Are Social Media Tribes Changing Democracy?

The last ten months have been tumultuous globally. It started with Brexit on 23 June 2016, soon followed by the election of Donald Trump as US President. Clearly the feeling is widespread - “it’s just not working”. When this sentiment takes hold, people are prepared to roll the dice. And they have. What’s interesting, though, is how it takes hold. What is making people more daring in their politics?

As a strategic analyst, I spend a lot of time examining these sorts of questions and my conclusion is that what sits behind all this, like so many things in human history, is technology. Think Industrial Revolution and the changes it heralded. The internet, email, websites, text messaging and the mobile phone have meant that everyone can be linked to everyone else, instantly. Connectedness is the hallmark of modern society. With Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and the like people can disseminate their opinions widely and at will. People respond to online newspaper articles in a flash and comment after comment piles up. It has the effect of strengthening and crystallising very particular and disparate political positions.

On the local front Australia’s Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, designed a July 2016 election to clear the decks of all those pesky minor parties in the Senate, Australia’s upper house and house of review, to install himself with a mandate to act without opposition. “Not so fast.” said the voting public and the opposite occurred. He barely squeaked home and the minor parties are having a field day growing stronger by the day.

I believe these changes are strongly linked to the emergence of “tribes” facilitated by social media. Many nations, like Papua New Guinea, in aiming to produce a national mindset, struggle to suppress the tribal instinct. In PNG, it’s family first, tribe second and nation third. It’s been difficult for PNG to define a “nation” to pull together. In contrast Australia has traditionally instilled in its citizens the importance of the “national interest”. For generations, Australians were taught to suppress their natural short-term personal interests and look to the long-term interests of the nation. That seems to be unravelling. We appear to be breaking down into tribes.

Technology has also given power to pressure groups who attract a membership through affiliations with very particular causes. GetUp, so highly influential in the last Australian Federal election by all accounts, clusters followers around “campaigns”. Change.org takes on issues around what it calls “petitions”. And Meetup helps individuals form groups around topics of interest. All three websites are global with local content and are only three among numerous others.

So, what do these trends portend for democracy’s political future?

Let me start by suggesting what I think won’t happen. Barring an external shock like a war, I see more of the same. Gone are the days of old. The political norms of a previous generation appear today as politics in slow motion.

Instead, like all technological change these trends are here to stay until they’re blown away by yet another technological shift. There are those who say that “democracy is broken”. They’re right but not in the sense that it needs to be put back together as it was. That isn’t going to happen. It’s broken in that it’s undergoing a transformation to a new and, dare I say, better form. Sure, the new order will be less comfortable for politicians, political parties and the status quo, but it’s going to be much more dynamic, reactive and real-time than the past. I would argue that this very connectedness among citizens and their ability to voice their opinions across the population is what democracy is about. 

What's your view on where our democracies are headed?

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Graham Kenny is President of Reinvent Australia and Managing Director of Strategic Factors and KMS Education, Sydney-based consultancies that specialise in strategic planning and performance measurement.