Young people represent an important stakeholder group in the Transatlantic Relationship. The issues relevant to young people (aged 18-29) tend to be increasingly global and diverse, ranging from online privacy to climate change. Addressing these challenges requires greater cooperation between institutions on both sides of the Atlantic. Democracies run from the bottom up. They require experimentation and innovation at a grass roots level to continuously adapt to the changing landscapes in which they operate. Young people can be key drivers of this upward momentum for change. They are less encumbered by preconceived notions and existing norms regarding the way things should be done and more likely to evaluate issues on a case-by-case basis rather than identifying with any particular party.
The question arises of how to increase youth engagement. With the proliferation of online news and political discourse on social media, many young people are keenly aware of what issues are most important to them. However, when it comes to understanding what they can do on an individual level to address these issues there is much less clarity. The desire for change is present, but one lacks the tools to bring this change about. This paper will outline a resource that can demonstrate ways for young people to implement meaningful change, while also spurring a cross-border dialogue on important issues.
This resource would be a digital initiative that could help frame the way discussions are managed in the online space. It would have an easily searchable and attention grabbing name-ViralPolitics. ViralPolitics would be an online platform consisting of both an app and a website, monitoring the ebbs and flows of trending topics and generating feedback from political parties pertaining to these issues. ViralPolitics would force political parties and other significant actors to respond to certain viral threads in real time creating a ‘policy menu’ on how specific issues could be tackled. This would make it easy for young people to distinguish different policy options, spark debates around topical issues, and more importantly, prompt greater interaction with existing political institutions. The platform would also work directly with third-party organizations providing opportunities to engage with the issue more directly at the community level.
ViralPolitics would require the commitment of political parties to ensure success. More specifically, the youth arms of political parties would be great partners because they could speak with credibility on these platforms, while still adhering to their party’s core principles. With youth participation at record lows, ViralPolitics could offer a unique value proposition to these institutions eager to find new ways to connect with young voters. ViralPolitics could provide political parties with valuable insight into what issue areas drive youth engagement. If a party did not have a platform on a particular issue that went viral, ViralPolitics would call them out. ViralPolitics would allow users to reach out to the organization directly and encourage them to develop a stance. The site would become a tool where slow to adapt political parties could gain a better understanding of the problems relevant to the next generation of voters.
The topics ViralPolitics engaged with would be generated organically, e.g. by going viral on social media, and responses would be easily and systematically accessible on both a separate app and on a web platform. There would need to be guidelines as to which issues should be addressed to foster a legitimate and fruitful debate. An open-ended platform approach should be encouraged. However, political parties need to adapt to social media, not vice versa. Once a viral issue reached a given threshold of user engagement on social media (for example received 10,000 likes or 3,000 reposts) and was deemed a sufficiently pertinent issue, the digital platform’s political partners would have a set deadline (48 hours) to publish their official concise stance on how to address the issue on ViralPolitics. Each party would also be asked to provide opportunities, internally and with partner organizations, for young people to get involved locally and become actively engaged in addressing the specific issue.
Take for instance the #PostitSquad campaign, a viral campaign that asked young people to place Post-its with body-positive messages on public bathrooms and fitting room mirrors. The campaign aimed to raise awareness around eating disorders and spread body positivity online. It began in Norway but has since spread to the US, Russia and the UAE. #PostitSquad emerged organically from an Instagram post by a Norwegian television star / political activist. It grew because it brought to top of mind a salient issue. As the campaign gained momentum in Norway, it would have generated a national ‘policy menu’ on ViralPolitics, outlining the main political parties’ responses and strategies to counter eating disorders. This would make people more aware of their party alignment as they identified which party’s stance fit most with their own. Through ViralPolitics one could also find which third-party organizations to support if one wanted to work more directly with this issue on a grassroots level. In this way, ViralPolitics would become the channel through which young people, excited to engage with an issue like body positivity, learned how the issue was currently being approached and what they could do to address it within their community.
As the campaign began gaining traction internationally, ViralPolitics’ ‘policy menu’ would grow, adding the policy positions of foreign political parties in a separate category. What does the U.S. Democratic Party have to say on the issue of eating disorders? How does it differ from the German Conservative Party’s stance? This would spur a global dialogue, share best practices and make people more aware of their political alternatives.
Social media has been an incredible tool for giving young people a voice in politics. What has been missing is a mechanism that allows millennials to turn their individual voices into collective action. Providing a platform like ViralPolitics is crucial to activating this key stakeholder group. Engaging a broad spectrum of young people in identifying and addressing the challenges facing their generation gives them both the knowledge and resources necessary to begin shaping the Transatlantic Relationship of the future.
Co-authored with Asgeir Barlaup: Asgeir recently completed his studies in Comparative Politics at the University of Bergen. Asgeir has interned with U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar and the World Movement for Democracy. He has also served as a Private in the Norwegian military as a member of the prestigious King’s Guard.
Thanks, Connor for your thoughts on Transatlantic partnership.
How would you approach various political party buy-in and retention, how would you mediate credentials of various news? And more generally how would this be broadcasted so that it reaches all facets of society not just digital savvy population who’s outlook might be quite varied from urban towns and unprivileged individuals without any formal education etc. How would you ensure all voices are heard so that no one echelon is emphasized?
Dear Petra, thank you for your thoughts and questions.
Political parties are already present on social media, and are expected to be responsive, e.g. addressing topical issues in real time. The platform is simply a systematic extension of this model, and would not require political parties to do something completely new. This makes the cost of participation low. The incentives for joining ViralPolitics are also high, as the platform would give political parties a better understanding of the problems relevant to younger generations and the opportunity to directly engage with youth voters.
‘Fake’, biased and unverified news are a fundamental problem to all of social media. There is no easy-fix to filter the information stream, but suffice to say that there will have to be some mechanism to decide which issues are chosen.
An ideal solution would be to verify the issues through automated fact checking, or some other automated device that would evaluate the issue in an impartial way. This technology is currently not available but could be an option in the future.
A more realistic solution would be to establish an impartial panel to review each issue on a case-to-case basis. This would take more resources, but seems the more realistic solution for the time being. Politifact is a similar review-mechanism that comes to mind.
It is important to note however, that the panel would review issues in terms of their truthfulness, and NOT in terms of their relevance. While untruthful posts should be filtered out, one should encourage a broad range of issues to be discussed. The strength of ViralPolitics is exactly that it can mediate untraditional issues that would be left out of the mainstream.
Finally, ViralPolitics does not necessarily have an obligation to reach out to all facets of society in an equal way. It is a democratic instrument in as much as the Internet and social media are democratic. ViralPolitics should of course be equally accessible to everyone, but ensuring that all stakeholders have reliable access to the internet goes beyond the scope of our mission. There are two things that I might suggest to broaden participation and address some of your concerns.
An intuitive and easy to use platform, accessible both via an app and a separate website. Also, the mechanism for ViralPolitics to pick up trending items would simply be a reflection of the trends on social media, and not require the user to change their habits in any way.
Secondly, incorporating political leaders from all parties would give all users an equal playing field. As some issues are successfully raised, it might also spur new groups to raise their voices on other issues salient to them.
This does not ensure participation from all echelons of society however, due to restrictions such as Internet connection, tech expertise etc. However, ensuring an accessible and easy platform goes a long way towards ensuring broad participation. This makes ViralPoltics a great tool for harnessing political sentiment online – it is not a perfect solution – but rather an important addition – to democracy.
Hi Connor and Asgeir,
What a creative idea! I could definitely see myself downloading this ViralPolitics app. You mention that the issues ViralPolitics would feature would be based off of viral topics circulating on social media. In terms of content, do you think that there would be enough new viral material each week to be addressed on ViralPolitics? Or, phrased differently, how often would ViralPolitic’s “policy menu” be refreshed or switched up? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Dear Johanna, thank you for your response.
It seems hard to predict the initial volume of cases that would be generated into a policy menu. The power of ViralPolitics is exactly that it is generated organically (by users). I agree that it would be desirable that the issues be updated on a regular basis, maybe once per week to ensure that people stay engaged.
A good way to boost the platform would be to pick up on a few trending cases that generate a lot of enthusiasm as a way to establish the platform. This would hopefully help people learn about the platform and inspire them to boost and promote their own issues. Finding good ways to monitor web trends on social media would definitely be central to the success of ViralPolitics.
Hello Connor & Asgeir,
I find this to be a great proposal! I also agree that there is a market for such an app and as Johanna commented above, I would be interested in downloading it. When you wrote, “political partners would have a set deadline (48 hours) to publish their official concise stance” once it has hit an exposure threshold – how would you initially motivate political partners to participate or respond? It is common for messages to be misinterpreted or manipulated on the internet and there may be hesitation for politicians to partake in this type of dialogue (as it may create more negative publicity, than positive).
However, once it becomes a large enough platform, they may be forced to respond to uphold their reputation. What are your thoughts?
Best,
Brandy
Dear Brandy, thank you for your response.
Political parties are already present on social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, and are expected to be responsive, e.g. addressing topical issues in real time. The platform is simply a systematic extension of this model, and would hence not require the political parties to do something completely new, but rather tweak the way they do their messaging. This makes the cost of participation low.
Manipulation and misinterpretation is definitely a big obstacle to honest debate. However, as outlined in my response to Petra, there will need to be some kind of review mechanism to ensure the integrity of the issues being raised. While there is no easy solution to this, I do believe the benefits of generating issues online vastly outweighs the drawbacks if it is done in a careful manner.
You are also right to assert that political parties will be forced to participate once the platform gains traction. Political party affiliation is declining, and political parties should view ViralPolitics as a vital means for staying engaged with young people.
Hi Connor and Asgeir,
thanks for this interesting article, I really enjoyed reading about this very creative idea of yours! As politics can also be very locally oriented, how would you make sure these topics get heard as well as there would be less people impacted by it (hence less postings) and also comparing stances on a transnational level would not be an option (which is one of the best aspects of ViralPolitics in my opinion)?
Best regards, Max
Dear Max, thank you for your interesting question.
This problem goes back to Petra’s question of participation.
ViralPolitics is unfortunately not a perfect democratic tool. However, it does theoretically offer everyone the same accessibility, regardless of where they live. One way of assuring diversity down to the local level would be to open up for different categories or levels of conversation – each with their distinct ‘policy menu’. The most natural ‘realm’ to launch would be on the national level. As political parties primarily identify themselves in opposition to other national actors, these are the most obvious conversations to launch on ViralPolitics.
This does not however, eliminate the possibility for local stakeholders to launch their own dialogues and ‘policy menus’. The framework could be used on the local level (for instance in a big city), if it first were successfully used nationally.
I would also argue that simply because an issue is local, this does not mean that communities in other parts of the world have not struggled with similar problems. For example Southern cities in the U.S. are currently facing backlash for many of their monuments to Civil War Leaders and events. Cities in Germany have also faced similar criticism for their monuments memorializing prominent German leaders from World War II. ViralPolitics could be a platform where local political parties on both sides of the Atlantic share best practices for understanding how to address and express the concerns that community members have regarding these controversial memorials.
Hi Connor, Asgeir,
I’m really curious to hear your thoughts about how you would monitor the “menu”? For example, the Republican/Democrat national party platforms are really only set during a presidential campaign, after that it is up to individual members of congress to form their views and argue for their preferred solution. At the state level, opinions differ even more, as often a California-based Republican in the state legislature may be more left-leaning than a West Virginia-based Democrat. This would possibly lead to a lot of complication and a situation where “party lines” become written by PR people. How would you propose dealing with this issue?
Hi Connor!
Thank you for sharing your ideas with us. I also see huge potential in online solutions to increase involvement and active engagement of the younger population. The platform you mentioned will ” prompt greater interaction with existing political institutions” as you described. So would you propose that there is a distinct person responsible from the “institutions” side solely responsible for giving answers or generally managing the interaction on ViralPolitics? I think it could be a good approach to encourage hiring new employees for that purpose – also as a symbolic reason for the importance of the actual execution of this idea.
Thanks again and best wishes, Felicitas
Felicitias, what a great idea to create a job position simply for ViralPolitics. This sounds like a modern version of PR. But would one single person know the stance of his/her represented party or organisation? But I am all for modernizing dusty politics, so this is a very refreshing idea!
Hi Christin,
I would it consider the institution’s leaders’ best interest to make sure that the the new employee knows the stance of the organisation. I would propose that the ViralPolitics job would be fully linked to other important personas in the organisation. But I can totally understand your doubts when thinking about a more diverse (in terms of opinions etc.) organisation. How could you communicate this? Well, probably just saying how it is: “There are pros and cons for…” 😉
What worries me more in this idea, is whether the resources can actually be made available for this additional job… Thanks for following up on the comment! Cheers, Felicitas
Hi Connor, I think this a really neat idea and could be an awesome way to foster engagement and transparency between citizens and political parties. I have two questions though: who is managing this application? Is it a joint initiative involving government officials on both sides of the Atlantic or an independent group? I would be nervous that any sort of partisan management could lead to preferential placement for certain parties and politicians. And off of that, who is funding it? Is it a nonprofit? Will it be funded by selling advertisements or is Washington and Brussels funding the project? As I’ve hinted at, my concern is as it is a way to engage with political parties, I would want to focus on maintaining a neutrally. It would be important to ensure the app does not become biased (or start to be used as a political tool) with any sort of increased user-ship and success. Do you agree?
Dear Conner,
Its great that you are highlighting the power of the social media. I am wondering more logistically who will run this platform and are you recommending? Is it going to crowd source the content? You mention the youth groups can be a partner in this but shouldn’t this be run by the youth instead? The suggestion to involve parties is good but do you think at a transatlantic level you would be able to generate global interest in the more individualistic party politics of each country?
Regards,
Henry