There is a medium out there (called a blog), which is free (in its moderately professional version it requires 20 euros a year to register one's domain name and connect it to the page they have created - how much has the average candidate already paid to have a good or bad page designed for them that is updated, when it is updated, only with press releases and videos from their television appearances?), and which anyone can own.
Its reach is limited only by the number of people who (do not) have access to it, it can defy any attempt at censorship, shrinkage or distortion, and it offers infinite possibilities for expression, multiplication of reach, targeting, interactivity, and so on and so forth.
It's called a blog and the vast majority of Greek politicians (and the majority of politicians worldwide, unfortunately, although not the vast majority out there) don't use it.
Of course, many write articles in print media and on sites that give them the useful platform to do so. Very many - most of them - are active, even by proxy, on the most popular social media. Many also have websites that they may have registered in their minds as blogs, but which do not host anything original, nothing that the average person can read during an average day and draw a conclusion about who the candidate for parliament is behind the (wooden) words and why he deserves to be in politics.
Few politicians, in other words, have gone through the process of setting up an online page on which they will upload things they have written, or at least thought of, themselves, especially for those who are going through the process of following and reading them - and those who have done so are, primarily, those who had this or a similar page before becoming a politician.
Few people think of using the internet as a medium and not simply as a means of broadcasting the performances they make elsewhere (in other media and on real platforms).
And it's a shame.
First of all, it's a shame for them.
Posts vs. spots
Katherine Sanderson, an elected official in Amherst, N.Y., and an active member of the education community, started a blog in 2008 to keep voters informed about what her team was doing and to get feedback. Within two years, that small blog had grown to 10,000 unique visitors a month, and Sanderson was the target of complaints from competitors that her blog was garnering a disproportionate amount of attention. “That’s 100 percent true,” she says. “But if they want more attention, let them start their own blogs. Anyone can do it.”
Are you listening? Attention.
Attention is not something that is earned a month before the election.
Attention is no longer something that can be blackmailed with screams at windows, TV spots full of clichés, and one-off articles full of whatever clichés are left.
Attention (and trust) is built over time as you give people a reason to watch you.
As long as you explain to them what you believe, without expecting anything in return.
As long as you offer them useful content and a fundamentally enjoyable read.
As you gather and stack one on top of the other, building blocks that prove that you have organized thinking, a certain vision, and a level of honesty, aesthetics, and dignity that guarantee you the right to ask for a vote, a role in public life.
A blog gives you the power to do all of this.
If, of course, you give it time and energy too.
And it's a shame for us too
Now, I suppose lack of time would be the most common and appropriate excuse that candidates in this election would give if someone asked them why they don't have a blog. And although I've never been a candidate, I understand that their schedules are indeed exhaustingly busy these days.
And also, yes, writing is not an easy job.
It takes time and effort.
And the ability to think and organize what you will write.
So also mental constitution.
And time management skills.
And expression skills. And communication skills.
And humor.
And transparency, of course.
And respect for those who are waiting to hear your opinions.
And a certain self-discipline, which becomes very necessary when you're struggling with words, because from the platform of writing, your office, you don't hear any kind of applause rewarding you, like from the platform in the square or even on TV.
And what worries me is that I (would like to) expect all these characteristics from our politicians, but they refuse to write systematically.
I'm not saying now, on Sunday's tourla.
Let them have written last year. Or three months ago. Let them write regularly for as long as they have been working regularly on the vision they (say) have. Let them record their opinions and battles, without writing skills, without text-sheets, without even manually uploading the posts to the platform (let others do it on the fly, as a break from tweeting). If only they had created a stock of their program and ideas, something I could search and find (on social media, you know, no one can search to find much, let alone programs and ideas. On social media, words have a lifespan shorter than the time it takes the average person to get home on the subway. Social media are channels for communicating the valuable things one has in one's store. Programs, you know, are not written in tweets. Everyone's store with their valuable stuff is their blog).
There are definitely issues.
PS: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad blogged for a while, in 2008, but then he stopped. Absolutely.
In France, they do scientific studies on the language their politicians use on their blogs.
The Guardian has also conducted a poll on the most popular blogs of British politicians.
