Politicians: Join up or die

OTTAWA — University of Alberta anthropology student Christopher White wasn’t the first person to start a Facebook group because he was angry at the government.

But the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament group he initiated after Prime Minister Stephen Harper's proroguing decision Dec. 30 has become a sign, not just that some Canadians are not happy with Harper, but also that online social networking is not just about Canadians' ability to point and click.

The debate about what White's group meant tended to fall along partisan lines -- Conservatives dismissed it as insignificant, non-Conservatives pitched it as the omen of Harper's demise. Harper's opponents may be overly optimistic, but the Tories are taking a risk in dismissing it.

"(The Facebook phenomenon) can't be dismissed easily," said Rideau Institute president Steven Staples. "It should not be dismissed by politicians."

The Rideau Institute, an Ottawa-based think tank, commissioned a study of the anti-proroguing group on Facebook to get an understanding of who had joined it.

The results are not considered scientific. An invitation to participate was issued on the "wall" of the Facebook page and 341 people responded, out of 219,000 who joined the site.

But Staples said it gives at least a decent glimpse at some of the people involved in the group.

"It shows Facebook is moving into the mainstream," he said. "It's not just a bunch of young people who never vote anyway."

Half the respondents were over age 45, 88 per cent said they were somewhat or very politically engaged and 96 per cent claimed to have voted in the last election.

Staples said like most new technology or forums, Facebook at first was the realm of the young and computer-savvy. But it's quickly moved beyond that. In Canada in November, statistics showed more than 13 million people were active Facebookers. More than half are women and more than one in three are over age 35.

In the United States, the fastest-growing demographic on Facebook is women over 55.

Staples compared it to email which has become a dominant tool across all age groups.

"Now everyone's grandma has an email account," he said.

Most politicians know Facebook, Twitter and other forums for online networking are not something to be ignored. More than half of Canadian MPs are on Facebook and about one-third have Twitter accounts.

Manitoba junior cabinet minister Steven Fletcher, whose Facebook site has 1,539 followers, said engaging all demographics is critical and Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube are ways to do that.

"It helps engage people and I think that is a positive thing for our democracy -- whenever people get engaged," said Fletcher.

NDP communications strategist Nammi Poorooshasb said he wasn't surprised by the growth of the antiproroguing Facebook group because he knows how prevalent social networking has become. He said the NDP is very aware of the important of social networking to its cause.

"This is where people are," he said. "If people are occupying that space, we need to be there too."

But Staples said using Facebook as a way to communicate with voters is only one side of the equation.

"The problem is, they view it as a way of getting out their message but they aren't using it to listen," he said.

He said the proroguing group was not started by partisan forces nor did particular parties dominate it. To dismiss the group completely would be to a politician's peril, said Staples.

"It was an authentic, grassroots political movement," he said.

That the belief of the 219,000 members went beyond just Facebook was played out in polls, most of which have seen the Conservatives lead over the Liberals evaporate since New Years. Last October, most polls had the Conservatives with double digit leads. Now most polls have the Conservatives and Liberals statistically tied.

Staples said what Facebook and other forums online can do is allow people who think a certain way to easily find other people who feel the same way. That, as with the anti-proroguing group, can then lead to an entire movement of people giving politicians valuable information about how Canadians feel about certain things.

"You can't really tell if Facebook changes peoples minds about an issue but it is a way for people who share common concerns to find one another."

In many ways Facebook is a sort of online-dating site for political junkies. Or cat lovers, people who love Seinfeld, or people who want a particular contestant to win American Idol.

It can connect people across the country, across a province or even in a specific neighbourhood, income bracket, ethnicity, or gender. Albertans for Michael Ignatieff has 138 members. Manitoba for Stephen Harper has 30 members.

Support Canadian Troops in Afghanistan has 83,520 members. Canadian Supporters of Natural Health Products, intended to raise support against federal legislation, counts 34,325 members.

And there are just-for -fun groups -- such as the I am Canadian and I can out Drink Americans Anyday group which has 65,974 members, or the I am Canadian, therefore, I live in an igloo and ride polar bears to school, which has 64,777 members.

What Facebook is also good at doing, notes Staples, is validating concerns. People may think something but not realize many of their friends and acquaintances feel the same way. Then they log into Facebook and see 30 of their friends have joined a group behind something and that gives them the courage to speak up as well.

He said the best example of the power of online networking is the use of Facebook and other such tools by the Barack Obama presidential campaign in 2008.

Some have dubbed that election the Facebook race. Obama even hired one of the co-founders of Facebook to run his online strategy and the campaign used more than a dozen Web 2.0 forums to spread their message -- from Facebook sites to an Iphone app, to my.BarackObama.com which provided supporters all the tools to help organize from raising money to putting together a rally.

More than two million Americans created an account on the site. Eventually the campaign linked the my.BarackObama.com accounts to Facebook which let users find out which of their friends were also Obama supporters. It created vast networks of online friends which contributed to the campaign's ability to pack rallies and raise money. And the Obama camp also used the sites to get a read on what issues were percolating. During the transition between the election and inauguration, they created a site to give people a forum to speak up on issues and what they wanted Obama to do.

It also helped Obama put a stranglehold on the youth vote. Voters under 30 showed up in record numbers in the 2008 presidential election and Obama earned two in every three of their votes.

Canadian political parties have followed suit -- campaigns in 2008 included online forums such as the NDP Orange Room where NDP supporters could share photos, or put questions directly to leader Jack Layton. The Conservative Party of Canada has a virtual campaign office on its main website, giving instructions on how to do everything from write a letter to the editor, raise money or recruit friends to the party.

Staples said the anti-proroguing group should be the canary in the coal mine for politicians to finally see Facebook and online media not just as ways to communicate out but also ways to find out what people think.

"The savvy politician will have to find ways to use it," he said. "Just like they have to pay attention to the letters, faxes and emails that come in, so do they have to begin to grapple with (social networking). Those who don't will eventually find themselves overtaken by those who do."

mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca

with files from Larry Kusch

Stephen Harper

29, 710 Facebook friends

45,646 Twitter followers in English, 919 in French

816 subscribers to his You Tube channel

Michael Ignatieff

29,166 Facebook friends

37,077 Twitter followers in English, 627 in French

865 subscribers to his You Tube channel

Jack Layton

27,772 Facebook friends

35,180 Twitter followers in English, 1,231 in French

191 subscribers to his You Tube channel

In Manitoba:

MPs on Facebook: 10

MPs on Twitter: 6

Some Canadian groups on Facebook:

Canada vs United States - the race to 10,000,000 (Canada side) 122,228 members

The "Eh Oh! Canada Go!" chant is a national embarrassment 96,414 members

Fair Copyright for Canada 85,693 members

Legalize It, Canada 71,021 members

Canada for Haiti 3,654 members

Canadians United Against Stephen Harper 23,268 members

Michael Ignatieff SUCKS 79 members

michael ignatieff SUCKS 11 members

Vote Moustache. Vote Jack Layton. 67 members.

I support Bill C-391 569 members

Portrait of Canadians on Facebook

As of November 2009:

Total Canadian members: 13,228,380

Women: 54.5 per cent

Men: 45.5 per cent

Under 18: 11.6 per cent

18-35: 54.3 per cent

35-54: 26.7 per cent

55+: 7.4 per cent

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition January 30, 2010 H1