Yesterday the New Statesman ran an article which explores some of the possible reasons. I’m tempted to conclude that politicians in the UK  have simply not yet taken the internet seriously enough as medium (remember Cameron’s ‘too many tweets make a twit’ comment?). However, the major parties do seem to all have Twitter profiles, and the Conservatives even have their ‘WebCameron’, so it’s not as if they have completely ignored the medium’s potential.  

However, I think one of the problems is they still don’t quite fully understand it or know how to exploit its full potential. The internet is certainly a powerful vehicle which can quickly speed out of control, but instead of attempting to take the wheel, the parties seem to tend to just let it do its own thing. So we see the supporters, such as Grace Fletcher-Hackwood, starting their own Twitter campaigns and the politicians just piggybacking on that once the campaign gains in popularity.

Perhaps the politicians just don’t believe that using the internet to garner support will make a difference. But, from the voting public’s point of view, aside from door-to-door visits, reaching out via the internet (e.g. using something like Twitter) must surely be the most direct and democratic way of communicating, right? It offers politicians a direct line of communication with the public. If they’re worried that communicating with voters via social media may come across as cheesy or cynical, is this really more of a concern than the fact that TV and the press can never offer a truly neutral medium for a political message? There is always an editorial agenda of some kind, and while this is of course also true of much the internet (particularly blogs), it at least offers a more interactive, diverse medium. What politics needs, surely, is a two-way conversation with the electorate, not just one-way electioneering.

I imagine the real reason politicians have not made more use of Twitter, for example, is that they believe it is used only by the country’s chattering classes, liberals and progressives, who have probably already made up their minds about who to vote for. But this assumption really underestimates the far-reaching power of social media. Using the search hash-tag for my local town, I’ve certainly seen a number of undecided voters who have not yet engaged with any party and are looking for information.

I would argue that the internet really can help to change the course of an election, or at least help inform people about their options. Sites such as Votematch and 38Degrees help to provide the public with the facts and make an informed decision, an antidote to the irresponsible journalism and scaremongering often peddled by the press from both ends of political spectrum.

On a lighter note, it seems I’m not the only one trying to draw comparisons with the 2008 US elections  – The Sun has published a picture of David Cameron on its front page edited to look like one of Obama’s famous election images.  Alarmingly, they seem to be piggybacking on support for a US President in what is a completely and utterly different election, in completely and utterly different circumstances. At least, if Obama happens to see it (possibly via Twitter), it’d probably make him chuckle, given his previous meeting with Cameron. Oh dear, I think I’ve just been decidedly un-neutral

Alex runs Translator Tips, where you can download a free marketing ebooklet, or buy Alex’s ebook How to Earn $80,000+ Per Year as a Freelance Translator (the headline is designed to get your attention – admit it, it worked, didn’t it).

I’m really glad Alex decided to make a comeback.  I’m not sure whether he intends to update his ezine format by continuing to publish his content on his blog, but I certainly hope so.

Although I am a reasonably competent internet user I’m afraid this problem was not something I’d encountered before or knew how to deal with. Luckily there’s always someone who does have the know-how, and I was subsequently advised by my learned friend at Pagespank.com that some horrid hacker had ‘injected’ an ‘iframe virus’ into my site. It was invisible, apparently, but the nasty little blighter ended up bringing my whole site down after Google and my domain hoster decided I was a ‘dangerous’ website. For a more technical explanation of how this happened go to Pagespank.com, but rest assured that this is still a healthy, virus-free, clean-living little blog.

Of the many useful blog posts, one a few days ago entitled five reasons why freelancers should blog was the tipping point for me in deciding whether to start my own. This article also explains why Wordpress is a good blogging platform for making your posts visible on search engines (nice little plug there).

I have been slow to understanding blogging, and to realize the benefits of writing my own. Even now I am 99% motivated by professional reasons, but it seems to me there is next to no harm in diving into an already overcrowded pool. In fact, apparently the more the better!

It amuses me that I am effectively coming in on the coat-tails of so many long-established bloggers, but in a way that’s kind of the point and the beauty of this whole thing, right? Not many bloggers claim to be professional writers or journalists (myself included), they are simply sharing their experience and opinions over the net, and the effect of this is hugely positive much more often than it is negative.

As Rosenburg argues, “what, exactly are Wolfe and other blogging detesters worried out? We’re not going to run out of web space”, and uses the example of a man in the U.S. named David Miller who blogged about his experience with cancer. Miller must be one of thousands of people blogging about personal battles, but the point is that in our fragmented world it was important to Miller and his loved ones that he was expressing something so personal through this medium, no matter how many others were doing the same.

It seems to me that what is crucial is that you establish from the outset what it is you want to share with other blog readers. Otherwise you risk it being just a bright idea that never really had any point to it, just another blight of a landmark in cyberspace and liable to fall prey to criticism from the likes Tom Wolfe (of Wall Street Journal) as containing “narcissistic shrieks and baseless ‘information’”. With this in mind, and self-consciously trying to avoid being guilty of any ‘narcissistic shrieks’, I hope to be able to use for the following purposes:

a) express and invite opinion about developments in translation and linguistics
b) recommend authoritative links on other translation bloggers‘ sites, particularly with translation students in mind.

c) learn from others’ blogs
d) raise of the profile of translating and interpreting as a career
e) most importantly: publicize my profile as a freelance translator and seek opportunities