 

As an aside, the irony would not be lost on Baudrillard to see debates in the run up to the election held squarely over the efficacy of mediums.  For him it would be the first symptom of something gone horribly wrong. 

 

Strangely, internet citizens are left with two options.  Against Baudrillard - and this is precisely what Collins suggests they do - they could attempt to recapture politics on their terms, using the internet as both a tool for mobilisation and a platform for serious discussion.

 

Otherwise, and with Baudrillard, they could engage directly with the simulation.  Make Schopenhauer proud and turn elections into what they really are: tendentious spectacles based on gut-feeling and intuition.

 

Surely the second option is more fun.  Why take something so seemingly important so deadly serious? 

Here’s a start: Nick Robinson ignores comments on his blog, pass it on. 

Ryan Mahan