Digital dialogue: Can presidential aspirants

make it a winning tool?

December 6, 2014
Its that monotonously recurring time once again in Sri Lanka. The nations
walls are already undergoing a transformation. The process is getting pretty
hectic. A mosaic of colour swirls alongside smiling faces of known and
unknown politicians giving their best pose. Pictures demonstrating formal
greetings, bowings and all kinds of uncouth genuflections.

Pictures have splashed city walls and have become both a cynosure and
eyesore. The average onlooker feels the palpable cry vote for meeeee.
The competitive mud-slinging and blatant character assassinations will
soon follow. This process will animate both the urban and rural landscapes.
Then comes the much-awaited excreta work. Posters of one candidate will
be attacked by the rival with bovine droppings or worse. The operation

usually takes place in the wee hours. Reprisals follow and violence ensues.
A few diehards may even end up under the surgeons scalpel its all in a
days work. This is Sri Lanka, our own unique electoral heritage.
By 9 January morning Punchisinghos healthy herd of goats will be
unleashed; theyll have all the time in world to gobble up rare nutrients
present in multicoloured posters of Indian and Chinese origin.
Paper merchants stocking up
Paper merchants may have stacked tons of poster paper in their go-downs
in Colombo and suburbs already. Its one season they wouldnt want to
miss. Theyll put their hearts and souls to make the kill. After all forecasting

for such events is an integral part of their business plan.

In which county would you find such an orgy of elections? Stentorian cries
of Sri Lanka Zindabad must be reverberating in streets located in
Colombo 11, 12, 13 and 14. Their overtime payments for months of
November, December and January will be indubitably astronomical.
Theres no country practising democracy like Sri Lanka when it comes to
elections; presidential elections, general elections, staggered provincial
elections, local government elections, etc. These are great money-making
events for paper merchants. Maybe more paper is on its way. Who knows if
none gets the magical 51% therell be the inevitable second innings and
more paper will be needed hurraaaah!
Poster mania
Posters constitute a traditional and well-entrenched form of impersonal
communication during elections in Sri Lanka. Most Sri Lankan politicians
choose this medium to attract attention and disseminate their messages.

Its convenient, cheap and provides mileage.

Despite very clear local government bylaws, the task of displaying smiling
faces on public walls will be carried out successfully by party stalwarts with
characteristic fanfare. Researchers and social scientists allude many
reasons for this phenomenon of poster mania.
They say print medium is the most cost effective way to reach the target
market hence its unavoidable. This poster mania preoccupation has
blindsided many local politicians to emerging realities of new media.
New media
Welcome to the emergence of online social media with its gamut of
avenues to connect. The on-line medium has had a significant impact on
the contemporary political landscape, yet our understanding remains less
than complete.
Social media encompasses a range of information and communication
technologies used for sharing information and opinions, often through
explicit connections with other people or groups.
They include: Interactive websites that use techniques to encourage user
contributed content (i.e. personal, publicly available journals) that allow
anyone to report or comment on news and events; micro-blogging services
such as Twitter that make it possible to publish, instantaneously, short
messages to which other users can subscribe; photo and video-sharing
services like Flickr or YouTube that let users publish material they have
produced; and Social Networking Services (SNS) such as Facebook and the
professional network called LinkedIn.
Powerful tool
Social networking no doubt offer powerful new ways to connect, influence
and engage fellow citizens. This can usher in a radical transformation in the
way citizens connect and influence their government and politicians
connect with the public.
Online engagement between politicians and the public is increasingly
spreading especially in the western world. In Canada no one launches into
politics or public service without active Facebook and Twitter accounts. They
get engaged with the constituency very often and the new media is a
refreshing facilitator.

Most politicians use Twitter for political engagement, though some are more
successful in this than others. Politicians throughout the democratic world
have begun to embrace such tools as a new way to connect with their
constituents, shortcutting the heavily-mediated connections offered by
traditional media.
India and the US
Our behemoth neighbour India has made huge strides in this area. The
Indian electorate has never been younger. Between 2004 and 2009, the
voting population went up from 670 million to 720 million. The number is
expected to increase to 800 million.
During the recently-concluded elections, PM Narendra Modi did a great job
to engage with the younger generation using social media. A greater
number of voters than ever before will be 25 years or younger.
The impact of social media on the US presidential elections too was a great
eye opener. Many lessons were learnt. In a piece in the MIT Technology
Review entitled Facebook: The Real Presidential Swing State, writer David
Talbot had predicted that the outcome of the 2012 campaign could have
less to do with grand vision than online data analytics and peer to peer
voter targeting.
As it turned out, the Obama victory is credited to just that. Obamas
followers on Facebook and Twitter outstripped Romneys by a mile though a
greater percentage of Romney followers were talking. Obama ran away
with the election because he used analytics to do peer to peer targeting.
Multi-pronged strategy
Fighting a national election in the new millennium is a different ballgame
altogether. Youre well-advised to arm yourself with all resources and
strategies. In terms of resources, the human factor is crucial. You need
experts, professionals and thousands of both skilled and unskilled
volunteers. Social media is for engagement and your social media strategy
must be multi-pronged, clearly delineating target markets and resource
allocations.
In the 2012 presidential campaign, the media called Obama the digital
candidate: President Barack Obama asked supporters to use Facebook to
declare Im In! for his re-election. The campaign unveiled its latest

innovation in the usage of social media: It serves as more proof that Barack
Obama is a master of the deployment of social media in political
campaigns.
Our own MR too understands the impact of social media well and will strive
hard to derive optimum impact. MS too will aim for maximum reach. The
UNP with its close contacts with the advertising industry will also groom its
candidate accordingly.
(The writer holds a MBA First Class Honours, Major in Marketing VM
University India and runs a small business enterprise in Toronto, Canada. He
could be reached via nishthar.idroos.isme@gmail.com.)
Posted by Thavam