Catherine Drea: The future of campaigning

There are huge changes happening in how we get our information about what is going on in the world.

But far from improving our access and our knowledge, could these changes disrupt our ability to trust and engage with campaigning politics? 

The Presidential Election has highlighted many of the ways that this is happening and how it is affecting all of us.

Last week, just before voting day, a video appeared online outlining how Catherine Connolly had changed her mind and withdrawn from the Presidential race. 

It was perfectly made by an Artificial Intelligence video creator and probably took very little skill. It featured RTÉ News, a direct clip of Catherine making her departure announcement and the political correspondent Paul Cunningham declaring that the election would now be cancelled with Heather declared as winner.

About tw seconds in I knew it was fake. Not because it didn't look genuine in every way, but because of Catherine’s huge commitment, it had to be fake news.

These fake AI videos are so good that they need close examination and attention to figure out if they are for real. 

But on social media platforms where people gobble up news so quickly, most people will instead flick over them and go on to re-share with others, creating thousands of views and confusing everyone. 

It didn’t take too long for this one to be rumbled and then the various platforms removed it.

It’s not that I’m very sussed on the online world, I only know a very small corner of it, but my inbuilt skepticism of absolutely everything at this stage makes me question the validity of anything I see or hear. 

That is the current state of the world and it is a sad state of affairs.

We no longer know what is genuine; what is a lie, whose voice we can trust? Unfortunately we can trust nothing now until we find a way to verify the facts. 

This isn’t easy and is the reason that verified news is expensive and slow.

At the same time as the fake video was circulating among many other fake and unverified events, there were live reports of the disturbances at Citywest online. 

For hours it was hard to tell if any of this was real. 

Even more upsetting was the way that social media platforms and intervention from around the world incited the violence of a small minority.

Following the Presidential Election campaigns and the methods used it was interesting to compare how these two worlds of online presence and mainstream content impacted the two campaigns. 

The main difference in how we access information is generational. 

You could say that Catherine’s methods impacted on the younger voters while Heather’s efforts were consumed by the older cohorts.

Catherine Connolly’s team was a diverse group of people from a number of political parties and none.

Their online presence was fluid and relaxed. 

This spread the message mainly amongst younger voters and demonstrated evidence that she is interested in inclusion and reaching out to people. 

As a result, hers was a campaign with thousands of enthusiastic volunteers.

Heather Humphries professed to be listening to people but she appeared to be inside a bubble of those who share exactly the same world view. 

This contrast between the two campaigns was that one looked open while the other one displayed groupthink. 

It seemed as if the Connolly campaign knew how to encourage positivity, while the Fine Gael campaign relied much more on negative campaigning.

Away from the mainstream world, Catherine Connolly’s team went on the road and met people. 

From student groups, to the Blindboy Podcast, from musical fund raisers to Family Resource Centres. 

Catherine, in her own words, built a movement and it also built trust. 

This is a commodity that is in very short supply these days.

Heather started to travel quite a bit later. 

However the old school campaign didn’t reach out to diverse voters. 

By comparison it all seemed a bit staid and out of date. Catherine resisted soundbites, schmoozing and towing the line. 

Heather went full on Fine Gael which was not designed to inspire.

The events of one day a couple of weeks ago highlighted the difference between the two approaches. 

On the 16th October Catherine was part of a panel on the rights of people with disabilities and their carers at the Helix in Dublin. 

That same day Heather was photographed lolling about in St. Stephen’s Green with three retired women TDs, all women of a certain age. 

Catherine seemed to be playing a vital part of the grassroots community while Heather looked like one of an elite group of professional politicians far removed from everyday life.

The radio and TV debates and interviews did nothing to bolster either camp. It seemed like the more these events took place, the more people were turned off and bored. 

Even I, fascinated as I was, found that the debates were excruciating at times. 

The lack of innovation as to how to spend time getting to know these two candidates was lacklustre at best.

Most people told me that they just couldn’t watch at all.

As I write this, the day before the vote, it seems that trusted online content combined with diverse grassroots movement building will be the future of political campaigning in Ireland. Some people might have a bit of catching up to do.