Blogs can engage people in politics
'Why do politicians blog?' asks Wordblog, quoting from Emily Bell's wry look at politicians jumping on the social media bandwagon in The Guardian's comment section today.
The answer should be obvious: what a wonderful way to converse with the electorate, engage disaffected or alienated voters in conversation, build a community... that is: if you take the time to read and answer comments; if you allow comments on the blog; if you don't go about it like it's just another outlet for speechifying; just another chore, something your spindoctors forced on you because 'everybody else is doing this blog thing'. That, however, seems to be the way most big wig politicians go about using social media, the format comes across as decidedly foreign to most, as Wired brings another hilarious example of today. I am reminded of a more positive example from Iain Dale's blog though, which struck me as quite inspiring, though the veracity of the comment was widely debated in the comments section:
" I'm quite a young person and my interest in British politics until I found your blog and Guido's was minimal. I find your blog shows politics in a slightly more realistic light than BBC/ITV etc... We don't want to read some dry, humourless byline or weekly column! It's a more realistic and engaging presentation of politics and how it works...
I don't buy this line that 'young people are not interested in politics' We are, although it has to be presented in a manner in which young people who have grown up with the internet feel is relevant to them. A young person is more likely to access something on Youtube than watch the TV, we don't sit about and accept the status quo. We decide for ourselves how we access information, it's very much on our terms. We don't watch the 6 News on BBC1, we have the RSS feeds of numerous websites/blogs in our RSS readers."
On a Norwegian note, seems you invited the wrong UK conservative to Oslo, Erna. Maybe you should take a word of advice from Iain Dale rather than David Cameron, the former could at least advice you to update your blog a bit more often...
