Bernard Keane has an espe­cially inter­est­ing piece in Crikey today enti­tled Twit­ter and the pro­saic real­ity of Dig­i­tal Democ­racy (reg­is­tra­tion required). It’s an insight­ful look at the emer­gence of Aus­tralian politi­cians into the world of social media and just how well (or not) they are doing.

Of par­tic­u­lar note is Keane’s obser­va­tion that:

It’s now well-​​established that some politi­cians use Twit­ter effec­tively and some  —  well, most, do not. Some recog­nise the oppor­tu­nity to inter­act with vot­ers and com­mu­ni­cate with over­lap­ping com­mu­ni­ties of inter­est. Oth­ers see it merely as just another medium for pump­ing out their mes­sage and dis­trib­ut­ing their press releases.

Put another way, that’s the media’s favoured polit­i­cal dichotomy of authen­tic­ity v spin.

He’s spot-​​on.

The feet-​​first, mostly blind jump­ing in of politi­cians (or at least their sup­pos­edly well-​​informed (cough) staffers) into the world of social media is an espe­cially inter­est­ing aspect of the emer­gence of Gov­ern­ment 2.0 (or in this case, and more accu­rately, Pol­i­tics 2.0).

Engag­ing with their con­stituen­cies online is a mas­sive oppor­tu­nity for politi­cians. But it is, as Bernard notes, fraught with risk, par­tic­u­larly the risk of com­ing off as focussed on broad­cast and being disin­gen­u­ous. There are few politi­cians with social media pres­ences, espe­cially in Aus­tralia, who end up look­ing and sound­ing as if they really care about a con­ver­sa­tion on sub­stan­tive issues between them­selves and their vot­ing pub­lic. It really is a wall of noise most of the time. Ill-​​considered, party polit­i­cal, non-​​conversational noise.

In Aus­tralia, where we have com­pul­sory suf­frage, I actu­ally think the oppor­tu­nity afforded politi­cians by engag­ing in social media is greater than that over­seas, where social media is often used as a tool to “get out the vote”. Here, instead, politi­cians have the oppor­tu­nity to lis­ten and respond to issues in the pub­lic mind on a scale they have never had before.

Evi­dence of the level of engaged Aus­tralians inter­ested in pol­i­tics is there in spades each week as the Aus­tralian pub­lic watch Q and A and use the#qanda hash­tag. This ought to be prompt enough. Let alone #730report, #insid­ers, #late­line and oth­ers such as the com­men­tary and follow-​​along when Ques­tion Time is on through #qt.

They have an effec­tive 24×7 town hall run­ning; some­thing where they can deeply con­nect with con­stituents who have strong and well-​​considered views on issues rather than the “noth­ing bet­ter to do” crowd of NIM­BYs and fringe opin­ions who lob up at the local shop­ping cen­ter and school hall meetings.

What we have here is an oppor­tu­nity to reimag­ine our democ­racy in the shape of Haber­mas’ Pub­lic Sphere — where the dis­course amongst the pub­lic resolves and shapes opin­ion, pol­icy and leg­is­la­tion to truly meet the demands of the nation.

More than any­thing, I’d like to see the politi­cians join­ing the online world seek­ing out really good advice (maybe even mine) so that they can and do engage in a way the grow­ing pub­lic on social media chan­nels is ready to respond to con­struc­tively rather than shut­ting down.

The impend­ing fed­eral elec­tion is cer­tainly see­ing the fed­eral politi­cians come out of hid­ing and into the social media world. They’ve all come a good long way since before the last elec­tion. But not nearly far enough.

As a micro­cosm of this phe­nom­e­non, let’s just look at the ACT, where I live. The expe­ri­ence extrap­o­lates out for any of you reading.

I con­tacted the offices of all the can­di­dates (Sen­ate and House) in the two local elec­torates prior to the 2007 elec­tion and offered to help them (gratis) with some dig­i­tal and social media ideas for their cam­paigns, just to see what hap­pened. Every one of them knocked me back with a resound­ing “not interested”.

For some of the locals, Kate Lundy being an obvi­ous stand out, things have changed dra­mat­i­cally. For oth­ers, not so much.

Where, for exam­ple, are the two new Labor can­di­dates in the ACT’s seats — Gai Brodt­mann and Andrew Leigh? Sure, their elec­tion to the House is pretty much fait accom­pli, but that doesn’t mean they ought to ignore the online and social world. Even more impor­tantly, where are the Lib­eral can­di­dates? They are vis­i­bly MIA. The Greens? Mostly silent (though sev­eral of the Greens, and the party gen­er­ally are active on Twit­ter in a mostly pos­i­tive way). Though Lin Hatfield-​​Dodds does have a pres­ence it is all broad­cast and no con­ver­sa­tion — why, Lin, why?

Politi­cians every­where have a mas­sive oppor­tu­nity for engage­ment and con­ver­sa­tion through social media. My great­est hope is that they can learn and under­stand that it’s not another soap­box. Of course, it’s far from the only chan­nel pol­i­tics and politi­cians need to be present in; I’m not so naive as to think that. Pol­i­tics must go on as it always has, in the phys­i­cal world. The online is sim­ply a spe­cific and use­ful oppor­tu­nity that can be exploited in a pos­i­tive and valu­able way.