Image by @BenjaminEllis
The day is drawing to the late afternoon here at the NCVO New Politics Campaigns Conference and we thought we’d highlight a couple of key themes that have emerged out of the panels, discussions and web-wide conversations.
- Keeping it local
- Social media and the web
Making campaigns locally relevant - many of the workshops and the representatives of the varied charities and NGOs in attendance have been highlighting a need for a return to grassroots politics/activism. Combatting the fatigue of the big national yah-boo politics (whether in evidence or constructed by the media) and reaching out to people on a local (individual) level. This approach is also more likely to appeal to the PPCs that charities and NGOs need on their side to bring about political change, and keeps their campaigns relevant. For more discussion on this issue give the following audioboo a listen:
Social media and the web - though the conference opened with the fear that social media and technology might remove the need for campaigning organisations, the majority of delegates and workshops were very enthusiastic about the opportunities that social media allowed for grass roots, online activism. The opening notion suggested that tech was taking over, whereas the majority of the attendees recognised social media as one of many tools at their disposal. Social media can be a really useful and easy way of connecting to some your community – not all, and that’s why it’s only one tool of many. Unfortunately the ‘brand new – all change’ version of the social media story touted by the media makes many resistant, or leads them to highlight all the things it doesn’t do (reflective, face to face, sustained, or sustainable debate). The workshops focussed on social media as facilitating conversation – conversations that can’t happen online if you wouldn’t have them offline – you need to understand to whom and why you’re talking, as well noting that the reason there’s so much focus on it is because it’s new and is useful to learn to use, not because it’s the be all and end all of political and community engagement.
Have a listen to this excellent audioboo with Stella Creasy, Labour PPC for Walthamstow and head of campaigns at the Scout Association chatting with @solobasssteve about Social Media and Power to the People.
Want to comment on any of the conversations going on? Got some big ideas of your own? Join in on the comments thread of this post.
