BBC On The Record - Broadcast: 13.02.00

Film: INTERNET AND POLITICS VT. What impact is the internet going to have on politics and political campaigning.



TERRY DIGNAN: Visitors to The Millennium Dome are going on-line, using a technology which has revolutionised communications. Thanks to the Internet, we can call up information on our computer screens from millions of web sites. Tony Blair says it will transform the economy. But he's also realised its importance for spreading New Labour's message. The internet is already making a global impact on business, commerce and industries like leisure and tourism. Our political parties - and Government - believe it could have a similar effect on politics. But what's in it for the voters? How will they be able to use the Net to influence those who hold power? MARGARET MORAN: The power of the new technology is that Prime Ministers, senior ministers, can get their message across to a mass audience quickly and relatively cheaply using the net. ALAN DUNCAN: You know we have gone from posters to television. Now we are going to the internet and it is rapid and inexpensive communication at a personal level and I think it is going to be crucial to politics in the future, absolutely crucial. DIGNAN: In the United States, it's said the Internet has radically affected election campaigning. According to a former Clinton adviser, candidates in the Presidential primaries are using web sites to contact voters, display policies and raise donations. ACTUALITY DICK MORRIS: Ultimately I believe the Internet will completely take over politics and the locus of political campaigning will shift from television to the Internet. In this year's presidential race it's beginning to have an impact. For example right after John McCain scored an upset and won the primary in New Hampshire he was able to raise two and a half million dollars in forty-eight hours on the Internet. MORAN: I think some of us are looking rather enviously at the US and seeing that this is the way of the future. I think across the board the parties have still a long way to go to catch up and I'm saying to, certainly my own party, the technology is going faster than the speed of light - we have got to be up there making use of it. DIGNAN: Up on the London Eye, surveying the city he hopes to run, Ken Livingstone. He says the contest to decide Labour's candidate for London mayor has proved to be Britain's first real internet election. KEN LIVINGSTONE: Our activists are disproportionately likely to have a computer and be linked up to the Internet. And everything we do went straight on the Web site so all our activists knew the line we were taking. DIGNAN: At Conservative Central Office Alan Duncan arrives with the latest Tory line. It goes straight on to the party website. The parties can now contact more than ten million people using the internet compared to just a quarter of a million at the last election. DUNCAN: The thing about the internet is that you can really build up a personal relationship with the voter. You can do some fantastic profiling of who you are talking to and effectively get their permission to communicate with them and communicate with them about what they want to be communicated with in advance. And this means that you can build up a very special relationship with the person you are talking to and therefore the response profile from them really rockets. MORAN: There are opportunities for e-campaigning to get our message out directly to our target voters, to the people that we need to contact during an election campaign and get that message out unmediated, not having the message filtered through the press, through TV and radio. DIGNAN: But will many floating voters - as opposed to activists - be tapping into party websites? Some of those studying the internet's impact on politics are sceptical. STEPHEN COLEMAN: I think that party web sites are going to be for the party faithful and they might attract some others, but they probably won't to a very great extent. You can mobilise the faithful, because all you need is somebody's e-mail address and at any time of the day and night you can send them a message - they can wake up in the morning, they get a message - we need money from you, we need you to be at a rally, we need you to write to somebody - that's important. DIGNAN: In the Dome, present and future generations of voters are being encouraged to click on to the worldwide web. If they search for the Downing Street site, they'll hear praise of the Government's record. On Friday, Tony Blair became a serious internet user with the first of his planned radio-style broadcasts over the worldwide web. On The Record understands we may eventually see Mr Blair speaking on our PC screens. But is this really the most effective way for politicians to use the Net to get their message across? Number Ten's revamped web site sends out information uncontaminated by comment and analysis from journalists. TONY BLAIR: Hello and welcome to what will be the first of many direct broadcasts from the Downing Street web site. MORRIS: It's not an imaginative use of the internet. The internet is not an alternative vehicle for the Prime Minister or people in power to speak to us. It's a vehicle for us to have a conversation with them, you know, a two-way dialogue like real people have and I think that what Mr Blair should do is to go into a chat room and say, look, for two hours every week I let Parliament ask me questions and for two hours every week I'm going to let you ask me questions. DIGNAN: If he becomes London Mayor, Ken Livingstone has big plans for exploiting the internet. He's going much further than Mr Blair. He'll be inviting Londoners into the heart of the capital's Government. LIVINGSTONE: If I'm elected Mayor my cabinet meetings will be broadcast live on the Internet as they take place; every document going before the Mayor, except for personnel files and contract details, will be immediately available on the Internet. We're trying to create the first political office which is accessible electronically at all levels. DIGNAN: It's not just politicians who plan to exploit the Net's potential. It's hoped the new technology will enhance democracy by giving voters more influence over Government and Parliament. They'll have more access to information about important issues. And campaigners, such as environmentalists, will find it easier to mobilise public opinion. Margaret Moran, like many MPs, can be contacted by constituents via e-mail. She's also holding cyber surgeries with the aid of a video link up. Today it's the turn of children at Henlow Middle School to air their grievances about Government policies. SCHOOLBOY: Hello Miss Moran. My question is why does the government keep setting more homework for the children even though they don't ask about how we feel about it. MARGARET MORAN: What we're keen to see is that.......... DIGNAN: She also wants Parliament to use this technology to reach out to marginalised groups. So she and the Hansard Society are planning to hold an inquiry into domestic violence, taking evidence from survivors over the internet. MORAN: We have got two hundred and seventy groups and we hope hundreds of women will feel able to join in to talk to parliamentarians like myself. To give us the power of their direct experiences which we will then use to inform government policy. DIGNAN: These visitors to the Dome would have no difficulty using the Net to contact policymakers and MPs. The problem is providing regular access to the less well-off. STEPHEN COLEMAN: Well I think if you've got a democracy the requirement is everyone has to have access and if everyone hasn't got access then that's a failure in terms of the provision of this for democratic uses. DIGNAN: Many campaigning groups can afford the technology and they're using it to mobilise public opinion. Here at Friends of the Earth, the internet is a weapon for bringing pressure to bear on Government and MPs. LIANA STUBBLES: There's huge untapped potential for the power of the Web and electronic communication in campaigning in the future. Already we have e-mail networks of activists, people who are prepared to literally at the snap of a finger write to their MP on their e-mail that moment. I can see in the future where we'll be able to have twenty thousand people sending an e-mail message back to their MP telling them what they think about things - and that is going to cause a minor revolution I think in politics. COLEMAN: I think that we're going to see much more of an issue-led online politics. The result of that is that political discussion will become more fragmented because clearly if people only have policy answers to question that they themselves are raising, one will have a discussion that isn't all-embracing, that isn't part of a national dialogue but is part of one's personal agenda. DIGNAN: Groups like Friends of the Earth have got competition. From today vote.co.uk is polling Net users on the headline issues and sending MPs the results. MORRIS: We will e-mail your vote to the Labour and the Tory parties and tell them what your point of view is. It will stimulate a level of interactivity, a level of dialogue. The internet is not a place for another monologue. It's the place for a dialogue. DIGNAN: In the new millennium information and propaganda will be pouring out of the internet non-stop. Which may be good news for the traditional media. DUNCAN: What I foresee as these things mushroom further is that you get sort of information saturation and that therefore everything becomes rather dilute and that whereas in its early stages this is a real go ahead way of persuading people because it will just become the norm it perhaps won't be really that much more persuasive than traditional forms of political communication. DIGNAN: At the start of the Twentieth Century newspapers were the main means of carrying information about politics. Then came radio and television which completely changed political campaigning. No one can be sure what effect the internet will have. But there's little doubt politicians are taking it seriously.
NB. This transcript was typed from a transcription unit recording and not copied from an original script. Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy.