Will bloggers win the next Election?
Posted on February 19th, 2010 in Blogging, General Election | 7 Comments »
Much is made of the power of a blogger.
Some feel bloggers have undue influence on the political scene…others discount bloggers with contempt as a niche group of over opinionated zealous Party hacks with grandiose personal ambitions!
It is interesting to look at both sides of the story. Some bloggers do yield ‘power & influence’. No-one can doubt the ’power’ that Guido and Order-Order.com yields, with, at times, the ability to shape the news agenda. Effectively removing one of the PM’s most trusted and closest aides in Damien McBride was a real success for the bloggersphere. The story dominated ‘Fleet street’ for weeks to come. Guido certainly ups the paranoia factor in Westminster. When he says a news story is about to break….MP’s look over their shoulder and quake.
Iain Dale is another great example. Iain, in many ways does not shape the news agenda as much as a Guido exclusive does, but his grasp of PR and perceptive commentary on an issue for the media is nonetheless mightily impressive. Iain is a trusted authority, whether on NewsNight or Sky News and is a talisman for the blogging community on how to master gaining media coverage, (sometimes he does not get the credit he deserves for his achievements in moving blogging forward). Others now are starting to follow in his media shes, Shane Greer is a classic example and of course the up & coming Tory Bear himself.
However, not every blogger is a Guido or an Iain Dale.
Getting to the crux of the question, will bloggers win the next election? Nope is the clear answer if you are looking at their readership. Let’s be honest, blogs are generally read by ‘politico’s’, those in the Westminster village, eager party supporters. A blog reader will either be a supporter ie Conservative reading a Conservative blog, or a mischief maker, eg Labour supporters commenting on a Tory blog to torpedo any argument / have a little fun. However, this does not sway or change votes. Blog readers I would guess have 99% made up their mind on their voting intention, hence blogs generally don’t reach new readers and sway mass opinion. Hence blogs wont sway an election…..not by their current readership…..how can they make an effect then and can they impact an election campaign?
Key here is that a blog story can quickly be picked up in the media and escalate into a national news story, hence then reaching the ears of the wider electorate. Therefore the job of bloggers is to help find and highlight those issues which deserve national news coverage. Hence when Gordon Brown makes any claim in the forthcoming campaign, it will be the Tory bloggers, more so than the media, who will research the facts, check for previous policy quotes/soundbites and then publish that. From there, an Iain Dale, Guido, CCHQ escalates up. That is what will impact upon an election campaign…..what will be interesting in this forthcoming campaign is which bloggers, Left or Right, will generate stories that will reach national media coverage….and impact on the election campaign….maybe influence the result!
