The Youth Text 2004 Challenge
I've been testing Youth Text 2004, an initiative that lets people ask questions of Canada's major political parties through text messaging. It seems pretty successful as far as the asking questions part goes, though not exactly impressive when it comes to getting answers.
The goal of Youth Text 2004, I think, is to make politics more accessible to younger voters. Becuse, y'know, those crazy kids are really into texting. All four major parties--the Conservatives, Greens, Liberals and NDP--are participating.
After reading a brief story in the paper, I thought I'd see if Youth Text 2004 was for real. Yesterday around 1:10 p.m. MT I sent the following softball question to all four parties:
Hi what is yr policy on sending cdn troops to iraq?
An auto-responder confirmed that each party received the message. The quickest response came from the Green Party, who got back to me in 16 minutes. The NDP followed about two hours later. More than 30 hours later, responses from the Conservatives and Liberals are nowhere to be seen.
As far as I can tell, political parties don't get much from participating in Youth Text 2004. They don't get my phone number, for instance. As the nice person at the Green Party explained in another exchange about whether they'd call me or send me text spam:
we cant call bc the way this is set up we just see the q. if you want ppl 2 call instead give us ur contact info.
Youth Text 2004 isn't exactly a gimmick, but neither is it a savvy use of technology. Text messaging is a cool medium. It's not well suited to any kind of detailed debate--in fact, about all it has going for it is immediacy (the Green Party seems to grok this).
Texting isn't a great stand-alone mass communication technology, either. The most successful mass uses of texting in North America have been supported by television (American Idol, et al.). Not only is Youth Text 2004 without a website, the folks who set it up neglected to purchase the domain names. I picked up the obvious ones.
More importantly, I think Youth Text 2004 misses the point in a major way by focusing on technology instead of behaviour. Aside from mass reverse-broadcast interactions like American Idol voting, texting is mainly a social activity. But by concealing the identities of both the questioner and the answerer, Youth Text 2004 is particularly anti-social.
The rationale behind these "veil of ignorance" systems is that they protect privacy on both sides. In this case, though, the system erects a wall between the participants. The ability to have a conversation--on their own time and their own terms--is one of the things that might get young people more engaged in the political process.
This blind throw-your-question-over-the-wall model doesn't indicate a general interest in establishing that dialogue. Nor does the fact that the two parties with best chance of winning the upcoming election haven't bothered to respond. (To be fair, they promise responses within 48 hours. I'll keep you updated.)
Parting shot: from the parties' perspective, Youth Text 2004 levels the playing field. But if I were the Liberal Party I'd want to know why I should embrace a system that puts me on par with the fledgeling Green Party. It just doesn't make sense--and that might explain why they haven't responded.
Actually, if I were the Liberal Party I'd set up my own texting system, stick it on all my advertising and create a database of cell phone numbers for my street teams. But that's just me.
