The Medium Is Not The Message

Local councillor, Redlands' Cllr Daisy Benson (LibDem) has been praised by The Times' Rachel Potter for her innovative use of social networking media.

In particular noted by The Times were efforts to engage with typically disengaged students and young people during the recent scrutiny review of issues in private rented housing, which disproportionately involves them.

Cllr Benson advertises the methods which you can get in touch with her and explains that she and her colleagues communicate with members of public "in a variety of traditional and non-traditional ways including using blogs, press articles, street-letters, telephone, email, Facebook and more recently Twitter."

She also highlighted the power of communication tools to engage with loal residents, which is at the heart of traditional community politics, but offered the stark warning that although "it’s cheap and it reaches a lot of people, but it wouldn’t be suitable for every issue or every audience," as it is important to have balance and target information appropriately.

She points out a variety of recent LibDem campaigns to clean up Grafitti, to oppose the closure of Reading University's School of Health and Social Care and to save the Jolly Anglers pub have reached a wider audience and brought the issues under closer inspection because of their efforts.

Local Government Association programme director for media and campaigns, Edward Welsh, said the decline of local newspapers is one factor in the growing popularity of social networking, and described how "Councillors have fewer channels available to them to speak to the public and so the online community is rapidly growing in importance."