This study presents data from content analyses of the websites of all parties that stood in the 2009 European parliamentary elections in France, Germany, Great Britain and Poland. It cross-nationally examines the main functions of the websites, the adoption of Web 1.0 and Web 2.0 features, and the political and cultural factors that determine parties’ online communication. The findings show that while the main website function varies across countries, Web 1.0 is still the dominant mode of campaigning. Moreover, offline inequalities within and between nations determine differences in parties’ individual online strategies: specifically, major parties in states with long histories of democracy and EU membership lead the way and offer more interactive and innovative modes of campaigning. On the other hand, minor parties, particularly in Poland, remain in a more Web 1.0, information-heavy mode of communication. This supports the so-called normalization thesis on both the meso and the macro level.

International audienceUndoubtedly, populist political candidates from the right and the left, including Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, changed the tenor and direction of the 2016 presidential contest in the US. Much like Barack Obama’s electoral successes that were credited at least in part to his savvy social media campaigning in 2008 and 2012, since Trump’s victory, the notion that social media ‘helped him win’ has been revitalized, even by Trump himself [McCormick, R. (2016a). Donald Trump says Facebook and Twitter ‘helped him win’.The Verge. Retrieved fromhttp://www.theverge.com/2016/11/13/13619148/trump-facebook-twitter-helped-win]. This study therefore explores citizen support for populist and establishment candidates across the ideological spectrum in the US to specifically examine if using social media was related to an increased likelihood of supporting populist presidential political candidates, including Trump. Differing forms of active, passive, and uncivil social media were taken into account and the findings suggest active social media use for politics was actually related to less support for Republican populists, such as Trump, but that forms of both passive or uncivil social media use were linked to an increase in the likelihood of support to a level roughly equivalent to that of the traditional television viewing. These patterns are almost the inverse of support for Democratic populists, in this case namely Sanders

Exogenous shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic unleashes multiple fundamental questions about society beyond public health. Based on the classical concept of 'need for orientation' and the literature on the role of the media in times of crisis, we investigate to what extent the COVID-19 pandemic affected news consumption in comparative perspective. Based on a two-wave panel survey in 17 mostly European countries, our study targets the role of both legacy news brands (TV, radio, newspapers) and so-called contemporary news media (Internet-based and social media) during this global health crisis. Our results show an overall rise of news use across countries, but only for some types of news media. We find an increase of TV news consumption, and a higher reliance on social media and the Internet for news and information. This indicates that in times of crises and an unusually strong need for orientation, people mainly turn to news sources that are easily available and offer a more immediate coverage. Furthermore, we find the rise in news use to be mainly present among those who already have a higher level of trust in legacy media and among people that were more concerned about the impact of the pandemic.

The article provides insights into the driving forces that underpin new forms of political participation. Digital technologies offer opportunities for engaging in a wide range of civicallyoriented activities, whether liking or sharing political content, joining online political communities or joining discussions, each can contribute to deeper democratic engagement and, for the individual, act as a pathway towards further civic participation. Conventional acts of political participation, demonstrating, petitioning and voting, are argued to be driven primarily by intrinsic motivations relating to self-efficacy and empowerment as the individual feels they can have influence over decision makers. Little research explores whether similar motivations drive participation in less conventional acts, as well as whether mobilisation attempts via social media by peers or political organisations mediate those motivations.Drawing on data from a survey among a representative sample of the UK electorate, we find the offline and online spheres of agency as still fairly distinct. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations both matter but extrinsic motivations, following norms of behaviour within networks and supporting the activities of peers, have the strongest explanatory power independent of the sphere of activity. The mediating effect of mobilisation tactics has a minimal effect on extrinsic motivations, online or offline, but online intrinsic motivations lose their explanatory power. This finding suggests online political acts are carried out due to mobilisation, although as intrinsic factors offer little explanatory power these acts may lack meaning to the individual. We also found that campaign organisations are the most powerful mobilisers perhaps suggesting social media users are most likely to perform simple acts in support of non-contentious causes.