Contested Spaces: Social Media, Big Data and Politics

(Originally posted 23 April 2013)

Being an unfunded full-time PhD student means having to find ways to earn money without long time-commitments. Luckily, King’s offers many temping opportunities that are far more interesting than the usual data entry or envelope stuffing. Last week, I got to be an event assistant at the Contested Spaces conference organised by King’s Policy Institute and eBay. From greeting VIPs in the morning to being a roving microphone, I basically got paid to meet and learn from some of the leading experts in politics and digital media.

 

The conference, focusing on social media, ‘big data’ and politics, had two sides/ Firstly, how politicians can use social media and big data to improve campaigns – for connecting with voters, spreading messages, organising networks of volunteers and tailoring their campaigns to the specific needs of voters identified through the data about ourselves we scatter across the internet. Secondly, what social media can (and can’t) tell us about politics, such as the public reaction to the Arab Spring which has been so widely connected with Twitter in the press.

The event brought together speakers from all over the world, from professors to some serious VIPs in the digital world, including Tod Cohen. Vice-President of eBay, and Jen O’Malley-Dillon, Deputy Campaign Manager for Obama’s re-election. If you’d like to learn more about the link between digital media and politics, videos of all of the panels are available to watch here. You can also listen to Ms O’Malley-Dillon, together with Ian Spencer and Bret Jacobson from Red Edge, discuss What can UK politics learn from the success of ‘Obama 2012’? here.

As you would expect from a conference on digital and social media, the event created quite a buzz on Twitter, as people tweeted their thoughts and questions to the speakers. You can catch up on the conversation from the conference at #ContestedSpaces.