Team Hackney (2)

I’ve had a two more replies from the Team Hackney members, namely from The Innovatory and from the business incubator Accelerator. I’ve also been sent and email by Councillor Linda Smith who seems to have disapproved of the questions I put in the questionnaire. I think it seems she hasn’t grasped the concept of new media and how it might change the way politicians and the public communicate with each other. Still, criticism is always good and possibly reflects a failure on my part to be totally clear about the motivation behind the project. I’ve emailed her back to try and better explain where I’m coming from. I wonder if she will reply or just ignore me now.

Team Hackney

I’ve spent a few hours this morning sending emails to all the organisations involved with Team Hackney. I’ve added a new link to their site in the general interest column down the right of the page. Essentially the organisation brings together a whole bunch of community stakeholders to help co-ordinate development and basically to make life in Hackney better.

A few good responses will certainly help to get a broader perspective on what stakeholders in the community feel about engaging young people in the political process and I’ve already received some positive replies. These have come from Chief Superintendent Steve Dann, who’s the Police Commander for Hackney Borough, Simon Thomsett from Hackney Empire and Laura Sharpe from the City & Hackney Teaching Primary Care Trust. I’ve sent them the questionnaire so now we’ll just have to wait and see.

Politicians on YouTube

An article by Maija Palmer on page 4 of today’s FT talks about research by the British Market Research Bureau which found that fewer than 5 per cent of people have watched any clips posted by political parties on YouTube.

The findings also showed that fewer than 2 per cent of internet users have watched Tony Blair’s clip which followed the French elections and less than 1.5 per cent have viewed any of David Cameron’s clips.

So, young people are not choosing to watch political clips on YouTube. No surprise there! Just because politicians use a new media that’s relevant to young people it doesn’t mean that you’re going to get immediate results.

It would be interesting to see the profiles of the few people who have seen the clips and how they have reacted to them. Has seeing them affected their thoughts on politics and politicians?

I would assume that most of the people who have been watching political clips on YouTube are journalist, party activists etc. But it will be interesting to see in the next 12 months if there is organic growth in the viewership and whether, if a really good clip gets made, whether a politician can produce a viral hit!

For the terms of my specific reserach it would be interesting to know how the national figures compare with people looking at clips about politicians or politcial issues in their local area adn whether using YouTube could be more effective at the local level