Submitted for: Spring 2010 Edition

When Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced that he would be proroguing Parliament on December 30, 2009, he likely expected the howls from the opposition parties in the House of Commons. He probably wasn’t expecting that the primary opposition to his parliamentary tactics would coalesce around an online social network that used to serve as a handy way for university students to keep up with their friends’ schedules.

To express his displeasure in the Harper government’s decision to prorogue, University of Calgary archaeology student Richard White formed the Facebook group Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament or CAPP, which it came to be known. Writing for the online community rabble.ca, White explained that the Facebook Group was designed with “the simple idea of getting Canadians to write to their Members of Parliament and asking them to return to the Hill on January 25th, the day the session was set to resume.”

The group quickly became the central hub for efforts to rally Canadians to pressure Members of Parliament from all parties, but specifically on the Conservative side, to return to work. Fuelled by the spoke-and-hub nature of the social network and given additional attention by the federal opposition parties, CAPP membership quickly group from the tens of thousands to over 100,000 in a matter of days.

As of this writing, Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament has just over 225,000 members. Just to put that in perspective, the combined membership of the Facebook fan pages of all five main party leaders is just over 30,000. Almost as quickly as the CAPP group grew in numbers, debate grew around what the group meant in terms of impact on public affairs and whether it signified a shift in the political landscape.

It did not take long for the mainstream media to weigh into the debate on social media, its role in politics and whether a Facebook group was a new grassroots movement or just another example of “slactivism”. National daily The Toronto Star heralded the formation of the CAPP group as an expression of “grassroots fury”, while radio host and National Post columnist John Moore noted that “few things say ‘I care’ with the empty ferocity of a Facebook page.”

It would seem the average Canadian agrees with Moore. In a recently released poll conducted in early February, Nanos Research asked Canadians what kind of influence political Facebook groups such as CAPP should have on government and politics in Canada. According to the poll, when asked to rate how much influence political Facebook groups should have on government, 46 percent of Canadians believed they should have little to no influence, while only 11 percent felt political Facebook groups should have an influence on government decision.

When asked their impressions of political groups on Facebook, three in ten Canadians had positive or somewhat positive impressions of political groups making use of Facebook, while an equal amount of Canadians had negative or somewhat negative impressions. As pollster Nik Nanos told the Globe and Mail: “They see [Facebook groups] as an enabler of political discussion, and a kind of low-entry political transaction. We should delineate between Facebook as a mobilizing force in politics and Facebook as having political heft in the ballot box.”

Unfortunately, much of the public debate on Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament, online campaigning and its role in political campaigns misses the point. Critics of such online initiatives are quick to point out that the Put Betty White On SNL Facebook Group has over 425,000 members and there are over 300,000 fans of the Norwegian Olympic Curling Team’s Pants. But it is folly to merely use membership numbers as the primary yardstick to measure the efficacy of an online political community.

Facebook groups like CAPP are not meant to become a political force in and of themselves. The true utility of social media in politics is to provide people from all walks of life with the tools to engage on specific issues and to organize themselves in an organic fashion in a way that traditional political parties cannot.

And by that measure, CAPP is a success. An unscientific poll by the Ottawa-based Rideau Institute over 340 members of the anti-prorogue group shows that its membership goes beyond the Generation Y cohort Facebook supposedly represents: members cover a wide range of age groups, backgrounds and political experience. However, it’s interesting to note that almost all of those who answered the survey are somewhat or very engaged in federal politics (88%) and virtually all of them (96%) voted in the last election. If the self-selecting poll holds true to the rest of the members, CAPP has a formidable membership.
The group could also boast that it directly assisted in the organization of over 60 rallies across Canada, the biggest one in Toronto numbering close to 15,000 people. However, pollster Nanos is essentially correct: groups like CAPP are a low-entry transaction. That’s the value they bring to individuals and groups that are organizing political campaigns.

While media observers and political pundits may place a higher value on an individual who takes the time to ring up the local riding association and speak to the local membership secretary, the smarter campaigns are using Facebook as a point of first contact with like-minded or accessible voters.

The user-friendly nature of the Facebook interface allows individuals to engage in base retail politics in a manner and environment that is familiar to them. This particular value cannot be underestimated; if you are looking to engage Canadians, you need to go where the fish are. And with over 8 million active profiles in Canada – only the U.S. has more of its population on Facebook – that social network is one mighty big pond.

Further, with the “six degrees of separation” method which Facebook uses to disseminates information – where information shows up from your friends shows up in your feed – key messages from the CAPP page end up going out to a much wider audience than just the core group. Statistics tell us that the average Facebook user has approximately 250 friends; that means messages from the CAPP group have a potential audience of over 62 million people. So, those protesting the prorogation of Parliament weren’t just being trendy; they were using a social tool for (politically) social purposes.

The key challenge to a group like CAPP is what to do with the members once they show up. This is an important area where traditional political parties hold a distinct advantage over new organizational mediums like Facebook groups. Facebook and other social networks can serve as excellent tools to connect and identify potential supporters. However it is absolutely crucial to future campaign success that the initial contact be transferred to a real organizational structure.

I had the opportunity to sit down with Rob Willington, the social media director for the successful Scott Brown Senatorial campaign in Massachusetts and one of the key architects of his candidates’ online domination of Brown’s opponent and heavy favorite, Martha Coakley. Willington explained that upon adding their profile to Brown’s Facebook page, the Brown Brigade social network or even signing up to help Brown through a Google ad the campaign designed, they received a call from a field organizer within 24 hours.
“If you sign up for something and then two weeks go by, you’re going to forget you even signed up for it”, Willington said. “And our field directors had huge goals, so they had a self interest in signing those people up in their region because they had to report daily whether they’ve hit their goals for door knocking and phone calling. They had a real interest in getting people who signed up online into their networks.”

This is where the Browns and the Obamas of the political world truly excel. It wasn’t solely the sheer numbers they were able to attract to visit and interact on their Facebook pages; they were able to seamlessly fuse together a vast online social network with a sophisticated campaign infrastructure. The prevailing misconception of the Obama campaign’s use of social media is that it was an end of itself. In fact, it was merely the initial identifier that the campaign then used to scoop up volunteers and get them making phone calls in key areas, knocking on doors in their community and talking to their neighbours.

That is not to say that the CAPP group did not generate some organizational capacity. Rallies were only one, albeit high profile, action taken by group members. The Facebook group also facilitated letter writing and phone calls to local MPs – or at least offered resources on how to do so. A number of Conservative MPs I spoke to did indicate they were under varying degrees of pressure from the public to “get back to work”.

But they also told me that the calls, letters and e-mails ended fairly quickly, which speaks to the reality of how difficult it is to maintain a sustained campaign of this nature without a real organization to support it.
If the CAPP group and its role in the public prorogation debate has taught us anything, it is that Facebook has a utility far greater than building farms, conducting imaginary mafia wars or reconnecting with high school chums. Social networks have the ability to cut a huge swath through established political paradigms and allow interested people to organize themselves how they see fit.

Nevertheless, the CAPP efforts also demonstrate how important real “boots on the ground” organization is if one is to affect real political change. To properly use Facebook for political purposes, one must view it not as the final destination, but as a huge intake area where campaigns must successful convert group members to committed activists through personal interaction and real online relationship building: the “social” aspect of social media.

To achieve real political goals, your online efforts must mirror those within you campaign structure. Otherwise, you may as well be spending your time perfecting that “Death To The U.S. Hockey Team” Fan page.