To steal a headline from The Independent, The UK election this May will not be decided by the power of Rupert Murdoch’s stranglehold over the British press, but by the opening up of society thanks to the free-thinking power of the internet.

Is the influential power of the old media really over? In 1997, several British tabloids and broadsheets made the switch from supporting a right-wing Conservative government to the fresh-faced, youthful New Labour led by the charismatic Tony Blair. There was an energy in the air in Britain which was spurred on by the UK Press, with daily news spins of how the Labour Party would fix all the problems in our society.

Two wars, a black hole of a deficit and many greying hairs later, Britain appears to be in a worst state than it was. But the the old media imported something in which would change the face of British Politics forever – the Television Debates.

Sceptical as we were of an American concept being tried on British shores, it had the unexpected effect of launching Britain’s third placed party right up into pole position – the Liberal Democrats, led by the youthful Nick Clegg was sprung directly into the spotlight as he wiped out the other two larger parties in the first debate. But what are the elements which pushed “Cleggmania”? Was it the old media flexing their influential claws into the British mindset?

Not quite.

ITV, who broadcast the first debate, also had a panel of 5,000 Tweeters who’s opinions were gauged during the 90 minute face-off. Some may argue that younger people (especially of the “net generation”) are more liberally inclined, and this may produce skewed results, but nevertheless, 5,000 people is a much bigger sample than most polls that are carried out during election season.

Other websites, such as Channel 4 and the Guardian, also incorporated in Tweets using the #leadersdebate hashtag into their website as a feed, which would keep readers updated on what real people think about the debate and the parties, in real time. On top of that, UK Facebook users were greeted with messages to make sure they were registered to vote, as well as countless status updates relating to the election. So what does all this lead to?

The fact that it’s the most interesting and unpredictable election in living memory lays not just in the hands of Nick Clegg, but also in the power of social media. When public opinion sharply fell into the camp of the Liberal Democrats, it was immediately reflected on social media websites – status updates on Twitter and Facebook, videos on Youtube, images on Flickr and Google Trends showed the number of searches on “Nick Clegg” rose several times over what it was.

But directly after the debate, the Liberal Democrats only saw their lead in the polls jump by a few points. It was over the following weekend when their numbers would see the sharp rise. It’s essentially the “Friend Factor” – when people you know are talking about the debate, and they hype up Nick Clegg’s performance, you find yourself agreeing and then you’re praising him to other people. Done over social networks, this effect reaches many more people in a way that the old media has never quite nailed down.

In the days following the first debate, the right-wing press “conspired” to run several articles to smear Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. Perhaps in the age of old media, this may have worked and his reputation would have subsided. Instead, social media rallied against the Conservative press and their smear campaign, a result of which Nick Clegg has retained the boost given to him by his debate performance.

As a tool, I’ve not really seen social media implemented to great effect by the British political parties in the way Obama’s campaign did during the US election. Although Youtube and Facebook teamed up to hold a Digital Debate, the parties have failed to engage the online audience and rally their support – and sticking a Facebook/Twitter link on your party’s webpage doesn’t count. As for virtual worlds? Squat all. That’s hardly surprising though – in the largest virtual platform – Second Life – the UK userbase barely amounts to 70,000 active users. That’s about enough to win one seat in the House of Commons – and that’s not really worth the time and money investment.

So it seems that though social media is engaging the electorate in the race for 10 Downing Street, the political parties have yet to embrace social media.

Lead Image Credit: Nick Hider

The impact of social media has revolutionised the way the world connects, and thinks. It has bought the concept of democracy and free-thinking to parts of the world where it was not seen before. But it also changes the power game, and how warfare is played out in the modern world.

In 2006, a web phenomenon was born in the shape of Twitter. Despite a character limit of 140 per message, it has taken the world over by storm. It represented the ultimate in the “me me me” facade that the web was rapidly becoming, many thanks to the glitzy, blingtard Myspace phenomenon which would soon die out.

The power of Twitter would soon become evident. The growth of this social media platform would never have taken off in the way it had were it not for the advances in mobile technology, which would allow users to access the internet from the palm of their hand. You’re essentially always connected, and Twitter allowed anybody to tell everybody what they were thinking, doing and contemplating.

But the past year has shown the true power of what Twitter can deliver. In June 2009, in the aftermath of the Iranian election, the people took to the streets amid allegations of fraud and rigging. The government took immediate action, and shut down media reporting within the country, hence cutting off the most powerful tools to the people – news and communication.

But the growth of social media was something the government were not prepared for. In the space of a week, over 2 million tweets were sent out of Iran by over half a million users, informing the world of what was really happening inside the locked down nation. Real news, from real people who were living the events as they happened. The rules of the game had changed forever, and autocratic governments no longer hold the grip they once did over media and information.

The Haitian earthquake in the past month was one of the largest crises in recent times. In previous international emergencies, the news of how to donate would be shared through traditional media – newspapers, television and radio. The gathering of donations would be a slower process, and money would be accumulated over days as the news would filter out of the devastated areas.

The Haiti earthquake changed this. The process was two-fold; the initial move by charities were to set up a quick and convenient method to be able to donate money – through a mobile phone. An essential device in this modern world, for many people it is difficult to imagine life without a phone to hand. Many people are connected through phone plans or contracts, and think nothing of how much they use their phone.. until the bill comes, anyways.

The charities took advantage of this method and developed a new method by which to donate money to disaster relief funds. By allowing people to text a word to an easy to remember number, they could quickly accumulate amounts from people who want a quick and easy way to “do something to help”. Text “DONATE” to a five digit number, and you can send $10 to help a country which has just seen a huge catastrophe.

The second part of this process was played by social media. Within minutes and hours of the charities announcing their quick method of donating money, the message was spread across the world. Not through the old, traditional media, but by Twitter and Facebook.

Users would post a message on either service and share the news of how to donate with people who were their friends or followed them.

On Twitter, followers would then click the “ReTweet” button, which would then send the same message to their own followers. On Facebook, the message would appear in people’s news feeds, who would then pass the message onto their own friends through status updates. It’s basically a positive version of the Ponzi “Pyramid” scheme, in that news is shared on an exponential scale.

This allowed the news to be shared to a much larger number of people, in a much more direct way than before, and allowed people to donate through an easy method, in an affordable amount.

Social media has revolutionised the way the world connects and interacts, and by to connecting to each other, we are connecting to the wider world. Think of it as six degrees of separation – we’re all constantly sharing information. It’s only a matter of time before that information reaches us. By doing it online, we’re making the process quicker, more efficient and getting our news direct from the sources.