Political

What bloggers made of the general election

The BBC has run a piece looking at what bloggers made of the 2010 general election, including quotes from Jonathan Calder, of Liberal England, and this from myself:

The online world provided a route for party members to be able to express their views very quickly. The speed was particularly important as negotiations were going on at national level.

The LibDem Voice blog had the ability to do a poll for party members and cross-check it.

It’s about asking the right questions at the right time. The forums [ie questions] are useful if they relate with what’s going on, so we knew we had to ask members about electoral reform.

The internet on this election has been like the mobile phone, it became absolutely essential and people used it all the time, hour by hour. But if you take a step back, you can conclude that neither has reshaped politics in a great way.

That ability for grassroots members to express their views – via quick surveys and via social media – offers up a potential new balance of power, even if the broader picture is not one of politics being remade.

You can read the full piece here.

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