Britain, like Germany, fails to embrace online campaigning
“People said this was going to be an Internet election,” said Philip Cowley, professor of parliamentary government at Nottingham University, “but there are two things dominating the election: television and direct mail. Both go back to the 1950s or 1960s in America.”
Interesting quote from today’s International Herald Tribune: As British parties embrace their country’s first-ever TV debates, Britain materializes as yet another European country that refuses to embrace Obama-style online campaigning. Already in 2009′s federal elections in Germany, online campaigning seemed to play a negligible role, despite all the buzz the Obama campaign’s use of Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, microfinancing, etc., had caused among journalists, volunteers and political analysts in Europe.
“online campaigning seemed to play a negligible role” – because twitter is misused if you only use it to link to a post in facebook which links to a post on your blog which links to a post in your “news” section of your website which links to an newspaper article which doesn’t add anything new to the debate or consists entirely out of propaganda.
form vs. function – old news, not surprising at all.