I won’t lie to you, politics has never been something I have been interested in. Of course, when it comes to election day, I do my research and make an educated decision, but apart from that, I can’t say I follow it. At all.
However, what I do find interesting is the link between social media, politics and humour and the effect it has on people’s digital citizenship, especially millennials.
“Digital citizenship is the ability to participate in society online” (McNeal, Mossberger, & Tolbert, 2008).
Politicians began using social media to reach younger voters, knowing that they probably wouldn’t be watching or reading their other media sources. And they are right. The closest thing I get to reading about politics is the Betoota Advocate, a satirical news website that publishes local, national and international stories, and I am indeed a young voter.
(The Betoota Advocate 2020)
(The Betoota Advocate 2014)
Although it brings lots of humour to people’s social media, I think the Betoota Advocate is a force to be reckoned with. It knows what its target audience wants and what they respond well too. This is especially interesting, and somewhat dangerous when it comes to politics.
Clark et al. (2014) explain that digital media provide a tool to recognise people in new ways as active narrators of their lives and the issues that they share with other people. This is the Betoota Advocate, and it is a civic culture that under 30s can get around.
“Civic culture: A political culture characterized by (1) most citizens' acceptance of the authority of the state, but also (2) a general belief in participation in civic duties.” (McLean & McMillan 2009)
They provide content that relates to their target audience and shows their audience that the issues they have, are also shared by others. The Betoota Advocate is not always a factual website and is most of the time, quite opinionated. Therefore, when it has a following that will listen to the content they produce, it begs the question about how much influence this sarcastic newspaper really has over peoples political views, and why under 30s may very well listen more to the Betoota Advocate than they will a middle-aged white man.
However, maybe it is less about connecting with younger voters through humour, but about building an online community. An online community allows individuals to communicate with each other as well as businesses and organisations through interactive tools such as chat and dialogue systems (Law 2011). Every time humour is used in politics, whether that is Melissa McCarthy and her impersonation of Sean Spicer (see video below), or The Rock and Andy Samberg impersonating Obama and his Chief of Staff on Youtube, they create a small community within the comments - 46M views and 23,000 comments between them can do that (Saturday Night Live 2013, Saturday Night Live 2017).
(Saturday Night Live 2017)
This is the same way the Betoota Advocate’s accounts are a community. Maybe the content is what draws people in, but just like anything else, it is not as powerful without the responses that come with it. I believe this is partly why the Betoota Advocate is so popular. It is because they have created an online community with content that people can not only relate to but have an emotional attachment too.
Now, this does not mean that Scotty from Marketing needs to start his own YouTube channel or start making TikToks (although that would be great), but with Millennials comes the need to be seen and recognised and an online community does that.
Younger voters want to be heard and related too, and with studies showing that politicians are reluctant to communicate with voters through social media (Enli 2013), this is unlikely to happen and will continue to be used for more unsuccessful political marketing and negative civic culture amongst millennials.
References
Clark, W, Couldry, N, Dickens, L, Fotopoulou, A, MacDonald, R & Stephansen, H 2014, ‘Digital citizenship? Narrative exchange and the changing terms of civic culture’, Citizenship Studies, vol. 18, no. 6, pp. 615-629.
Enli, G & Skogerbø E 2013, ‘Personalized campaigns in party-centred politics: Twitter and Facebook as arenas for political communication’, Information, communication & society, vol. 16, no. 5, pp 757-774.
Law, J 2011, Business: The Ultimate Resource, A&C Black, London.
McLean, I & McMillan, A 2009, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics (3rd Edition), Oxford University Press.
McNeal, R, Mossberger, K & Tolbert, C 2008, Digital Citizenship: The internet, society, and participation, The MIT Press, Cambridge.
Images/Videos:
Saturday Night Live 2013, The Rock Obama: GOP Senators - SNL, 26 Oct, viewed 20 April 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEH9iqWm_xQ&t=2s>.
Saturday Night Live 2017, Sean Spicer Press Conference (Melissa McCarthy) – SNL, 5 Feb, viewed 20 April 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWuc18xISwI&t=9s>.
The Betoota Advocate 2014, ABC Media Watch calls out Channel Nine for plagiarising Outback newspaper, 17 Nov, viewed 20 April 2020, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=192&v=S2cew1QytIQ&feature=emb_logo>.
The Betoota Advocate 2020, Friday Work Drinks Via Zoom Somehow Less Enjoyable Than It Was In Person, 17 April, viewed 21 April 2020, <https://www.instagram.com/p/B_EkEbPD3_T/>.
The Betoota Advocate 2020, Prime Minister Refutes Claims That He’s Turning Into A Leftie: “It’s Called Scocialism Haha”, 8 April, viewed 21 April 2020, <https://www.instagram.com/p/B-tD7eWjE-L/>.
The Betoota Advocate 2020, Unprecedented: White House Confirms President Trump Only Running Off 6 Hours Sleep A Night, 2 April, viewed 21 April 2020, <https://www.instagram.com/p/B-dZLPoDo9I/>.