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Coffeeshop Chit Chat - Next election: Does the Internet matter?</TD><TD id=msgunetc noWrap align=right>
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</NOBR> </TD><TD class=msgDate noWrap align=right width="30%">Nov-6 11:04 pm </TD></TR><TR class=msghead><TD class=msgT noWrap align=right width="1%" height=20>To: </TD><TD class=msgTname noWrap width="68%">ALL <NOBR></NOBR></TD><TD class=msgNum noWrap align=right> (1 of 5) </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgleft width="1%" rowSpan=4> </TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>2215.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>Does the Internet matter?
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Zakir Hussain
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- show image if available --></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->THE next election is not due till 2011, and their party is in no risk of losing power.
But some activists with the youth wing of the People's Action Party (PAP), the Young PAP (YP), have been watching Mr Barack Obama's embrace of the Internet to learn how they can use new media to their advantage.
Among them is consultant S. Shaikh Ismail, 29, who signed up to receive e-mail messages from Mr Obama's website several months ago and was struck by the daily stream of information on the campaign and its appeals to supporters.
'The engagement is non-stop. I think that's something we can replicate,' he says.
There is much more they are taking note of.
From the start, the Obama campaign used the Internet to organise itself, not just raising tens of millions of dollars online but jazzing up its websites and cultivating bloggers to get its message across.
It also created its own channels on video-sharing site YouTube, and set up Facebook groups to drum up support for their candidate and discuss his stances.
And when false information about Mr Obama began to spread, the campaign started a website to fight the smears.
But supporters themselves helped correct these smears where they found them, on blogs and via e-mail.
In doing so, they created a formidable network of grassroots volunteers online.
The Internet was in effect the 'central nervous system' of the Obama campaign, according to analyst Julie Germany of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University in the United States. But Associate Professor Ian Gordon, convener of the American Studies programme at the National University of Singapore, says the technology would not have been enough to win without a candidate like Mr Obama.
For one thing, he built up his campaign through old-style groundwork two years ago.
And it was because he had a message of hope that his campaign was able to snowball and reach out to a younger generation more savvy with new media sites like YouTube, Facebook and Flickr.
'They did not just recruit people and get them to blog away, but energised them to actively recruit other friends and do the hard work of knocking on doors and talking to people about the candidate,' Prof Gordon tells Insight.
Mr Obama's supporters also collected mobile phone numbers and sent out SMSes to supporters to remind them to vote. 'We should never forget that he had that grassroots ground team going around, talking to people,' Prof Gordon adds.
In short, to harness the Internet, a campaign needs to also ensure it can net volunteers to work long hours for free.
Can local political parties cross this human hurdle before they get to the technological one?
The Singapore Democratic Party seems the most Internet- savvy. The Workers' Party website is very low-key.
The ruling PAP tries, but has yet to make significant headway.
Its challenge, at a time when younger members have more diverse views and want to be heard, seems to be to get members empowered to do politics on the Internet - the favourite hangout of a younger generation.
Two years ago, the PAP started a quiet campaign to get members to go into Internet forums and blogs to rebut anti-establishment views that are rampant online and make anonymous postings.
The effort has remained just that - quiet - leading some like lawyer Nicholas Lazarus, 36, to worry that anti-establishment views drown out PAP voices online and call on YP members to be more confident to challenge them.
In a blog entry in May, YP member Ephraim Loy, 26, was critical of blogs set up by post-65 MPs and the YP for not being actively updated and for not making the effort to debate issues that matter.
'Some posts are there for the sake of being there,' he wrote. 'If that is the kind of effort that is put in, then I worry for the party in the next elections.'
He tells Insight: 'Online engagement will not be the deciding factor in the next elections, but it will matter a lot more.'
New YP chairman Teo Ser Luck - who like many on his executive committee is already on Facebook - says YP is working out a strategy for extending its new media presence and capabilities.
This includes having a louder voice on current issues, he feels.
The committee, appointed two days before Mr Obama's victory, made a start with a statement on the US elections yesterday. Mr Obama's victory had a particular resonance with Singaporeans, it said, 'for we are a nation pledged to unity regardless of race, language or religion'.
[email protected]
</TD></TR><TR><TD> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- headline one : end --></TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- Author --></TD></TR><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Zakir Hussain
</TD></TR><TR><TD><!-- show image if available --></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->THE next election is not due till 2011, and their party is in no risk of losing power.
But some activists with the youth wing of the People's Action Party (PAP), the Young PAP (YP), have been watching Mr Barack Obama's embrace of the Internet to learn how they can use new media to their advantage.
Among them is consultant S. Shaikh Ismail, 29, who signed up to receive e-mail messages from Mr Obama's website several months ago and was struck by the daily stream of information on the campaign and its appeals to supporters.
'The engagement is non-stop. I think that's something we can replicate,' he says.
There is much more they are taking note of.
From the start, the Obama campaign used the Internet to organise itself, not just raising tens of millions of dollars online but jazzing up its websites and cultivating bloggers to get its message across.
It also created its own channels on video-sharing site YouTube, and set up Facebook groups to drum up support for their candidate and discuss his stances.
And when false information about Mr Obama began to spread, the campaign started a website to fight the smears.
But supporters themselves helped correct these smears where they found them, on blogs and via e-mail.
In doing so, they created a formidable network of grassroots volunteers online.
The Internet was in effect the 'central nervous system' of the Obama campaign, according to analyst Julie Germany of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University in the United States. But Associate Professor Ian Gordon, convener of the American Studies programme at the National University of Singapore, says the technology would not have been enough to win without a candidate like Mr Obama.
For one thing, he built up his campaign through old-style groundwork two years ago.
And it was because he had a message of hope that his campaign was able to snowball and reach out to a younger generation more savvy with new media sites like YouTube, Facebook and Flickr.
'They did not just recruit people and get them to blog away, but energised them to actively recruit other friends and do the hard work of knocking on doors and talking to people about the candidate,' Prof Gordon tells Insight.
Mr Obama's supporters also collected mobile phone numbers and sent out SMSes to supporters to remind them to vote. 'We should never forget that he had that grassroots ground team going around, talking to people,' Prof Gordon adds.
In short, to harness the Internet, a campaign needs to also ensure it can net volunteers to work long hours for free.
Can local political parties cross this human hurdle before they get to the technological one?
The Singapore Democratic Party seems the most Internet- savvy. The Workers' Party website is very low-key.
The ruling PAP tries, but has yet to make significant headway.
Its challenge, at a time when younger members have more diverse views and want to be heard, seems to be to get members empowered to do politics on the Internet - the favourite hangout of a younger generation.
Two years ago, the PAP started a quiet campaign to get members to go into Internet forums and blogs to rebut anti-establishment views that are rampant online and make anonymous postings.
The effort has remained just that - quiet - leading some like lawyer Nicholas Lazarus, 36, to worry that anti-establishment views drown out PAP voices online and call on YP members to be more confident to challenge them.
In a blog entry in May, YP member Ephraim Loy, 26, was critical of blogs set up by post-65 MPs and the YP for not being actively updated and for not making the effort to debate issues that matter.
'Some posts are there for the sake of being there,' he wrote. 'If that is the kind of effort that is put in, then I worry for the party in the next elections.'
He tells Insight: 'Online engagement will not be the deciding factor in the next elections, but it will matter a lot more.'
New YP chairman Teo Ser Luck - who like many on his executive committee is already on Facebook - says YP is working out a strategy for extending its new media presence and capabilities.
This includes having a louder voice on current issues, he feels.
The committee, appointed two days before Mr Obama's victory, made a start with a statement on the US elections yesterday. Mr Obama's victory had a particular resonance with Singaporeans, it said, 'for we are a nation pledged to unity regardless of race, language or religion'.
[email protected]
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