Politicians Do A Disservice Ignoring Form Communications

November 15, 2011 in Rants & Raves, Thoughts
Tags: Australia, communication, democracy, email, information, online campaigning, personal opinion, political parties, political technology, politics, voters

Political Engagement?

In recent years more and more politicians have been ignoring mass-form emails and submissions. In fact a few of them have been declaring as such through social media; see the irony here.

One hears the political class complain that contact with constituents from email and form contact methods are of a lower quality contact. They claim that this is an easy thing to do and doesn’t necessarily mean a true level of engagement on the issues constituents make contact about. Here politicians say form letters and emails diminish the impact of communication.

But more importantly politicians are in fact doing themselves and their constituents a great disservice.

Unfortunately for politicians the brave new world of social media means they can no longer ignore email and form communications; especially as it’s used by politicians to help them get re-elected or push a pet issue.

And it probably does not occur to politicians and their so-called social media experts that it takes a lot of time and effort to solicit an email or encourage someone to submit a form letter, submission or whatever. It can take a substantial level of engagement before someone does send an email or some other method of form letter or submission.

Politicians that also ignore this form of communication is missing out on getting an indication of what national, state issues constituents are concerned about or how an issue may be gaining support. It can reveal trends and help identify barriers. They can also reveal a lot of helpful information. Yet this is ignored with flippant remarks about how they ignore methods of form communication.

However, the flip side of this argument is the appalling level of communication politicians send to constituents.

Sadly, politicians send out far too many form letters in response to constituents’ letters (the handwritten kind) and email. These are not form letters, these are correspondence sent after time spent considering the content. Yet these are met with a form letter in reply. The hypocrisy is extreme.

Perhaps politicians that want more than just form letters and emails should practice what they preach.

This isn’t a tit-for-tat argument.

The truth is, mass email and petition actions do work and they’ve had impacts on big issues. It takes hard work to find and connect with people and campaign/action champions to build a rapport to get people to send an email or sign a petition. It’s easy to get people to do these things and like a Facebook page or retweet a message when they’re already involved and eager to support the campaign or action.

Lots of people will send the form message and many will include their own personal message. It’s possible to identify barriers to messages about government programs, or political messages. It can help identify potential campaign champions and local opinion leaders on particular issues. Helping to identify trends and local opinion leaders can enable better, more proactive communication (online and through local media) with constituents about local issues and concerns.

Politicians would be wise to make sure they keep an eye on form emails and submissions as they could prove to be great data to pointing to different trends in their electorates. (The smart online campaigns allow supporters to send emails via electorates.) Though I have little doubt the form emails supporting a politician’s particular agenda are paraded as demonstrating support for their agenda.

It seems almost foolish to be ignoring the information these can provide, and how they can be used in campaigns or constituent engagement.

I’d urge politicians rethink ignoring form communications.

If you have an opinion about this, please leave a comment.