You may have noticed recently… there’s been alot of interesting items that have been happening in the world of politics.
Starting with Trump winning over in the USA. We currently have the build up to the French elections and for us, here in the UK… Theresa May went and did this…
It got me thinking, how is technology being used by politicians.
There are several examples available of how Trump really used his Social Media presence to drive support – one tweet, one message, one sentence… could potentially reach all of his 28.3 million followers. On top of that, his physical presence – he was flying around the States, holding rallies and talking to people. To be fair, he put the effort in.
It must be difficult to fly around a country. Be present at multiple rallies. Talking to crowds and supporters. Sometimes, i’m guessing, many politicians wish they had a duplicate – so they could be in two places at once!
Wouldn’t that be amazing. Talking to twice as many people, as the same time, and you’re there at both!
Well, that happened recently.
Jean-Luc Melenchon used mirrors, glass, lights, projectors, etc.. to make himself be in seven places at once!
That’s right. To the average person, this could be called a Hologram (technically it wasn’t because a Hologram is a 3D image, and this was a 2D and there’s other differences, but for the moment i won’t go into the detail and will save it for another post!).
Everyone was impressed. The candidate, is in seven places at once, to address big crowds of people and get his message across, in person!
Now, for many – they couldn’t tell if it was really him or not.
They knew it was him there. They knew it was him talking to them. They knew he was in real-time.
This technology helped him increase his ratings which was reflected in the polls. The polls showed he gained more popularity, more people willing to vote for him…
It’s not the first time this has been done. Narendra Modi did something similar in India a few years ago, addressing a few rallies at the same time – though to be honest, you could kind of tell it wasn’t really him…
I feel technology will play a critical role in politics and in the up and coming UK election.
This technology could be used – maybe not to address rallies up and down the country, but to have in place, around the country, address local supporters in a more personal manner than just handing out a leaflet.
I see more being done on Social Media to address questions and provide information to supporters. We could see more on Instagram and the other platforms… or even having live broadcasts on YouTube, Facebook and Periscope (for Twitter users).
Maybe, in the future, we could use Virtual/Augmented Reality to see what Britain would be like under a particular political party… Imagine that!