Here’s a great Guardian article about the 2010 election being the first real online election. Its argument is driven home by the fact that at the time of the last election in 2005,
“YouTube was only two months old; Twitter and Facebook weren’t even invented.”
I think exciting times are definitely ahead, but I do worry that the flurry of digital activity around election time will be an ephemeral phenomenon. Surely long-term engagement should be paramount, and there are big blogs out there like conservativehome which are successful in that area, but most people’s focus does seem to wander when not faced with immediate political decision to be made.
MyDavidCameron.com is a great example of this short-focus politically reactionary approach. It’s very, very funny, but does it cross partisan boundaries or reach any further than sneery articles in the leftist media? Probably not, although its effects may be more subtler than that, perhaps just acting as a gentle background hum, adding weight to peoples’ existing prejudices.
I do try to be as politically engaged as possible, and the web is such a perfect vehicle for it, but I find most of the offerings out there to be spectacularly biased or single-issue. Someone please prove me wrong, with some intelligent debate and positive action that can be found outside of the national press.