tag: Internet, Italia, Political Divide, Politici, USA, blogosfera, consulenza politica, elezioni, grassroots, partecipazione, social network, web campaigns

PDF Europe. (Some) politics jumped the blog

di Antonio Sofi ⋅ Gennaio 16, 2010 alle 21:12⋅  Manda via email ⋅  Stampa ⋅ Commenta

“Jumping the blog. What happens to political communication when the web gets really social” has been presented during the session “Adapting and thriving in the new media environment” at PDF Europe, Barcelona, 20/21 November 2009

How to quickly and efficiently adapt to a world that’s changing while we are living it is the million dollar question for politics and politicians from all over the world. I’ll adopt a perspective that involves the changes happened in European new media environment during the last two years: the jump of the blog or blogosphere, mainly at a local level due to the huge impact of Facebook and social media.

Bikini statistics and Europen politicians

75% of MEPs use a personal website extensively.

European Parliament Digital Trends recently published a research concerning the trend in technology adoption within the professional european political sphere. The main result of this research made by Fleishman and Hillard during April 2009 among 110 Members of European Parliament (MEPs, 14% of the European Parliament) is that 75% use a personal website extensively.

25% of MEPs do not use a personal website

As a journalism teacher said recently to his students: «Statistics are like a bikini. What they reveal is interesting, but what they hide is crucial». The statistics bikini here hides that 25% of MEPS do not use a personal website. And we are still talking about “traditional” website: the word “extensively” could easily stand for “I open it sometimes just to read the press release that someone in my staff uploads sometimes”.

* 62% of MEPs have either never heard of Twitter or have no plans to use it.

On the social side of the internet usage, the reasearch reveals that 62% have either never heard of Twitter or have no plans to use it. There is a huge difference with American situation, where Twitter is really wide spread among politicians at any level. On the blogging side, 24% of MEPs use a blog extensively but only 26% of MEPs who blog comment on other blogs once a week or more.

Further data is available in the full document at EP Digital Trends.

This is the whole scenario regarding the five-years-old european parliament (could be that the new MEPs, recently elected, are more digitally savvy): the web presence of elected European representatives is just thanks to personal website. Blog, facebook, microblogging are still far to come. To fully understand what has changed or is going to change we have to zoom to a more local point of view.

Local politics. Members of Italian Parliament (MIPs)

The research on MIPs involved the web presence of 952 politicians, 100% of the italian parliament

Let’s focus on Italian situation. There’s a research entitled Political Divide, conducted by Stefano Epifani of University of Rome and published on Spindoc, that show how 60% of MIPs use the internet in some way – at least they have a personal website. The “bikini” here hides that 40% of MIPs don’t exist on the web (except from institutional pages).

Differences between deputies and senators for the usage of website, blogs, social network

The most used social network among MIPs: Facebook 58%. YouTube and Flickr follow. Twitter stands at 2%.

Among the 60% that in some way are digitally active, there are some differences between deputies and senators (due essentially to age difference) regarding the usage of three different web tools: website, blog and social network. Among the italian deputies that are active online there are more social network profiles than personal blogs or traditional websites. In other words, there are a bunch of italian representatives that wasn’t on the Internet before Web 2.0 – they’ve began in a networked environment (mainly Facebook).

Differences in the usage of Social Network among italian representatives

The political “earthquake” of Facebook

The rating growth of Facebook usage, from February 2008 to February 2009: 314% in all European countries.

The point is Facebook. Facebook has been a sort of “social earthquake” that reshaped the new media european environment in the last two years – in all the european countries Facebook grew by 314% in less than a year (the trends is still positive but slower, source: Comscore, 04/09 ). The growth rate in Italy is ca 2700%; in Spain 1000%.

It happens. Facebook changed the social media political environment. It has thrown into web 2.0 process a bunch of people that had a plain (or mono-dimensional) experience of the Internet. Newbies: both voters and politicians.

Politics and politicians jumped the blog.

Some politics and politicians jumped the blog. Fonzie, in a famous episode of the Tv serie “Happy Days”, jumped a shark using waterskies: the scene has become a proverbial way to refer to something that has reached its peak and it can only get worse – “after that it’s all downhill”. In Europe, some politicians involved in political campaigns – especially in a local contest – literally jumped the blogs: the entire blogosphere. With all its values: trasparency of sources, trust in sharing good ideas and feeding open conversations.

Many local politicians were in some way “forced” by their own network (and voters) to get social. By their own network – “bypassing” the whole blog/blogging system. Especially referring to local battlegrounds, and to the politicians that did not use the web because they did not find any particular advantage in it. There are some italian case studies regarding the facebook impact on online political campaigning.

Renzi, Emiliano, Cupra Marittima

Renzi (Florence) used Facebook as a communication tool.

Matteo Renzi, 34 yo, FB addicted, run a successful campaign for mayor. Facebook was the production and distribution center of political issues and multimedia contents. He used intensively Facebook for the primary process: also due to the lack of financial resources, the social network became the political communication playground for all the other candidates. Renzi still uses Facebook to personally update his citizens about his work.

Emiliano (Bari) used Facebook as a organisation tool: 16 fb groups and more.

Incumbent Michele Emiliano run a tough election as Bari mayor. He created, with a very young staff, Emilab, a volunteer organization of under 30: they used Facebook as a sort of little set-up ready-to-use “MyBarackObama”. 16 Facebook hyper-local groups, based on city areas. 7 open contests for cultural projects on a grassroots level (video, music, gastronomy, ecc.). 2000 people involved within Facebook. Each fb group had a coordinator, and some of them were found among the most active young people that joined the group on Facebook. Emilab lives on, now it’s a proper grassroots organization.

Cupra Marittima, 5000 inhabitants, has Facebook as an agenda tool.

Cupra Marittima is a town of 5000 inhabitants. They had ocal elections with 4 candidates and 4 civic lists (not officially linked to national parties). All the lists had a Facebook group where they discussed the program with voters and citizens. Many political discussions on issues were held on a neutral “public page” dedicated to the electoral cycle. It somehow opened up the campaign process, even at this level: giving an additional space to discuss the political agenda and the local issues.