A conference paper co-written with Nigel Jackson (Plymouth), key questions asked were how parties use Web 2.0 and whether they embrace or adapt the technologies. Talked of the emergence of the political strategists' creation of Web 1.5, partial use of the tools but no real interaction.

1. Politicians and Web 2.0:
the current bandwagon or changing
the mindset?
Dr Darren G. Lilleker
(University of Bournemouth)
Dr Nigel A. Jackson
(University of Plymouth)

2. “Web 2.0 is the network as platform, spanning all
connected devices: Web 2.0 applications are those that
make the most of intrinsic advantages of that platform:
delivering software as a continually-updated service that
gets better the more people use it, consuming and
remixing data from multiple sources, including individual
users, while providing their own data and services in a
form that allows remixing by others, creating network
effects through an ‘architecture of participation’ and
going beyond the page metaphor of Web 1.0 to deliver
rich user experiences” (O’Reilly, 2005)
• About co-production via networking
• Necessitates shifts in organisational thinking?

3. Parties and Web 2.0
• Connections to voters via networks
• Co-production of policy
• Democratic Representation
But
• Politicians lack specific networks
• Networks can be built
• Existing networks allow interaction

4. Research Questions
 To what extent electoral party political communicators
are using the range of available online communication
tools;
 To what extent political communicators are
encouraging interaction and public input and
participation through their online communicational
presence;
 To ascertain whether we can observe a qualitative or
quantitative shift in communication strategy;
 To evaluate whether Web 2.0 can, in reality, offer the
potential for political communicators that the literature
suggests and, if so, if it is political communication or
the Web 1.0 and 2.0 that is being adapted and
transformed.

5. Testing Interactivity
(Fober, Foltz and Pugliese, 2007)

6. An Operationalised Model
(Malagon, 2008)

7. Use of Web 2.0 tools on websites/social media

8. Use of Web 2.0 tools by party type

9. Use of tools by party type and site type

10. Interactivity on social networks by party type

11. Interactivity on websites/blogs by party type

12. Web 1.0/2.0 or Web 1.5

13. Concluding Thoughts
• Early stages in adoption of Web 2.0
– The architecture is in place, but gathering graffiti
rather than a population of producers
• A mixture of participation and monologic
communication
• Threats maybe seen to outweigh the benefits
• Websites attract the highly involved, but social
networks largely reject their presence