Get Up Cascades

As the use of the social networking has become more pervasive in Australian politics it is an interesting time to investigate how social networking is impacting on Australian politics.

Get Up is a great example to investigate as it has become a pervasive voice in Australian politics. Get Up is not – for profit community advocacy organisation that lobbys politicians on issues as well as attempting to keep Government ‘honest’. In the most recent Australian Federal election Get Up have emerged from the shadows online and out into the mainstream effecting real political change in Australian society, now becoming a real force in the political landscape. However how did they do this? Well, in part they have their online social network to thank.

Essentially as a grassroots organisation Get Up have utilised the internet to increase its numbers and profile. Get Up drive quite an aggressive and persistent campaign in which they target potential supporters through a constant wave of emails to get involved via various means, either through signing petitions, attending protests, donating financially or becoming volunteers for Get Up in some capacity.

However this does not fully answer the question as to how Get Up has grown in force, particularly when individuals can be sceptical of political groups. Get Up’s growing popularity could be a combination of elements, the current Federal election, the mood of the people, its particular campaigns, the way they campaign. Duncan Watts discusses this apparent randomness within his framework of cascades and thresholds where certain variables, such as the strength of a network, determine whether an ‘innovation’ will be adopted with vigour, or dissipate with minimal impact. As Watts states, “the seed alone is not enough” (248). It is the network of individuals, which Watts describes as different clusters that influence the spread of an innovation. Bearing this in mind Get Up clearly captured the attention of certain individuals, particularly with the production of creative mock ads that made their way onto Youtube, and eventually filtered into the mainstream media. This example demonstrates the fact that the campaign caught the imagination of supporters and those who were in various ways exposed to it, thus raising Get Up’s profile and potentially this influence.

Here are some clips of Get Up's work....

When viewing this path through Watts theory of cascades, in a sense Get Up got lucky. The current instability of our politics and political parties is a useful analogy for this particular theory – nothing is guaranteed!

Reference

Watts, D (2003) ‘Thresholds, cascades and predictability’ in Six Degrees: the science of a connected age, NY and London: Norton, pp 220 – 252.