Politics, Social Media and Scale

I wanted to capture a point I made during today's ICWSM panel on Politics and Social Media.

Firstly, politics is about scaling social organization. A premier can't talk to every citizen, so s/he has lieutenant's. They have their own underlings, and so on in a typical hierarchical/departmental structure. Social media, however, is all about individuals - we read entries in weblogs, etc. So, if a politician wants to connect via social media, isn't there some sort of fundamental mismatch? Obama may have 20, 000 followers on Twitter, but how many comments has he left on blog posts?

Secondly, there is the issue of social media amplifying the polarization (or homophily) found in any topical community. Thus, individuals look around at their neighbours in the social graph and see much of what they themselves are made of.

On both sides of the picture, there is a scale problem - from the top down, the politician cannot interact directly with the atomic scale of social media. From the bottom up, consumers (of social media) are faced with an inability to get a broad view of the issues. The solution, I believe, is automation.

Comments

[Mary A]

Can you tell me more about what you mean by automation? I worked for a CEO of an internet based consumer goods company whose mantra was "machine over man." He believed that the technology should lead the customers to their needs and create additional wants, rather than having the customers utilize technology to meet their needs and discover new "wants." The intent was to place technology in the exclusive role of customer service agent and expert personal shopper - and thus placing the consumer in a subordianted role as reciever. I thought it was a condescending approach and I also thought it reflected the CEO's own tightly held desire to avoid personal contact with customers as much as possible. Reminds me of the fundamental mismatch you talk about - the CEO's desire was to get more customers and customer loyalty by offering a highly personalized experience through automation.

[Alison Byrne Fields]

I'd also like to understand what you mean when you say "automation."

But my primary reaction is that I don't think it matters that Obama can't comment on posts. The value that social media provides is that it enables democratic ideals: the voice of the people can be heard. We don't need to hear more from Obama because the mainstream media is handling that. His supporters are speaking out on his behalf and speaking to each other -- and the undecided voter. And I'm guessing he has people on staff who are monitoring what is being said about him -- and the campaign -- within social media.

Plus, come on, do we really want a President who's as much of a slave to his (or her) feed reader, Facebook status or Twitter updates as I am?

[Matthew Hurst]

Alison - you might be interested in reading 'linked' by Barabasi. It gives a pretty good description of why social media is anything but democratic. There is no *equal* capacity for each person on line to be heard.

I need to expand on this idea to explain what I mean by automation.