Social media and Modern Politics. By Toby Ralph in The Australian. Toby Ralph is a marketer and researcher specialising in persuasion. He has worked on more than 50 elections globally.
Politics, like retail, pornography and organised religion, has gone where the eyeballs are, and they are now permanently staring at phones…
While a television commercial for a political party might reach everybody watching the footy, a social media campaign can reach divorced men aged 38 to 54 in outer suburban Queensland who own a HiLux, dislike immigration, watch hunting videos and are three mortgage repayments away from joining a populist uprising. This excites vote hunters. …
One reason that One Nation is succeeding:
One Nation succeeds because grievance is the native language of social media. Outrage engages and persuades faster than policy, and anger shares better than nuance. Platforms built to maximise engagement inevitably reward emotional intensity, tribalism and conflict. A furious man recording a rant from inside his ute will usually outperform a carefully researched Treasury explanation delivered by some bloke in a navy blazer standing in front of three Australian flags. …
The article omits that the main reason for the rise of One Nation is that One Nation is the only party offering what most people want right now. Immigration has become the biggest issue now, and One Nation are the only party credibly offering to severely curb it. Ditto Net Zero.
If One Nation’s vote was rising merely because it aired grievances on social media, why didn’t it do better from 2010 onwards after social media started? Because immigration has only become a huge, obvious problem in the last few years, as Albanese imports two million more voters from the third world, and Bondi etc.. Duh.
The audience:
Most persuadable voters aren’t political obsessives. Persuasion in politics involves seducing people who actively don’t want to engage with politics.
They don’t spend evenings reading policy papers or debating economic theory. They distrust politicians, avoid ideological intensity and would generally prefer not to think about government at all. Many wouldn’t vote if they could avoid the fine and are more concerned with who’s rooting who on Married At First Sight and how to stop the bank repossessing the family SUV. …
Persuasion works at the soft edge of credibility, by finding a belief and pushing it further until it converts to behavioural change. That distinction is increasingly lost in Australian politics. …
Farrer by-election lesson:
A recent example was the Farrer by-election, where One Nation secured a landslide victory despite massive activist spending against it. GetUp reportedly spent around $600,000 campaigning in the seat, saturating digital platforms with highly researched advertising, focus-grouped messaging and sophisticated targeting. Then despite starting as equal favourites, they lost badly.
Their operation was a success. The patient died. Partly because the messenger was wrong. In many regional and outer suburban electorates, organisations like GetUp are viewed not as grassroots movements but as manifestations of precisely the urban elite voters feel already dominate political attention. The campaign unintentionally reinforced the very grievance structures One Nation thrives upon.
Focus groups fail — the “shy Tory” effect:
But there was another problem. The research itself was manifestly misleading, for it suggested all was fine, the messaging was right and the independent was in the box seat, yet they no longer were.
Modern research suffers from a fundamental flaw. It relies upon people honestly articulating what they believe in artificial environments surrounded by strangers. Focus groups produce what psychologists politely call social desirability bias, and what normal people recognise as people bullshitting because they don’t want to look bad in front of others. …
In the groups they unconsciously conform, moderate controversial opinions and mirror perceived social expectations, then consultants charge enormous sums reporting data generated by Peter and Peggy from Penrith who were probably fibbing and may not even fully understand their own motivations.
The political class readily mistake articulated opinion for actual behaviour, particularly if it suits their internal narrative. We saw misleading focus group research during the Indigenous voice referendum, the federal election and again in Farrer.
How to measure opinions when they might be “disapproved of” (i.e anti-globaslist):
My preferred methodology is much cruder and, I’d argue, more useful. Stimulus boards combined with one-on-one intercept interviews conducted in pubs, shopping centres, cafes and cinema foyers with people who haven’t been recruited to have an opinion and therefore don’t feel obligated to manufacture one.
You get very different, deeper answers when an individual isn’t trapped in a fluorescent-lit room with others, trying to impress earnest sociology graduates. …
Social media politics is simpler and dumber:
This is how information is now consumed by people under 40.
Social media has profoundly transformed the structure of political communication because in the Attention Economy it has altered the mechanics of human attention itself. Before persuading voters, politicians must first avoid being scrolled past while somebody explains five secret tricks to hacking airline loyalty programs.
That fundamentally advantages simplicity, emotion and conflict.
Many politicians still approach social media as though they are filming a workplace safety induction video from 2007. Those succeeding understand the platforms reward speed, emotional clarity and conversational tone. …
The mistake political professionals repeatedly make is assuming complexity performs well online. It doesn’t. Content that cuts through is usually emotionally understandable within three seconds.
Which is terrible news for anybody hoping social media might usher in a golden age of reflective democratic debate. Instead, politics increasingly competes within a giant algorithmic entertainment slurry alongside influencers, comedians, gambling advertisements, fitness coaches, Only Fans wannabes, pseudo-intellectual podcasts and a never-ending industrial conveyor belt of attention-seeking opportunists. …
Social media platforms disproportionately reward emotional grievance, outsider identity and anti-establishment sentiment. Traditional parties still partly communicate as though voters are citizens deliberating thoughtfully upon the national interest.
Well aren’t you a dinosaur, reading a site like this 🙂
