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Jun

Social media and the elections – did it have an impact?

Before the European Parliament elections social media was trumpeted as a key method to increase turnout, attract support and build interest (especially among the European political parties). Two weeks on from the elections, we can ask the question – did it have an impact?

Social media offers politicians and voters an unparalleled level of direct access to each other. The former use it in the hope of mobilising support – although whether it attracts new support is a moot point (many people follow people with whose views they already identify). Fortunately, social media also produces large amounts of data that allow us to study its impact in greater detail.

We’ll focus on turnout. Decades of declining voter turnout was brought to an end (albeit marginally). But did social media have an impact?

Apr

A more visual EU election?

Comments: 2

Visual communication is steadily entering its way into online campaigns for the European Parliament elections.

Candidates and political parties are showing rather than describing what they stand for, and we can see rather than read how candidates are being interviewed, campaigning, speaking and making pledges.

Images with quotes signed by the lead candidates of the two largest European political parties, Jean-Claude Juncker (European People’s Party) and Martin Schulz (Party of European Socialists) regularly float by in Twitter and Facebook feeds.

The Liberal ALDE Party uses wordclouds to set out its values and the European Greens encourage voters to create their own digital campaign poster.

Mar

There’s no escaping Twitter for Europe’s politicians

Tags: European People's Party, Facebook, Google, Jean-Claude Juncker, Martin Schulz, Party of European Socialists, Twitter

Comments: 1

With their support falling to low levels, Europe’s mainstream parties are pulling out all the stops to freshen their image and reach voters.

The European People’s Party (EPP) Election Congress in Dublin clearly recognised digital campaigning as being at the heart of this year’s European elections, and contributed to a significant increase in interest in and debate about the polls. Over three days (5-7 March), more than 16,000 tweets (includes retweets) were posted about the EPP Congress. At the event itself, social media workshops were given by Twitter, Facebook and Google.

So it was perhaps surprising that Twitter-less Jean-Claude Juncker was chosen as the figurehead of the campaign. Juncker’s previous digital campaigning experience seemed to centre on fighting a losing battle to suppress spoof accounts but by the end of the Congress he had – as if by magic – a verified Twitter account with more than 5,000 followers, scooping up the followers of the @EPPDublin Congress account.

Mar

How does the European Parliament tweet – and what impact does it have?

Tags: Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group, Europe of Freedom and Democracy Group, European People's Party Group, Facebook, Guy Verhofstadt, Instagram, Marine Le Pen, Martin Schulz, Nigel Farage, Socialists & Democrats Group, Twitter, YouTube

Comments: 3

The European Parliament is one of the most prolific international institutions on Twitter.

Almost 400 of the 766 members of parliament have a Twitter account and the Parliament itself has embraced 140-character communications in a big way.

Over the past five years the European Parliament has set up more than 80 official Twitter accounts, tweeting in 23 languages. The European Parliament has grabbed the opportunity social media offers to engage EU citizens directly.

This matters for its legitimacy, but is the Parliament making an impact?

Feb

Green Primary – pioneering work is hard, but worth it!

Tags: European Green Party, Facebook, José Bové, Ska Keller, Twitter

Comments: 1

Johannes Hillje of the European Green Party writes on the Green Primary, which ended last week:

Last week, the first Europe-wide primary election – the so-called ‘Green Primary’ – came to an end.

For two-and-a-half months, Europeans over the age of 16 who support the Greens were able to take part in an online vote to select two Green lead candidates for the European elections. Around 23,000 Europeans participated in this democratic exercise, selecting Ska Keller (Germany) and José Bové (France) as the Green representatives in the race for European Commission presidency.

A lot has been said in the media across Europe about the Green Primary. In fact the European Green Party has never received so much media attention as it has over the last few months (and particularly last week).

Some media portrayed the Primary as an innovative and courageous democratic project. Others called it a failure due to the number of participants. Indeed, some aspects of the Green Primary need to be reflected more thoroughly and we need to analyse the process and the outcome to provide a broader picture of the state of European democracy.

Dec

Will the EU get a social media election?

Tags: Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group, Facebook, Socialists & Democrats Group, Twitter

Comments: No

In June 2009 Twitter had around 50 million users. Today, it has around a quarter of a billion. Facebook use has grown from around 200 million users at the time of the last European Parliament elections to more than one billion today. But does this growth – and the development of new tools, such as Instagram and Vine, mean that the EU will get a social media election in 2014?

This was the subject of a lively event organised by the European Parliament office in the UK last week. It was undoubtedly one of the most passionate debates I have attended in a while, due both to the topic and the diverse and well-balanced panel of speakers (see panel below).

Nov

Political campaigning gathers pace on social media

Tags: European Green Party, Facebook, Keyhole, Martin Schulz, Party of European Socialists, Pirate Party, Twitter, YouTube

Comments: 1

Two months after the European Parliament launched its elections information campaign, genuine online political campaigning and debate around the polls is beginning to gather pace.

Since 17 October we have – using social media tracking tool Keyhole – monitored 14,360 posts by 7,960 users on the European elections. As explained in a previous post, these tweets and Facebook messages – which have the collective potential to reach nearly 24 million accounts – will not include every single post on the 2014 elections, but nonetheless cover a sizeable chunk of the online debate.

Whether this figure is high or low depends on your perception: it is low in terms of the overall European electorate (around 380 million people), but the elections are still more than six months away. These numbers can be expected to grow considerably, and this current audience is a signal of the potential reach of social media campaigning.

Nov

Social media and the elections: game-changer or minimal impact?

Tags: European Green Party, Facebook, Marietje Schaake, Sophie in 't Veld, Twitter

Comments: 1

Enter the terms ‘social media’ and ‘politics’ into one search engine and you will get more than one billion results.

Social media is revolutionising the way politicians communicate with citizens, the media, and each other. Self-proclaimed social media experts evangelise about the need to participate and highlight the ‘disruptive power’ of social media on politics. Barack Obama’s presidential election campaigns in the United States have achieved almost mythical status as examples to follow.

But what is happening on this side of the Atlantic? Will social media be the key to engaging people in next year’s European Parliament elections campaigns, boosting turnout and influencing the results? Or will it be a damp squib?

Oct

Dutch MEPs set digital example for #ep2014 campaign

Tags: Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group, Digital, Facebook, LinkedIn, Marietje Schaake, Neelie Kroes, Sophie in 't Veld, Twitter

Comments: 8

The 2014 European Parliament elections will be ground-breaking in many ways – not least for the widespread use of social media and ‘primary’ elections to select candidates.

In the Netherlands, a small yet noteworthy intra-party campaign is currently taking place between two sitting MEPs. Marietje Schaake (@MarietjeSchaake) and Sophie in ‘t Veld (@SophieintVeld) are well-known for their prolific use of Twitter. Both are also mounting digital-led campaigns to persude members of their progressive liberal party Democrats 66 (D66) to back them as head of the party’s list (lijsttrekker) for next May’s election.

So how are they getting on? We’ve used several digital analysis tools – including Twitonomy – to crunch the data and find out how successful they have been in reaching supporters on Twitter and Facebook and via their campaign websites.

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