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How bloggers and new media will make their presence felt in the coming general election.

You can see why the political parties are nervous about the general election. The media playing field on which it will be fought has a new, unfamiliar terrain thanks to online competition. Local newspapers may have closed or slimmed down, but political bloggers have forced politicians to rethink their relationship with the press.

What was once a cosy, exclusive Fleet Street corps of lobby reporters must now include irreverent, self-made stars of the blogosphere such as Guido Fawkes and Iain Dale. And new technology, from the online video that exposed Alan Duncan’s belief that MPs were forced to live on “rations” to the Conservatives publishing shadow cabinet expenses in real time, has changed the public’s expectations.

Set-piece campaigns, for instance, are now more problematic than ever before. A £500,000 Conservative poster campaign featuring an apparently airbrushed David Cameron was intended to get the election year off to a flying start. Within a few days, dozens of photoshopped spoofs appeared on MyDavidCameron.com. But new media also presents politicians of all persuasions with a chance to talk more directly to the public than ever before. Tom Watson, Labour MP for West Bromwich East, is one of many who have become adept at using micro-blogging website Twitter to speak simultaneously to constituents and the media.

Mr Cameron himself has assiduously used websites such as Mumsnet to reach out directly – with varying levels of success – to specific groups of voters.

And blogging tools and idioms, too, have allowed nimble new pressure groups such as the TaxPayers’ Alliance, widely seen as a deniable attack-dog of the Tory Right, to emerge.

The fact remains, however, that the audience for political blogs is fairly limited. It may no longer be possible to dismiss them as a small band of bedroom obsessives poring over the traditional media’s droppings, but newspapers will still lead in setting the tone of the popular campaign.

Yet while many newspapers will still drip daily scorn on Gordon Brown rather than Mr Cameron, the social media will also play a key role. The internet, after all, can provide good copy. It is for their impact on the sociology of the political class and the Fourth Estate that this generation of political bloggers will be remembered.

Since the 2005 election, we have raced past the tipping point. Facebook has 23 million British users. About half of the eligible voters are social networkers, sharing and seeking recommendations among peers rather than trusting broadcast messages. The real contest is not the three-way blogs/newspapers/politicians fight, but how effectively each can cast its bait into the social networking sites, and who will have the greatest effect.

So what can we expect from this campaign? There will be widgets explaining tactical voting options to more people than ever before. As a result, the numbers voting against parties rather than for them will increase. Small parties without the resources to hit doorsteps may use these tools to reach that swelling protest vote.

The major parties will have “deniable outriders” to do poisonous negative campaigning on their behalf. Politicians will get personally savaged. There will be more tenuous attack-oriented arguments – ones that journalists wouldn’t have touched in the past.

The most interesting contribution social media may make is that it could offer the Tories an opportunity to project themselves as a responsible government-in-waiting. Tory strategists have already acknowledged that public pessimism may hurt them: if things really are that bad, the Conservatives know there’s a risk that the public could put aside their distaste for Gordon Brown and stick with the devil they know.

This will be a “downswing” election dominated by spending cuts rather than promised tax-handouts. Being positive will be difficult, and attack-bloggers won’t exactly help. So to sell the idea that responsible positive action is possible in a restricted economic climate, parties need a “big idea”.

The Tories’ “post-bureaucratic age” narrative relies heavily upon dynamic collaboration, a hallmark of the social web. It aims to apply open-source thinking to convene good judgment from a disparate community and to cut waste by reducing pen-pushers and consultants and by automating processes.

One of the brains the Tories have turned to is MySociety founder Tom Steinberg. His fingerprints appear to be all over shadow culture secretary Jeremy Hunt’s pledge of £1 million in Cabinet Office funding to the best idea for crowd-sourcing public intelligence.Several politicians would be tempted by the reflexive offer to let voters “have your say”, but this is a cannier step. Mr Hunt is looking to get the public to help interpret and re-present government data.

The Conservatives need the social web to help create a positive, reassuring buzz around them. Offering a narrative that breaks the economic stalemate may be Cameron’s brightest hope. Playing a part in that may be the real impact that social media has on the 2010 election.

Paul Evans blogs at blog.localdemocracy.org.uk

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/

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