New internet politics venture GetUp! seems to have succeeded in attracting attention from pollies and the press, if nothing else, with Glenn Milne’s tendentious scare-mongering only the latest example. A couple of weeks ago, we had the odd phenomenon of Coalition MPs complaining about GetUp! generated emails as spam. As Suki points out, that’s a rather dismissive attitude to receiving constituent emails in a representative democracy. Even if the content is standardised, the volume of the emails should tell politicians that there’s real community concern about the government’s Senate majority.
Most of the stories about GetUp! seek to discern whether it, and similar sites, will have an effect on Australian politics comparable to that of MoveOn.org in the US. The Dean campaign broke new ground in internet led activism, and community political sites contributed to both increased turnout in the 04 Presidential elections, and to some degree to a resurgence in grassroots activism within the shell of the big business and union funded Democratic Party.
This is not the first attempt to do something similar in Australia. Margo Kingston’s WebDiary spun off Your Democracy, and 2024 seeks to facilitate face to face meetings and policy development. Online magazine NewMatilda.com also has a remit to develop alternative policy.
NewMatilda pursues a more traditional model of policy development, with the process driven largely by policy and academic experts. The other ventures have not been conspicuously successful. Your Democracy has not enjoyed anything like the popularity of WebDiary, and both it and 2024 appear to resemble poorly written blogs where the readers meet up occasionally for a drink to bemoan the state of the world.
There are a number of problems in the use of New Media in these sites. Margo Kingston ventures are well - Margo driven, and despite the interactivity, are in effect top-down affairs. 2024 is a nice idea, but it seems to have a small audience in the Sydney-Melbourne-Canberra triangle, and lacks the critical mass of attention needed to generate real numbers and enthusiasm. As many bloggers know, if you build it, they don’t necessarily come.
The difference with GetUp! is the massive funding.
However, I still remain dubious about its prospects of influencing political debate and activism. First, despite its new politics claims, it still seems to be a top-down site - with campaigns driven by the concerns of the site owners. Any burgeoning online community needs to allow campaigns and concerns to be driven from the bottom up, or it becomes a very passive form of political involvement. With Australians generally having much less of a robust civil society tradition than Americans, this is a big challenge. “Apathy” towards politics is not a new phenomenon in this country. Part of the reason also is the rigidity and polarisation of the party system. The way that GetUp! has been discussed in terms of being a Labor front indicates this very aspect of political culture at work. Any opposition to the Howard government is likely to be perceived as being partisan. The involvement of Evan Thornley and the resonances with his Labor First site (potentially an interesting development but coming up against strong factional barriers in Labor culture) add to these suspicions.
The appeal of Get Up! represents a failure of internal democracy, and belief in the viability of change, through political parties. But it also represents a constituency - progressive educated urbanites - who for reasons of culture and policy, are often unwilling to identify with the ALP as the main vehicle for opposition to Howard. Both an inability to understand the pragmatic need for political compromises over issues such as asylum seekers, and a diffuse desire to have a purer and cleaner politics are among the drivers of this group. But policy clashes and tensions which haunted the Keating coalition are also reflected here. Educated middle class small l liberals are often socially liberal and economically liberal. So while they might be fulsome on social issues, they might also support aspects of the neo-liberal agenda in economic and IR policy. An IR campaign by GetUp! might be the dealbreaker for many of its supporters. Which is probably why it’s being couched in terms of process and accountability, rather than justice. The difficulty with process slogans (as the Australian Democrats have found out), is that they represent only weak (because non-ideological) banners around which to rally a political movement.
So I’ll be a little surprised if GetUp! sets the world on fire. More promising for political action, I think, are net-works dedicated to particular campaigns or issues with an existing consituency, and possibly blogs which are configured in such a way as to allow maximum interactivity in posting and community generation, and a real contribution to policy debates. But such political webs are likely to be woven at the grassroots, rather than spun by mega dollars and tv advertising campaigns.
Elsewhere: More on GetUp! at Cut Price Commentariat and wsacaucus.org.
There’s supposed to be another one out there called PowerUp too.
I agree that GetUp is unlikely to be significant. When they started, future issues were listed as “opposing the Government‚Äôs planned industrial relations changes, airing concerns about immigration detention, opposing the war in Iraq and encouraging reconciliation with indigenous Australians.” But given that all these causes already have significant interest groups or issue movements behind them I can’t see that GetUp’sTV ads or spam are going to add much to what has gone before, unless with their ads they can tap an audience that does not watch/read/listen to traditional news and opinion media.
Incidentally, when I was liaising with a Coalition MP’s office last week the poor PA having to find the important emails amidst the spam said that they had been promised filters that would sort the GetUp mail out.
Nice summary Mark. There’s also a very good little debate on GetUp over at Bryan Palmer’s place between him and Cameron Riley of South Sea Republic.
In my experience, coalition MPs answer proper letters and e-mails about half the time, even after follow up e-mails (eg Senator Coonan, who represents NSW, in which I live). Perhaps they already have a magic spam filter which filters out all the e-mails that are difficult to respond to. And these are not rhetorical e-mails/letters, but ones asking real questions.
You missed the obvious difference, Mark.
In the US, there’s no compulsory voting. Getting people who agree with you to put their votes where their mouths are is crucial. It’s a total waste of time and money in Australia.
One can only hope they are as succesful in Australia as they were in the US. How many elections have they won???
None?????
Tell it to EP, Razor, who’ll tell you that it was the Republican blogs wot won it for Bush.
Liam, good point.
Razor, Kerry didn’t lose by much. And the dynamic in US politics in terms of revival of a grassroots left will take some time to have an effect. Wait for the 06 Senate elections.
Razor, the Democrats kept almost continually on winning House of Representatives and Senate elections after WWII. It’s only since 1994 that the Republicans have had a lot of national legislative success.
Good to see you guys can keep a positive outlook.
I’m sure that before the ‘04 elections that Bush was up against it because of the economy, Iraq, he’s dumb. . .and on and on.
John ‘I was in Cambodia’ Kerry - was robbed!! Wasn’t he??
Oh, and Howard and Blair were meant to lose too because of all their nastiness, too.
I can’t wait for the next round of federal elections in the US or Australia.
The people who backed Getup will end up looking stupid. I’m afraid there is a lot more to Australian politics than going to Harvard.
I can’t tell if John Kerry was “robbed”, but a majority of those who voted voted for Bush, and as that’s the most basic test of whether someone was “robbed”, I think that he wasn’t. Whether people voted on correct information, I can’t tell and I don’t presume to.
There seems to be so much nastiness in reflecting on election results. We don’t need to subscribe to this.
I’m not stating an original idea here, someone said it on a blog I think, possibly this one, but…
They face major issues when deciding whether to effectively back Labor as the dominant lefty alternative or whether to go with the Greens on a particular issue. Or a splinter moderate group within the coalition, for example by working on a Barnaby or a Petro Georgio and their supporters.
I would have thought the best thing for mobilising anti-Howard efforts would be to persuade people to become genuinely politically active by joining one of the alternative parties. Or, if there is a large group who feel unrepresented, start their own.
Watching with interest…
I believe that was me, armaniac.
Mens rea, actus rea…
GetUp will win elections with spam, where MoveOn.Org failed.
Riiiiiiight …..
Getup is the first of this kind in Australia. It mimics the style of 527s. You can also look at this as long tail economics reaching political activism. More of these style of flash-advocacy groups are going to appear, rallying people and money around a single issue. These kinds of flash-advocacy groups will be from all parts of the political spectrum. They will also probably be volatile and not exist beyond a single issue.
I see this as a good thing. Technology is supposed to cause innovation in other areas of society, and this email campaign is more like a push poll than anything else. The politicians should be sufficiently non-luddite enough to understand their email clients, they are probably totally dependant on them anyway. So filters Getup mail so they can judge volume and message (if customised) should be a simple matter. This isnt spam.
I look forward to more of these types of groups participating in the public and political process.
Will Howard respond in kind?
ie: a GetDown-ShutUp-BeHappy-LikeIt-LumpIt campaign which, initially, allows you to spam Joyce and the ACTU?
I want to see my tax dollars at work.
Dammit, Mark, what is up with your moderation filters?
I’m with Cameron on this, only a good thing from many angles. By the way let’s not forget Howard’s telephone spam at the last election, delivered by his sons Company and learned at the foot of Republican strategists.
Cameron Riley wrote:
“I see this as a good thing. Technology is supposed to cause innovation in other areas of society, and this email campaign is more like a push poll than anything else.”
WTF? Unless Cameron‚Äôs concept of what a “push poll” is differs wildly from mine (see e.g.
http://paulwatson.blogspot.com/2004_01_25_paulwatson_archive.html#107515879574753437 ), he seems to be endorsing a practice that makes (mere/ordinary) spamming look angelic, in comparison.
If GetUp is indeed going to soon be proved a single issue wonder, then I guess that there‚Äôs no great harm done. But the large amount of cash it is already sitting on suggests otherwise. More importantly here is the answer to the question that no one — unbelievably — has so far publicly asked: who is behind this cash stash? (Clearly, the stash is not (i) an accumulation of many trifling donations, or (ii) (entirely) the personally stake/contributions of the founding duo.)
Being a non-major party voter, I find the Right’s partisan swinging at GetUp irritating and predictable. Either it’s a prima facie affront to democracy (which is my view, of course), or it’s just normal argy-bargy, aka Cameron’s political innovation, as a praiseworthy thing.
Such partisan-ness, BTW (this time from the Left), also ended up blunting the attacks on the PM’s son Tim Howard and his company Net Harbour being employed to spam voters before the last election. There were serious issues raised here about the undermining of democracy (see:
http://paulwatson.blogspot.com/2004_08_22_paulwatson_archive.html#109357320216085720 ), but one could be forgiven for thinking that is was all just a piece of cheap political point-scoring.
Paul, Sorry was using software terminology. You pull from a source, or push to it. Voters emailing their representatives directly or using an advocacy group like Getup is pushing back to the Representatives. Communication is now a two way street. Information is cheap enough to publish, organize and send; that groups like Getup can get quickly noticed through volume. It is cheaper than organizing a letter campaign, for both the senders and recipients. The Representatives can filter it and get an idea of the volume.
You wrote;
he seems to be endorsing a practice that makes (mere/ordinary) spamming look angelic, in comparison.
Hyperbole. It isnt spam, as there is a “send” button on the form. They arent using open relays. Representatives are also required to show diligence in listening to their voter’s grievances and concerns no matter the medium it is expressed in. The representatives have filters in their email clients, which they can use to quickly judge the volume of canned mail and custom mail. They only have to be luddites by choice.
As to money, I wouldnt be surprised if they have raised the money in small donations. The 527s in the US have achieved that kind of rapid fund raising. The technology in Australia is the same, so dont see any reason why they couldnt do it. It is taking advantage of long tail economics.
Nic, my apologies if a comment got stuck in moderation. I was out last night and today being a public holiday in Brisbane (Show Day), I’ve been away from my computer.
Paul, I thought Thornley was putting up the dosh.
Mark, I would not be at all surprised if it was Evan Thornley who was principally funding GetUp, but do you have any evidence for this? (The only corroboration I have been able to find for it online comes from the mouth of Andrew Landeryou - a former close political mate of Thornley’s, whose recent penchant for dirt-dishing seems to privilege quantity over quality (i.e. accuracy)).
http://andrewlanderyou.blogspot.com/2005/08/email-blitz-getup-launches-email.html
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/comments/get_up_move_on_go_away_stop_digging_through_our_trash_for_food_etc/#55659
In terms of Cameron’s explanation that there is no Mr/Ms Big behind GetUp, I’m just not buying it. For two unknown 20-somethings to be able to talk thousands of people into slinging a couple of hundred (non-tax deductible) dollars to pay for a TV ad campaign that promotes a website that sends emails to pollies (Wow! - not) beggars belief.
P.S. This is not an argument against the use of technology in political lobbying. On the contrary, all power to anyone who can come up with an effective, trustworthy system that bypasses high-priced lobbyists and “fundraising” dinners. Until GetUp’s financing is publicly revealed, it fails any test of being an honest broker.
Paul, I think I read it in one of the articles. It stands to reason since Thornley is on the board. I’m not a regular reader of Comrade Landeryou’s.
It’s quite possible that a site like that could sustain itself over time with small donations (though less likely in Oz than the States for similar reasons as stated in my post) but we would have heard about it if they’d been fundraising before startup.
Of course, running the website alone wouldn’t cost all that much. The big dosh would go for tv ads. I’d question their utility in the absence of a big issue/community campaign like the ACTU’s and this far out of the election.
I’ve said a number of times - if people like Thornley want to invest in left politics, they’d be better off spending their money on funding a serious thinktank (ie not The Australia Institute) and research assistance for talented policy thinkers in Shadow Cabinet.
On a very oblique topic, I feel sorry for Kimberley Kitching, declaring herself bankrupt (I think), allegedly as a result of Mr. Landeryou activities. Or so I read in the papers a few months ago.
Hi Mark,
Sorry, but I have to ask - how’s the monster coming along?
All good, Sach. I’ve delayed the final seminar/oral defence thingie because I want a week before it clear of teaching/marking. So I’m waiting for them to get back to me with a certain date.
Yeah - funny where people you went to Uni with end up!
funny where people you went to Uni with end up!
Tell me about it. One of my uni friends is a Government Minister, another is a Shadow Minister.
Well, she can belt out a good Abba tune at any rate, Naomi!
UQ Law Revue one year…
That’s why I said “I think” - it’s the impression I gained from the newspapers.
I remember that she and Milton Dick seemed to be a political duo for a time at uni, and now Milton’s secretary of the Qld ALP. No surprise there - I wonder what he’s like at the job?
Any Queenslanders like to comment on the Chatsworth and Redcliffe by-elections?
Good for you Mark on getting the thesis done - I hope that the oral defence goes really well.