Tech in the European and Norwegian elections

Technology and the European Parliament Elections 2009 Download: www.jonworth.eu/tech-ep.ppt Jon Worth | jon@jonworth.eu www.jonworth.eu | @jonworth http://www.europarl.europa.eu/elections_2009_package/default.htm

Election Turnout 63% 61% 58.5% 56.8% 49.8% 45.6% 40%?

Mainstream Parties – EU level

EPP ‘Dialogue TV’ – more like monologue TV

PES makes use of social media, PES activists’ network

ELDR professional site, Graham Watson for President online campaign

Mainstream Parties – National Campaigns

SPD ‘financial sharks’, FDP (Koch-Mehrin) vs. Parlorama

UK shadow boxing before national election

Sweden pizza boxes, some blogging and social media

Minor parties

Major web efforts, will it translate into election success?

Institutional Initiatives

European Parliament invests heavily in web efforts to get out the vote

230000 views of most popular film on Youtube

14000 fans on Facebook

Information about the EP and voting www.votematch.eu - answer questions about European Politics and find the party closest to you www.euprofiler.eu - an alternative to VoteMatch www.votewatch.eu - how MEPs have voted in the European Parliament www.parlorama.eu - attendance records and activityof MEPs

Trends, Twitter and Blogs www.predict09.eu - EU-wide opinion polling prior to the elections www.europatweets.eu - all MEPs and candidates using Twitter www.tweetelect09.eu - trends on Twitter about the EP elections and #eu09 www.bloggingportal.eu - the best of the blogs about EU matters

Some way to go…

Technology and the European Parliament Elections 2009 Download: www.jonworth.eu/tech-ep.ppt Jon Worth | jon@jonworth.eu www.jonworth.eu | @jonworth http://www.flickr.com/photos/puisney/

Give us some of that Obama magic! All the Norwegian parties want to copy Barack Obama’s use of social media, but how?

Useful facts about Norwegian politics:

September 14 - national election in Norway.

7 parties in Stortinget (parliament)

Big question - will The Progressive Party (Fremskrittspartiet) for the first time enter government?

Today’s government

Red-green coalition:

Labour Party (Arbeiderpartiet),

Centre Party (Senterpartiet) and

Socialist Left Party (Sosialistisk Venstreparti)

(majority government)

Norwegian social media craze

Def: Social media A set of technologies, tools and platforms facilitating the discovery, participation and sharing of content. Ex: Facebook, Flickr, blogs.

Labour Party

Sindre Fossum Beyer, information officer:

“ Much more focus on the Internet in this campaign”

“ Obama showed us what was possible to achieve with the Internet.”

“ Most important lesson for us: how to improve political activity that already exists, to mobilize for debates and meetings

Progressive Party

Geir Almåsvold Mo, general secretary:

” The web site works best as a info site, not so well as a marketing tool.”

” By being online, we want to mobilize, not necessarily lots of new people, but friends we already have.”

Main tendencies:

Labour Party - broadest social media presence

Progressive Party - least interaction (Twitter, Facebook, blogs)

Conservative Party - most active support blogs, ”Blue bloggers”

Liberal - most debate focused

Socialist Left - best blogging politician, Minister of Education, Bård Vegar Solhjell

New tools in this election:

Twittertinget.no

Valgprat.no

Valgpanelet.no

Now time for questions… Download the presentation: www.jonworth.eu/tech-ep.ppt Jon Worth | jon@jonworth.eu www.jonworth.eu | Twitter: @jonworth Bente Kalsnes | bente.kalsnes@gmail.com bentekalsnes.wordpress.com | Twitter: @benteka http://www.flickr.com/photos/xaf/2289377358/sizes/l/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexao/3529048221/sizes/l/