IT in politics: IT in the political process

NEW DELHI, INDIA: The first major discontinuity in modern politics was introduced by the advent of television; televised debates to be precise.

Although Scotsman John Logie Baird first transmitted television signals on October 2, 1925, and licensed commercial broadcasting began in the United States from the early 40s, it was only in the 60s that politics discovered television as a medium of public communication. Till then, a politician was someone that one read about regularly, and occasionally heard, but rarely met one-on-one.

Television brought politics to the drawing room and showed politicians at close quarters, goose pimples and all. The 1960 US Presidential election was a landmark as far as television-based political communication goes. The contestants were Richard Nixon of the Republican Party and John F Kennedy of the Democratic Party.

The television became the chief medium of reaching out, and successful performance on the studio floor became de rigueur for politicians.

Currently, another major discontinuity seems to be emerging over the political firmament. And that discontinuity is being caused by information technology. If the first half of the 20th century was dominated by the mass media, and the second half by what is called the electronic media, then what we are seeing is the dawn of what is being termed as the new media.

A clutch of new technologies - the Internet, mobile telephony, CD-ROMs, electronic kiosks, etc are redefining the whole tenets of communication. And, in the process, impacting the political process as well!

At least in the developed countries of the West, IT has brought about a tremendous change in the transparency, urgency and responsiveness in the way politics is conducted. Factoring in the time lag in the adoption of technologies between the West and India, there is a fairly good chance that IT would play a significant role in Indian politics as well.

IT in Indian Politics

Or would it? I am given three reasons why IT does not make sense in the Indian political context:

a) In a country like ours where a vast majority of our people do not even get electricity for the greater part of their waking hours, not to talk of the levels of literacy, it would be too much to expect the average citizen to use any IT tool. What has the aam aadmi got to do with it?

b) For many others, tutored in the extreme utilitarian school of thought, the first question in a discussion on IT and politics is: Will it get us votes? Can it help us win elections? Unless one is ready with a straight yes for an answer, the discussion runs the danger of being snapped straightaway.

c) For many others not connected directly with the political process, the images of the Indian politician and IT are so disconnected as to provoke downright derision, if not indifference. New media does not go with old politicians, they say.

To my mind, all these arguments reek of extreme prejudice and ignorance. Part of the problem is, of course, the whole image of IT itself. The visuals associated with this word of smart western-attired, English-speaking, professionals hunched over computer terminals in swanky glass buildings are so remote from the heat and dust and sound of fussily India that one is tempted to go along with the popular opinion.

But if for a minute we are willing to suspend our disbelief about a globalizing India and a stuck-in-time Bharat, get out of the utilitarian mode of seeking a direct correlation between financial input and electoral output, and think about politics as a process and political parties as organizations, then maybe we can get into some sort of a comfort zone that makes serious discussion possible.

Yet should one still stick to the 'kya vote milega?' point of view, here are some encouraging words from researchers.

Analyzing the Australian 2004 elections, Rachel Gibson and Ian McAllister of the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University found that the Web is a major vote generator for candidates and has the potential in closely fought contests to determine the election outcome. Even if one were to discard the above evidence as foreign, one could still consider the success story of ITCs e-Choupal project, Karnatakas Bhoomi project, and hundreds of other e-Governance projects, where the end-user and beneficiary have been the nameless faceless mofussil janta. This should be proof enough that IT too could be used to connect to the masses.

But to study IT in a political context, let us first understand (a) what political parties do, and (b) how political parties all over the world, and specially in the West, are using the tools of IT.

2007

April 10: MoveOn.org hosts the first nationwide virtual-town-hall debate featuring seven Democratic presidential candidates.

2006

November 23: Tony Blair invited the public to SMS their comments following The Labour Party's Political Broadcast, his last as Prime Minister.

November 1: First Mobile Video Campaign Ad Dick DeVos for Governor

October 5: First Mobile Campaign Website Dick Devos for Governor

June 26: First government official to resign via SMS to the Prime Minister - Ramos-Horta of East Timor

June: First world leader to vlog Angela Merkel, Germany

May: First election monitored using SMS as the primary communications and reporting tool - Montenegro Referendum on Independence

2005

December: First French political leader to podcast - Nicholas Sarkozy

November: First candidate to include an open source Wiki platform on his website - Pete Ashdown (UT, 2006 Senate campaign)

October 16: First Nationwide online election - Estonia

October: First SMS vote in Switzerland

August: First election coverage podcasts featuring interviews with candidates - New Zealand parliamentary election

March: First prominent political figure in the U.S. to podcast - John Edwards (D-NC)

-First world leader to podcast - Tony Blair (UK)

2004

September 26: First country to conduct a nationwide vote over the Internet - Switzerland

September 7: First official election in the U.S. using touch-screen voting that also produced paper copies of individual votes-Nevada primary elections

July: First African-American-focused blog whose chief blogger was granted credentials to blog at a national political convention (2004 Democratic National Convention)

July: First Convention to credential bloggers - Democratic National Convention

July: First Presidential candidate to raise over $5 million in 24 hours online-John Kerry (D-MA)

First Congressional candidate to allow the Internet community to decide his schedule through his campaign website-Jeff Seemann (D-OH)

2003

November: First North American Internet vote - Canada

June: First online endorsement primary by political organization - MoveOn.org

March: First Presidential candidate to raise over $20 million online and prove the real power of the Internet in politics - Howard Dean (VT)

January: First Presidential candidate to start a blog on his campaign website - Gary Hart

January: First campaign to outsource online organizing via a commercial site - Howard Dean campaign and Meetup.com

First online political party where the British members of the party decide on the party's policies through online voting - YourParty.org

2002

August: First-ever live Internet broadcast candidacy announcement - Claud Buddy Leach, Louisiana gubernatorial candidate

July: First virtual character on a government Web site - Scottish executives online reader Seonaid featured in the youth section

July: First state to allow candidates to file for office electronically - Washington State

June: First centralized online non-partisan advocacy research arena for Congressional staff - CapitolBeat.com

First candidate to devote an entire Web site to one issue - Tony Sanchez, U.S. Senate candidate in Texas

2000

November: First national party to have 1,000,000 activists online - The GOP

June: First President to conduct an Internet address - Bill Clinton

May: First President to conduct a webside chat with the nation - Bill Clinton

April 10: First all-politics Internet radio station - Policast.com

April: First US President to chat online from Air Force One - Bill Clinton

February: First candidate to collect $500,000 online in one day and $2,000,000 in one week - John McCain, 2000 Presidential primary campaign

January: First Governor to deliver a state budget online - Jeb Bush (FL)

First candidate to raise $1 million online in a campaign - Bill Bradley (NJ) Presidential Campaign

First candidate to use video email - Al Gore, (TN) Presidential Campaign

First Congressional site to be fully accessible to the disabled (met all W3C guidelines and be Bobby-approved) - Rep. Mark Green

1999

First President to host online town hall meeting - Bill Clinton

1998

First candidate to link his corporate website to his campaign website causing the FEC make a ruling on this activity - Dal LaManga, New York Congressional candidate

First state nominating convention to be covered live online - Connecticut State Democratic Convention (Hartford)

First negative banner ad - Peter Vallone, NY Gubernatorial campaign

First candidate that would not have won without the Internet - Jesse Ventura, MN Gubernatorial Campaign

First candidate to sell merchandise online - Barbara Boxer, CA Senate campaign

First candidate to list contributor information online - Ed Garvey, WI Gubernatorial Campaign

1997

October: First candidate to buy an online banner adTed Mondale, MN Democratic Gubernatorial primary

January 7: First elected official to have an official government function webcastIndiana Governor Frank OBannons inauguration

1996

First U.S. political party to allow voters to cast their ballots via the InternetReform Party primary

First online petition by a member of CongressSenator Ashcroft

First totally online debate between two candidates in the USSmith/Ravenel for SC Legislature

1994

First US Senate and Gubernatorial online candidate debates hosted by Minnesota E-Democracy

1993

First US Senator with web site Ted Kennedy (MA)

1992

First E-mail campaign - Jerry Brown (CA)

Source: http://www.politicsonline.com/content/main/firsts

Role of Political Parties

The role of political parties is to mobilize the citizenry, organize them into units from the grassroots-level upwards, agitate on issues, fight elections, and finally get elected to run governments. And doing all the things listed above require political parties to engage in a great deal of reaching out and relationship management.

Students of management are invariably taught CRM (Customer Relationship Management), the basic tenet being that it is far more difficult to acquire a customer than maintain one. Therefore it is in ones interest to maintain customer relationships. Now replace customer by the word voter, and see if the dictum still holds. Most politicians, particularly the practitioners of vote back politics, appreciate this fact. But what they do not usually appreciate is that technology can make their life so much easier.

Politicians in the West have been far better in embracing the benefits of technology. Of course it helps that technological penetration is far higher in their societies and, due to the higher rates of literacy, adoption easier.

Language Versions (as in Hindi, Telegu, etc) of the main English language site

News appearing in the Press about the Party

Press Releases issued by the Party

Biographies of the top Leaders

Contact Details of the important functionaries and their areas of responsibility

Online Donation options

Volunteer Forms to provide options for people to sign-up

Team Tools for volunteers to organize and track activity

Downloads of fliers, web stickers, or other campaign materials

Blog engine

Podcasts of important events and speeches

Multimedia: audio or video files

RSS of the website content

Adapted from The Internet's Role in Political Campaigns

Internet to Mobile

As broadband made its way into homes, political websites started getting sophisticated. From providing mere web-based information, websites started featuring progressively interactive tools like bulletin boards, guest books, mailing lists, chat engines, blogs, RSS etc.

As online campaigns got more sophisticated, it was only a matter of time before somebody took campaigns mobile. Although the first commercial cellular network was launched in Japan by NTT in 1979, modern-day (2nd generation) mobile telephony grew only in the early 1990s, almost paralleling the growth of the World Wide Web. Till then (1st generation) mobile phones were bulky units, the size of bricks, and were meant primarily for permanent installation in cars. As mobile phones really became mobile, telemarketers took off, and politicians soon discovered its virtues. Then SMS (short messaging service) happened.

What makes mobile a medium of choice for campaigners is its pervasive nature. A mobile phone is probably the only device most of us carry with us most of our waking hours, and we check it all so often.

The current jousting for the 2008 US Presidential elections has seen candidates turn to mobile-based technology in a big way. The first off the mark was John Edwards. As a part of the fundraising initiative, people who signed up in support of the campaign got a message directing them to a voicemail message from Edwards urging them to make a contribution to the campaign.

The Hillary Clinton Campaign used a mobile software whereby users could SMS the word Join to a number, 77007, and in turn receive regular updates about the campaign. Trying to be a step ahead, Barack Obama set up a two-way text messaging service where people could text questions to the campaign and receive answers in reply.

Data Analysis

Political parties haven't limited themselves only to reaching out to voters and other stakeholders, but have also used IT in a big way at the backend.

A classic case is the use of data warehousing and data mining technologies by the US Democratic Party in the successful 2006 mid-term elections. To explain the terms, data warehousing is an advanced method analyzing, extracting, classifying, categorizing of storing data in a way that it makes sense from the long-term point of view.

The Next Frontier

Website, blogs, mobile, there is no quite saying what would be the next big technology thing, and what would be picked up by campaign strategists in search of that elusive vote. But whatever be it, two important lessons remain. First, one must not miss the woods for the trees.

It is easy to get dazzled by technology, but the fact remains that no technology can replace the human touch. And at the end of the day, the relationship between a leader and a party worker, between a representative and his voters, needs to remain personal. Secondly, the message needs to have precedence over the medium. It has always been that way, and needs to remain so.

Having said this, I also feel it necessary to say that our political class needs to open its eyes to the benefits of technology. If the corporate sector can reap business benefit by becoming the early adopters of technology, what stops us from reaping electoral benefits?

Prodyut Bora

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