So we’re only hours away from a general election result, but the influence digital media has played on it all won’t be decided until the dusts of history have begun to settle. The fact that it hasn’t dominated the commentary has been refreshing. Perhaps as a society we are finally getting over the novelty of being able to communicate ideas/images in real-time from/to anyone/anywhere?

Having said that, the breathtaking lack of digital media savvy from the Brown team in the ‘Bigotgate’ incident (breathtaking to Gillian “You’re joh-king!” Duffy at any rate) in not only leaving a mic on the PM, but then not thinking that a BBC Radio studio might just have a webcam set up, shows we’re still at a pretty basic stage.

Bizarre Limbo

Something as steeped in history and protocol as an election is bound to struggle to keep up with the pace of change. It feels like a bizarre limbo between different worlds to go to a polling station where a man with a pencil and ruler crosses off your name on a big list, while the person behind you updates their Facebook status to “…is voting” to the world from their phone.

If anything, being social online really has inspired younger people to engage with politics this time, even if it is inevitably in a more presidential, personality-driven way. No party may have mobilised support online in quite the dynamic method of the US Obama campaign, but this was never going to work like that in the UK. Acerbic wit on Twitter is much more our style. What real effect that has on voting patterns is debateable. A outright victory for Nick Clegg would seem assured when looking at the Twitter search feeds, with David Cameron’s Torys repeatedly mocked, yet the polls tell us they lead.

Unwritten History

Our society’s digital divide clearly remains wide, and particularly split by age and, of course, media savvy. But whether we notice it or not, this election has probably squeezed that gap a little more. Even if the blue rinse Conservatives are not part of the digital conversation, the way social media is changing the expectations of those who are is having a profound, unstoppable social effect.

The result of the election has implications for our media history too. Will the newspapers still be able to claim it was their desperate front pages ‘wot won it’? Will a hung parliament be said to result from tribal populism for the Lib-Dems invigorated by TV debates and Facebook’ed up youth? Are pollsters more or less accurate now we’re all wired up? All will be revealed tonight. See you on #ge2010 for the real-time action…

Twitter is far more established and important that it was even during Barak Obama’s famous social media election campaign. And the UK already loves to tweet during political TV shows like the BBC’s Question Time. It’s a real shame that the many Twitter-phobes are missing out on this important new dimension. One day soon, all big live events will have a feed of comments as a standard part of the broadcast. Then, status updates will be see for what they really are – far from egotistical personal broadcasts, they can be a simple but effective ways for any audience to participate in a communal event.

It’s fantastic that just as digital progress seems to signal the ‘end’ of event television by making almost everything available on-demand, we have a brand new medium for live events, that also has the added importance of immediate political weight.

The Chancellors Debate showed the shape of things to come once the party leaders have their TV showdowns. Of course the negative side of all this real-time digital commentary is that those in the spotlight become incredibly guarded and bland, plus attempt to exert way too much control. However, like it or not, this technology will play a vital role in the Election 2010. And this is really just the beginning of a new political era, so resistance to things like Twitter will have to simply fall away.

The Daily Mail and others may still find value in running daily scare stories about social networks and the anonymity of the internet for some time yet, but the next month will be an important move forward in the acceptance of all the ‘new’ media technologies – and how to use them effectively. Even if politics continues to annoy and baffle, hopefully the relevance and power of digital media will become clearer.

The inauguration of President Obama this week was groundbreaking for loads of very well documented reasons. The mainstream media have done a good job of highlighting the role that web technologies played in the historic election victory. Yet I thought some of the most exciting uses of social media were on display on inauguration day itself.

CNN’s hook up with Facebook looked like a good interactive idea, although when we checked out the ceremony at cnn.com the site could only stretch to congratulating us for having ‘made it’, but didn’t have enough capacity to actually show us the live stream. Thankfully the guys at Obama fave UStream had things completely under control for trouble-free laptop viewing of the historic fudging of the oath.

If ever there was a time for Twitter to go down it was this and although we did notice some sluggishness, it proved to be the most valuable resource for hearing the true ’voice of the people’, particularly via the excellent http://obama.twistori.com. Did 46% of Americans really vote for McCain? They’re being very quiet indeed.

Check out the Kyte player above for web tech evangelist Robert Scoble roaming around the amazing operation at Al Gore’s Current TV. Is this the future of live event journalism? It certainly looks like they may be onto something with those banks of people monitoring the vast public dialogue. That’s where the scoops come from today.

Will the UK - we’re told this week that Twitter penetration is surprisingly higher here than in the States - embrace such media innovation around our own election time?