The digital manifestos reviewed
The two main political parties have both made use of digital media to launch their manifestos. Are we talking grade A gimmickry, or is something of value being added?
My favourite so far has been Labour’s video manifesto.
It’s a good length at 2m 25s and the animated style is enjoyable to watch. Best of all it has successfully integrated links to other videos that go into areas of the manifesto in more depth.
What’s most noticeable though is what isn’t there: Gordon Brown, the Labour Party, or any politician at all in fact. It’s manifesto as politician free zone. The thinking is presumably inspired by both the current low opinion of politicians and the chosen medium. I’m much more likely to share the video with friends if it’s unbranded. Smart decision.
The Conservatives have created a launch video too.
They have felt brave enough to stick at least one politician above the virtual parapet: David Cameron. He bookends the video with a well chosen setting that emphasises he’s a regular family man. In a garden with a seesaw and sporting an open neck shirt, you can almost picture the end-of-the-working-day glass of wine just out of shot.
Again though the message is very much “please don’t think of us as a political party”. Most of the video features ordinary people talking about their hopes and dreams. It’s safe, consistent but perhaps a little long for the web. Unlike the Labour video it doesn’t offer a clear call to action to act or find out more.
Both parties have enabled comments below their videos, which is to be applauded.
Finally on the AV front, the Conservatives have also made their manifesto available in MP3 format so a good tick for accessibility and digital inclusion.
What about the actual documents themselves? Well of course both are available online, and again I give the slight edge to Labour. Both provide PDF versions to download as you’d expect, but only Labour has turned their manifesto into actual web pages made of plain ol’ HTML. Why is this good? Because it makes the content easier to find, reference and share. Got a particular policy you want to share? No problem, it has its own unique URL.
The Conservatives on the other hand have opted for one of those virtual documents where you get to turn the pages with your mouse. I hate these things. Maybe they have a future with the iPad but right now they’re anachronistic and a poor choice for sharing a manifesto online. A shame because I actually think the Conservative manifesto is better presented.
One last honourable mention goes to The Guardian and its annotated Labour manifesto. Browse through the manifesto and you can see commentary from relevant Guardian journalists on selected policies, each with distinct URLs for sharing too. It would have been interesting to see the parties build in something like this themselves but I imagine the risks were considered too great.
