The internet and political campaigning: the new medium comes of age?

Keeping Up with the Murphys? Candidate Cyber-campaigning in the 2007 Irish General Election

“…Secondly, the success of online campaigning is, to a degree at least, subject to the interest and attention generated for the campaign in the mainstream media, so candidates that are marginalized in the offline world will struggle to attract large numbers of viewers to their web sites. 9 If patterns of uptake of cyber-campaigning mirror real-world disparities in terms of resources and political affiliation, this would lend credence to the contention that the internet will not radically transform political life.…”

“…An alternative proposition is that there is a degree of peer-pressure at play in political actors deciding to go online; Gibson et al argue that, for political parties 'even though parties were uncertain of the tangible benefits, it seems the risk of not having a website and giving your opponents and edge was a great stimulus to moving online.' 12 This study focuses on campaigning online in the Irish political system. We provide a descriptive analysis of the types of web activities undertaken by candidates during the campaign, before investigating those factors that made an individual candidate more or less likely to campaign online.…”

Does Cyber‐Campaigning Win Votes? Online Communication in the 2004 Australian Election

“…11 Finally, Eurobarometer data also show minimal levels of interest among voters across the EU countries for party-authored information on the web, with approximately five percent overall looking for it, and much greater interest being displayed in more established news sources (Gibson, Ward and Lusoli, 2003).…”

“…As any scan of the generalist and more specialist web politics indices reveals, it is now more unusual to find a party without a web page than a party with one. 6 In terms of timing, as the discussion of the evolution of cyber-campaigning above has indicated, it was largely the major parties that took the initiative in establishing sites, particularly those on the centre-left (Gibson, Ward and Lusoli, 2003).…”

Parties in the Digital Age—a Review Article

“…While verdicts about effects have differed across national contexts there is general agreement among authors that the scope for any effects is small given the limited audience for these sites. In general, estimates of the proportion of Internet users visiting party or candidate sites are often low, with most estimates hovering at less than 10% (Gibson, Ward and Lusoli 2003;Rainie et al 2005;Ward 2005;Davis et al 2008). However, as studies of web campaigning in countries such as Russia, Ukraine and Indonesia make clear, even when Internet penetration is low, parties themselves still regard the medium as important.…”