﻿Thursday, 25th June 2001

National Parties and the Internet

by Joanna Crawford

A survey of how national parties used the internet as a campaigning 
tool during the election will brand their efforts "bleak and dispiriting" - despite
the pre-campaign hype of an "e-election".

Researchers from Salford University studied websites from all the major
parties during the general election, as well as looking at every site put up
by local candidates.

Their conclusions - to be presented tomorrow at a special conference
organised by the Institute for Public Policy Research - could influence how
future political contests, including the forthcoming Euro debate, are carried
out on the web.

The report finds that none of the major three parties allowed message boards
or chat rooms for users to post their opinions on the sites.

It states: "Parties were accused of simply engaging in online propaganda
with boring content and largely ignoring interactivity."

The report concludes: "The new media is a way for them to get closer to the
public without necessarily allowing the public to become overly familiar in
return.

The authors - Rachel Gibson and Stephen Ward - go on to state that this may
be because parties still regard the web as an electioneering tool, rather than
as a democratic device.

They said: "Very few offered original material, or changed their sites
noticeably over the course of the campaign."

They dub this "rather disappointing", but praise the Liberal Democrats as
"clearly the most active" with around 150 sites.

The report concludes: "Parties, as with the general public, need incentives
to use the technology. As yet, there seems more to lose and less to gain if
they make mistakes experimenting with the technology."
