The efficacy of social networking services as tools for election campaigns and increasing voter turnout may be more limited than thought.

With the Constitutional Court ruling that voters and candidates should be able to voice their opinions on social networking services on Dec. 29, such services were used as campaign tools for the first time leading up to this year’s general elections.

While social networking services are considered by experts to have a much more positive effect for left-leaning progressive parties, the results of Wednesday’s elections did little to prove the efficacy of such services as campaign tools.

The ruling Saenuri Party won 152 seats, while the Democratic United Party and the Unified Progressive Party won 140 seats between them despite their alliance.

With Korea having deep-rooted regional preferences for political parties, as demonstrated by Saenuri’s sweeping win in the Gyeongsang provinces while the progressives faired better in the Jeolla provinces, social networking services may also be limited in their ability to inform voters.

As professor Yang Seung-ham of Yonsei University, pointed out while social networking services can spread information rapidly, they are limited in terms of the depth of the message.

“As people are required to put their message in 140 characters, how much information can be put into the messages is limited,” Yang said, referring to Twitter.

“As such, the information spread through SNS tends to lean towards the promotional, so they can’t be used to verify the quality of a candidate or policies.”

The effect social networking services have on encouraging people to vote is also questionable.

While all campaign activities ended before Wednesday, social networking services continued to be used to encourage people to vote throughout Wednesday, with celebrities and citizens posting “confirmation shots” at polling stations.

A “confirmation shot” is a photograph taken at the polling station after voting and posted through social networking services to prove that the user has cast his or her vote.

However, the overall turnout rate was a relatively low 54.3 percent despite pre-election efforts by progressive celebrities and observers. A popular comedian known for his left-leaning political views said that he would bare his torso if the turnout exceeded 65 percent, while professor Ahn Cheol-soo of Seoul National University said that he would perform a dance if the figure topped 70 percent.

However, opposition parties, which boast a stronger support base among the younger generations, lost to the conservative Saenuri Party and there were rumors that only 27 percent of those in their 20s voted Wednesday.

Although the National Election Commission has verified that the figures were just rumors, some say that actual figures may not be much more encouraging for young people’s participation.

According to the watchdog, calculating voting turnout by age group will require about a month.

However, past figures for the voting rate of those in their 20s suggest that voters of that age group are likely to have fallen short of the average voting rate.

In the general elections for the 17th National Assembly, 37.1 percent of the voters in their 20s cast their votes while the national average was 60.6 percent.

The figure for the 20s group fell further in the 2008 general elections, with only 28.1 percent of them voting. The average for all age groups was 46.1 percent in that year.

By Choi He-suk (cheesuk@heraldcorp.com)