Some people seem to have a massive over-estimation of the reach of social media and its effect(s) on democracy around the world. Twitter, Facebook et al are merely tools that can be used to spread democracy and to facilitate participation – it can’t overturn election results!
Its power lies purely in the ability to stir people up and to encorage them to take action – as an electronic format, it has absolutely no power in and of itself. Nothing more than be done. Joining a Facebook group, tweeting or blogging about …

The Conservatives have launched an extremely innovative little campaign tool for the EU elections on June 4th – the ability to donate your Facebook status.
All you have to do is allow the Facebook app to update your status with a few messages over the next week, falling into three types:

A message letting your friends know you’ve installed this application

Reminders of why people should vote Conservative

A ‘Get Out The Vote’ message from David Cameron on polling day

I think this is a brilliant way to reach a greater and more varied group …

No, we don’t live in a Big Brother state at all. How could we ever get such an idea?!

Three CF activists have been expelled from the party after one of them, Matt Lewis, boasted about dressing up as Madeleine McCann for a fancy dress party on his Facebook profile, and the others commented on it without condemning. This has, of course, caused a tabloid storm after it was broken by Tory Bear.
Whether or not expelling on them from the party was really appropriate or not, this raises the question of the use of Facebook – and other ‘new media’, including blogs – in a political context. Especially if …

These are musings, so contributions and shootings-down-in-flames are more than welcome.

The Campaign to scrutinise the mismanagement of the former-SPCK-bookshops campaign I am involved in over here has two Facebook Groups attached:

1. A group for all those people who mourn the tragic demise of SPCK Bookshops (250+ members)
2. We Support Dave Walker (500 members)

The total membership is probably around 600-700, accounting for overlaps. These musings about the use of Facebook in campaigning online were prompted when I sent out this message to the relevant facebook groups the clickthrough rate was high – somewhere between 10% and 15%.

Blogging, according to Wired magazine is “so 2004″:

Thinking about launching your own blog? Here’s some friendly advice: Don’t. And if you’ve already got one, pull the plug.
Writing a weblog today isn’t the bright idea it was four years ago. The blogosphere, once a freshwater oasis of folksy self-expression and clever thought, has been flooded by a tsunami of paid bilge. Cut-rate journalists and underground marketing campaigns now drown out the authentic voices of amateur wordsmiths. It’s almost impossible to get noticed, except by hecklers. And why bother? The time it …

A new Conservative ad campaign has been launched, showing the changes that a Conservative government will bring to Britain. With the campaign is a new video setting out these changes, which you can watch here, via the new Conservative party Facebook page. David Cameron explains the new campaign in the video below:

One thing I don’t get though is the idea of becoming a “friend” of the party, but not a member. Doesn’t really make much sense to me, but hey.

Facebook really does seem to be getting more media coverage than any social networking site really deserves. Is it really newsworthy that Facebook is to remove the mandatory “is” from status updates?No, it isn’t. It’s not news at all except for the minority of people who use Facebook and really care about having to think up a status that grammatically follows “[Name] is” or just settling on an ungrammatical status instead.
Really, who cares? It might make users go “oh, that’s good” but then they would get on with their lives. …

Sam Coates [of the Times, not ConervativeHome] is writing the Times’ News Blog during the Conference season. His latest entry is on the Lib Dems Conference focuses on the discovery of Facebook by politicians:
With the dreary inevitability of the uncle on the wedding dance floor, politicians have stumbled across Facebook and are busy admiring pictures of themselves beaming away on the profile page.Is this an innovative way of tapping into the somewhat nebulous “new politics” concept? Or do you, like I did, read the following passage from the speech by …