9: What news channel? Go to twitter for politics!

Anyone remembers this year's general elections? How many of you actually bothered to follow the news and wait for the results patiently for hours? Not for me definitely, I was too busy checking social media websites for the results and surprisingly, I was updated way quickly than the traditional media channels.

Politics has taken an advanced step towards technology, slowly yet steadily. Just by looking at singapore's politics for example, facebook and twitter became the main channels to reach out to our citizens. I came across this article online (extracted from http://asiancorrespondent.com/53134/singapore-elections-nicole-seah-and-the-social-media-effect/) whereby it talks about the young icon for this year's general elections - Nicole Seah. She has gone from unknown advertising agency executive to a national figure as the country’s second most popular politician online after her campaign for the Marine Parade GRC seat in the 2011 Singapore General Elections hit the online sphere via social media.

Miss Seah, who is representing the opposition party National Solidarity Party (NSP), has accrued an impressive amount of support through Facebook, putting her second only to Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew as Straits Times explains:

By 9pm on Monday, the 24-year-old opposition candidate had amassed 18,900 fans compared to Mr Lee’s 54,000 fans. She had earlier that day overtaken previous runner-up Foreign Minister George Yeo’s 18,700 fans, despite the fact that he had a three-year head start.

What made social media so popular for political campaigns? I could only think of a few reasons.

1) A wide network of audiences that a politician could reach just by a tweet or an update of status. Just look at how many people patronise facebook and youtube itself. With the country’s Facebook population of three million larger than the voter pool of 2.35 million, many voters may well interact with and discover new content through Facebook and Twitter instead.

2) Convenient and accessible. As these social media applications are readily available on the web and even on portable mobiles, politicians can update their progress and campaign motives anytime, reducing the high costs that may be needed if they opted for traditional media all the time to garner support.

3) Direct communication between politicians and the public because of the platform to allow free comments from the public. Social media serve to offer a breath of fresh air where comment is freer in which during election, parties and politicians like Nicole Seah herself readily accesses a platform that allows direct two-way communication with the public, free of restriction and interferences. That way, as a general member of the public, we would feel more connected to the political issues that exists and are to come and may feel the genuine sincerity between parties.

In conclusion, politics is a complicated arena, and in order to move further and beyond your peers in this battle field, it is inevitable that technology plays a part in escalating these advancements and ensuring survival. After all, it is about persuasion and winning, isn't it?