Source: International Herald Tribune

Perhaps following the success of the live CNN/YouTube debate involving US Democratic presidential candidates last month, music channel MTV and popular online social network MySpace.com have partnered to host an innovative discussion session aimed at young people. Using email, SMS and instant messaging, young voters will be able to submit their questions to candidates in eleven one-hour slots from September to December 2007.

According to MTV spokesman Ian Rowe, 'This is not a debate. Each one of these dialogues is an opportunity for young people both on a college campus - as well as millions watching via a live stream on MySpace and MTV.com - to have one-on-one, direct, unfiltered conversation with each candidate'.

Democratic candidates who have agreed to take part are: John Edwards, Hilary Clinton, Christopher Dodd, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson.

Republican candidates who have agreed to take part are: Rudy Giuliani, Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Sam Brownback and Mitt Romney.

Although this is a non-partisan event, this is a good example of how 'long tail' principles can be applied to political communications, and is the kind of thing I have always advocated for political parties. For example, if a party creates a forum where young people can come to discuss politics, and engage openly and meaningfully with politicians, when those young people come to vote they will remember that that particular party gave them the best opportunities to engage.

Labels: Barack Obama, Democrats, Hilary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain, MTV, MySpace, Presidential election, Republicans, Rudy Giuliani

More than ever, MPs and other elected representatives can greatly benefit from maintaining an active online presence. In whatever form, be it a personal website, blog or YouTube channel, an online presence for an MP can be a great way of engaging constituents and voters, and explaining the work that he/she is doing to improve their lives (most of the time!).

Increasingly, MPs without decent web presences, in most-developed countries at least, are looking like they don’t understand the 21st century communications environment that we live in. A few years ago, the web could have been passed off as a fad but with higher than ever internet penetration rates around the world and signs of political apathy in richer countries, it’s a better time than any for MPs and other representatives to get online and to do it well.

Here are a few tips for MPs (or their staff/researchers) on how to get the most out of their website/blog/YouTube channel (etc.):

People don’t just vote at election time!
You need to show your constituents and electorate that you’re serving them year-round, not just around election time. Try to regularly update your website with news about things you have done to serve them. Include pictures, videos or audio and you won’t seem so distant.

Allow constituents to use your website as a sounding off board
You ran for election to serve your constituents, so don’t just listen to them when you’re at home in your area. Set up a section of your website which allows local constituents to let their elected representative know about issues that concern them. And don’t just stop there. Answer their concerns, and tell them what you have done/will do to solve the issue.

Publicise national campaigns on your local website
National campaigns from any party affect people on a local level, including your constituents. If your party is running a national campaign about an issue (for example, the ban on smoking, a recent example from the UK), publicise it on your website in a high-profile spot.

Keep design simple and accessible
You want as many people as possible to use your website without having any accessibility issues. To this end, don’t be tempted to use flash animation, lots of javascript or anything else which may hinder the user’s experience. Keep design fresh and simple, not cluttered and fancy.

Tune your website for search engine visibility
If someone types in the name of the area your represent into a search engine, your website should ideally come very close to the top. When selecting a domain name, try to include the name of your constituency, and/or any major towns in that area in the domain name. For example, if your constituency was called ‘Salford’, and your name was Hazel Blears, hazelblearsforsalford.co.uk would really help your search engine visibility for people looking for local information.

Google AdWords is a great way to attract traffic to your site. Publishers create their account, design their ad and then select keywords which they want their ad associated with. The system allows publishers to spend as little, or as much as they want advertising their website in a highly targeted way.

As we all know, US presidential candidates are all pretty much sold on the 'e-campaigns thing'. They have so far been using blogs, YouTube, MySpace & Facebook amongst others to promote their message and ask the electorate for votes. Some candidates' web teams are realising the power of AdWords campaigning, as candidate names are beginning to appear in that familiar ads window to the right of normal search results.

Wired.com did a test on the keywords that bring up candidates' ads. One search they tried was 'Giuliani divorce', which amusingly did bring up the official Giuliani ad.

Using AdWords for politicians and political parties is a good idea. It is cheap, near universal in reach and can be targeted very precisely to specific keywords. For the equivalent of a few hundred pounds a year, parties can attract visitors who want specific information, which could lead to higher membership uptake via the web and allow parties to directly communicate with people who have expressed an interest, via their Google search.

Labels: adwords, Giuliani, Google, SEO

Source: Haaretz (haaretz.com)

Here’s another initiative from a country that wouldn’t immediately jump to mind when talking about use of the internet in politics. Isreal’s Knesset (national parliament) has an online shadow, Knesset II – www.knesset2.co.il, which is being used to grab the attention of members of the real Knesset. Although the site isn’t an official project of Israel’s parliament, this is a very interesting way to invite normal people to get involved in the work of the legislature.

Anyone who registers on the site can propose bills, discuss them and participate in voting on them ‘without primaries, without elections and without kissing the babies of central committee members’, that’s according to the site founders. Among existing bill proposals are a proposal to supervise the prices of apartment rentals, and the so-called ‘big recycling law’.

I generally think that projects like this do no harm, and can only help to spark the interest of people who wouldn’t normally be interested in politics. There are naysayers though; Dr. Mike Dahan a lecturer in communications at the Sapir College in the Negev and Bar-Llan University says ‘It works better in the United States because there the political culture is different and closer to direct democracy,’ he says. ‘In Israel, the belief that the Web will strengthen the connection with party leaders is generally dashed because it is not at all certain that most of them actually want this kind of relationship.’ I don’t know Dr. Mike, but I’d say that politicians who ignore the internet do so at their peril, and sooner or later they won’t have much of a choice to engage, that is if they want to win elections.

It would be interesting to see how a project like this would work in a country like the UK, France or America.

Labels: Israel, Knesset, Knesset 2, shadow parliament

I previously noted the various language options available at number10.gov.uk. Well Italian has been added to Arabic, French & Spanish, and there is now a language landing page: http://www.pm.gov.uk/output/Page12850.asp.

Labels: downing street, Gordon Brown, Number 10

The Tories have launched 'Stand Up Speak Up', its effort to solicit some online engagement to form its next election manifesto. On the surface, the process is in three parts: 1) read reports from policy commissions, 2) vote on policy ideas & 3) debate to have your say.

It's quite an intuitive system. You can choose to read a particular part of a policy report depending on the time you have available, five minutes (brief overview), fifteen minutes (whole summary report) etc. Once you have read the report you are taken to the next screen, where you can vote on policy initiatives. For example, under the 'Aid' policy banner, you can tick three out of seven options, including to 'Pledge half the increase in aid to Africa' or 'Make grants rather than loans to poor countries'.

It's clearly a good idea to invite your members, and the wider public to help you decide on future party policies. Having said that, users are being presented with a limited list of policy options, so it isn't as open as it could be.

Labels: Conservatives, David Cameron, online consultation, policy review, tories

By my count, the Downing Street website now has four language options (including English, French, Spanish & Arabic) available to its users. The launch of the Arabic version was picked up a little in the media when it launched a few weeks ago. The French version came next, and the Spanish version was launched last week - a link to it is a major highlight on the website's homepage.

This is a good strategy for Downing Street, as it will provide interesting & useful information not just to Arabic, French & Spanish speakers worldwide (which together with English should allow most people in the world at least to understand), but is also a resource for immigrants in the UK whose English is lacking. Saying that however, the content is mainly contextual and historical, rather than a guide to how to interact with government.

Each language mini-site provides the following translated content:

- PM's biography
- Biographies of Cabinet
- Legislative procedure
- Guide explaining the make-up of the government
- History of No. 10
- Historical biographies of former Prime Ministers

The White House website has long provided Spanish as an option for readers, but that seems more appropriate in a country where a large portion of the population speaks Spanish as a first, or joint first language. The Elysee Palace website also provides translations in English, German & Spanish.

View number10.gov.uk in Arabic | French | Spanish

Labels: Arabic, downing street, French, Gordon Brown, Number 10, Spanish

Citizens of Jamaica will go to the polls on August 27th this year to form a new House of Representatives, the main legislative body in the Caribbean island country. These elections will form only the 10th Jamaican government since independence from Britain in 1962. As with many modern elections around the world, the internet is already being used by the main players in these elections. In fact, it is often the case that parties in countries which aren’t ‘most developed’ such as those in Western Europe or North America, are making the most out of a resource which is relatively inexpensive to employ – if done properly.

The current political set up in Jamaica is based on the last general election, which took place in October 2002. There are only two main parties, the ruling People’s National Party (PNP) and the Jamaican Labour Party (JLP), which together received about 99% of the total vote last time around. Although the PNP currently enjoys a majority in the House, and therefore the right to form a government, the majority is only by five percentage points (52.2 % vs. 47.2%), so it should be an interesting election to watch.

The PNP’s Government is headed by Prime Minister Portia Simpson-Miller, the first female head of government in Jamaica.

The PNP and JLP are both using the internet to get their electoral messages out to the voters. Looking firstly at their own party websites, I think they’re making a good start at mounting a decent e-campaign. http://www.pnpjamaica.org and http://www.jamaicalabourparty.com are both well designed. What first jumps to mind when comparing the two is that the PNP makes it their top priority to place a good picture of their candidate, at the top, smiling and looking professional. The first headline in the site’s news section (which is also on the front page) is: ‘Portia, A Woman of her Word’ – this combined with the picture is what the user sees first, and puts a very clear message of positivism and professionalism to the voter who isn’t bound to any particular party.

The JLP site is glossy and well designed, but I don’t think they make the best use of the home page. The party’s tag line ‘Justice, Liberty & Prosperity’ isn’t prominent enough, and the main picture isn’t of the party leader, but is an older woman smiling. Next to that picture are four links to main policy areas: Education, Agriculture, Tourism & IT Expansion. The user has to scroll down to see a picture of the party leader, Bruce Golding, and to read his welcome message. The policy sections are a bit heavy and in-depth, which probably won’t be very helpful for the swing voter. The site is used to highlight the JLP leaders, team & achievements, and allows people to read speeches, watch TV ads online and download JLP ringtones for mobile phones.

There isn’t a lot in terms of multimedia from either party. The PNP has said they will start putting official party videos on video-sharing site YouTube, and I think all parties in any country where there is good net penetration should use this channel for communicating with different audiences. The JLP has its official YouTube channel – http://www.youtube.com/jamaicalabourparty - which it uses to post the ads that it has shown on TV. It’s a start, but YouTube could and should be used to really reach out to disengaged audiences, and people who don’t usually get involved with politics. It can also be used as a place to hold dialogue.

Overall conclusion: I was surprised to see parties in a country like Jamaica really using the web to campaign, so well done them. However, I think the JLP has a way to go if it wants to win votes using the web. Also, the PNP should seek to use different ways of getting its message out online, by video for one. Both parties are using their sites to solicit new members and money contributions.

Labels: Jamaica, Jamaican Labour Party, JLP, People's National Party, PNP