Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
First New Media Local Elections?
This Tuesday some names in journalism led a debate at the City University on whether the forthcoming general election is about to be the UK's first where new media will play a significant role.
Taking that down to a local level, I'm interested in the extent to which new media will affect the coming London local elections.
We'll be doing our bit here on Harringay Online, trying to make sure we get as much contribution as possible online from our local candidates. Whether residents have an appetite for it remains to be seen.
But what about the candidates? Which of them from the three wards that are wholly or partly in Harringay, are using new media? To answer that, we've developed a New Media Quotient (NMQ) measurement for both parties and politicians.
The NMQ measures the scope and depth of each candidate's use of new media. (To avoid any potential for political bias, we're not measuring quality of contribution).
Here's how things stand as of today:
TOP OVERALL NMQ
Top 5 Candidates
Justin Hinchcliffe (Con, Seven Sisters) - 50
Nora Mulready (Lab, Harringay) - 40
David Schmitz (Lib Dem, Harringay) - 23
Tim Caines (Con, Harringay) - 19
Karen Alexander (Lib Dem, Harringay) - 17
Top Party in a Ward
Harringay Ward Labour + Liberal Democrats - 17
Top Party across the 3 Wards
Labour - 10
TOP NMQ ON HOL
Top 5 Candidates
Justin Hinchcliffe (Con, Seven Sisters) - 100
Nora Mulready (Lab, Harringay) - 69
David Schmitz (Lib Dem, Harringay) - 69
Karen Alexander (Lib Dem, Harringay) - 62
Chris Ford (Lib Dem, Harringay) - 46
Top Party in a Ward
Harringay Ward Liberal Democrats - 59
Top Party across the 3 Wards
Labour - 28
So we have a good start in Harringay ward and an overall winner in Justin Hinchcliffe. but the first term's report is definitely could do better.
What will mastering new media mean to the election outcome, I wonder. Can the smart candidate replicate something of the Obama effect?
If you'd like to see the details of the NMQ, see the attachments as either pdf (hyperlinks non-functional) or Excel.
Taking that down to a local level, I'm interested in the extent to which new media will affect the coming London local elections.
We'll be doing our bit here on Harringay Online, trying to make sure we get as much contribution as possible online from our local candidates. Whether residents have an appetite for it remains to be seen.
But what about the candidates? Which of them from the three wards that are wholly or partly in Harringay, are using new media? To answer that, we've developed a New Media Quotient (NMQ) measurement for both parties and politicians.
The NMQ measures the scope and depth of each candidate's use of new media. (To avoid any potential for political bias, we're not measuring quality of contribution).
Here's how things stand as of today:
TOP OVERALL NMQ
Top 5 Candidates
Justin Hinchcliffe (Con, Seven Sisters) - 50
Nora Mulready (Lab, Harringay) - 40
David Schmitz (Lib Dem, Harringay) - 23
Tim Caines (Con, Harringay) - 19
Karen Alexander (Lib Dem, Harringay) - 17
Top Party in a Ward
Harringay Ward Labour + Liberal Democrats - 17
Top Party across the 3 Wards
Labour - 10
TOP NMQ ON HOL
Top 5 Candidates
Justin Hinchcliffe (Con, Seven Sisters) - 100
Nora Mulready (Lab, Harringay) - 69
David Schmitz (Lib Dem, Harringay) - 69
Karen Alexander (Lib Dem, Harringay) - 62
Chris Ford (Lib Dem, Harringay) - 46
Top Party in a Ward
Harringay Ward Liberal Democrats - 59
Top Party across the 3 Wards
Labour - 28
So we have a good start in Harringay ward and an overall winner in Justin Hinchcliffe. but the first term's report is definitely could do better.
What will mastering new media mean to the election outcome, I wonder. Can the smart candidate replicate something of the Obama effect?
If you'd like to see the details of the NMQ, see the attachments as either pdf (hyperlinks non-functional) or Excel.
Tags for Forum Posts: 2010 local election, 2010 local elections
- Attachments:
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Candidates NMQ.pdf, 118 KB -
Candidates NMQ.xls, 109 KB
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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Enjoyed latest chunk of your twitter stream, LizIxer. Lead me not into temptation. Must be good to intersperse essay writing with tweeting. And having followed Keith Flett through a thousand letter columns I'm glad to see him even more succinct.
My final thought, though, is if Nora&John/John&Nora ever have the great good fortune to meet a reincarnation of Michael Foot across the Dispatch/Despatch Box, or even across the Cabinet table, will they shout 'Foul' and depart in that lofty vehicle, high dudgeon?
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Permalink Reply by Birdy_Too on
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A general observation and I am making assumptions here. Considering the boroughs turn out figures for local elections, I would suggest that Twitter and other new media portals are not the answer. Sure they spread the debates in a wider selection of information zones but do they go out the disenfranchised (the folk who may feel local and national politicians have let them down), according to the councils own figures the lowest turnouts are in the poorest wards who's average jo/e may not have access or even be aware of such things as Twitter via their Blackberry/iphones etc.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I agree that social media is not a panacea Birdy. You're right to point that out.
I was grateful for your digging a couple of weeks ago when you unearhed the fact that turnout in our three wards was around the mid 30th percentile. I think low turnout for local elections is common.
I'm not necessarily advocating that social media will have a profound effect on voter turnout, but it will allow an open discussion of local issues. I've never really been aware of any place I could go to get informed on the issues at ward level in previous local elections. HoL and other social media at least have the potential to offer that.
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Site member Mark Pack has been blogging about the internet and politics recently.
Towards the end of this useful article Mark concludes that, despite social media's potential for two-way communication, sheer weight of numbers will force politicians to continue to operate in broadcast only mode. I do hope not.
We have some great examples of how social media can be used to great effect at a local level. On this site Cllr Alan Stanton, though representing a ward two miles from here, has shown how to use social media to listen, inform, support and advise.
Over on another forum a councillor set up shop online and has been patiently helping the residents of his ward for the past six months. Standing alongside two party colleagues in May, he's about to find out if it's made any difference to his share of the vote. The forum members have certainly become great fans. When recently he was criticised by someone for taking too long to reply to a query, there was an immediate and overwhelming chorus sounding in his defence - if James hasn't answered, there's a good reason, they said, give him a little time.
I'm not for a moment pretending that there isn't a potential isue of being overwhlemed, but we seem to learn to adapt to technologies. No doubt the phone was scary when it started entering our lives; some politicians still resent the intrusiveness of email. But the best of them have worked out how to use each new technology without letting it dominate their lives. I believe the same will be true for social media.
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The pace of developing technology when the phone was invented was at a snails pace compared to today. Technology and in particular the web and social technology changes when you pop off to make a cup of tea. All you have to do is look at the past fifteen years to see how quickly things have changed, become the choice gadget/application, then on to the next.
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You're right Birdy. Are you saying that it's moving too fast for politicians to keep up? No doubt it's tough. I get overwhelmed sometimes. It makes me want to go and live in Constable country, but I can't uninvent the technology. I have to find a way to live with it and make it work for me. The examples I gave above show that some politicians are doing the same.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Pack on
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It may be tough for politicians to keep up, though in many ways they're some of the best at it. If you look at politicians compared with other professions in the public eye, or indeed the FTSE250 companies, politicians come out pretty well at having embraced new media compared to those others. That's not to say there isn't plenty more many could and should do, of course.
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No, possibly going too fast for us all to keep up. Conventional canvassing reaches everybody, Twitter as an example reaches 2-5% (a complete guess, yes). I am not saying they don't have their place but proportionately to the real world. We all want to move forward but at a comfortable pace otherwise you miss out on the majority who frankly can't be bothered to change their habits on a fortnightly basis.
The biggest observation I have noticed over the last few months is that the general public believe that politicians (more so nationally) have lost touch with reality and the common person because they live literally in another world as well as cyber world. I think this is less so at local level.
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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I agree Hugh, I think that if you are starting out using social media, it is probably best not to spread yourself too thinly.
Alan has stated, for example, that he knows how much time engaging with social media takes and so has chosen to limit himself to those that he thinks are most beneficial. As an example, his use of Flickr is inspired. Most people think its a place to show off photos, it is in fact a social network that revolves around images for conversation. Most of those conversations are about the beauty/uniqueness of the image but increasingly they have become places for more serious discussions. Alan's use of it as blog and conversation tool that encourages exchanges of ideas is a subversive use of a social network that most people think is for looking at pretty pictures and saying 'wow, great shot.'
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Sometimes I agree with Councillor Stanton and sometimes I disagree. I think the main point is that Alan engages and is prepared to argue his case in a forum that is much more accessible than the council chamber, where the public can normally speak only on pain of ejection by security guards.
Some of Alan Stanton's colleagues do not engage in this way and as a result, they seem remote, if not aloof (Alan also does not threaten to walk away if he takes flak and I respect him for that).
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I may be missing the point here but what happened to good old fashioned door-to-door canvassing?
Why should we as voters have to trawl social networking sites and the like to find out about our local candidates?
I did not vote in the last election as nobody bothered to knock on my door but this time I will be voting Labour because they have been the only ones who made the effort to turn off their computers, get off their backsides, brave the cold and knock on my door!
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