[DW] Internet and Elections in Germany - Article, Links

[Steven Clift]

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Below is a great summary article on the use of the Internet in the
recent German elections written by DO-WIRE member Carolin Welzel.
Thank you Carolin.

Hans Hütt also sent in some links <http://www.pr-guide.de/> related to
an experts meeting that was held after the election. Direct link (in
German)<http://www.pr-guide.de/onlineb/p021002a.htm>. It Babelfishes
pretty well into English: http://babelfish.altavista.com/
For coverage of the www.wahlgang event also see (includes audio
highlights in German):
http://www.sueddeutsche-zeitung.de/
index.php?url=/deutschland/politik/53955  (put on one line).

Steven Clift
Democracies Online


Much Ado about nothing?
The German Federal Elections 2002 on the web

by Carolin Welzel
Projectmanager Bertelsmann Foundation
Carolin.welzel@bertelsmann.de

Germany's new Government is the old one: Gerhard Schroeder and his
Social Democrats are going to continue their coalition with the Green
Party for another four years after a very close race on election
night on September 22nd. The real novelty during the campaign period
in July and August was the broadcast of the first debate between
chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (SPD) and his opponent Edmund Stoiber
(CDU/CSU) on TV.

The much expected première of the first true online-campaign in the
political history of Germany however did not take place. Although all
major parties and most of the candidates used the new media in a
professional, up-to-date and sometimes creative way, it became clear,
that the internet is not yet a mass media in Germany. Especially
people that are already active political partakers or even party-
members can be reached online. The largest online-community is found
among people that vote for the Green Party: 62% of these sympathizers
can be reached through the net. For the Social Democrats (SPD) 42%
are connected, the CDU supporters are estimated to have a online
penetration of 38%.

Information and news still play the leading role on the web and leave
only a rather minor part for interactivity and service elements.

The experiments that did take place in this field were often inspired
by the preceding elections in the US and Great Britain. But although
the real online-revolution is still a thing of the future. The
election 2002 demonstrated that the Internet has become a media no
party and no politician can do without. The development of special
campaign-sites and the use of new online-formats - already known from
American and British campaigns - often served a second (cross-)media
purpose: getting an article or a report in a major print newspapers
or on national TV.

A clear improvement could be seen in web activities of independent
players with an academic and journalistic background. The project
www.wahlgang, a cooperation of students from the Freie Universität
Berlin and the Federal Agency for Civic Education
(http://www.bpb.de/), aimed successfully at reaching young voters.
Their online-tool http://www.wahlomat.de/ that enabled indecisive
voters to find the right party in a playful way became a real
election-favorite. Another novelty in German campaign activities was
the online-debate platform http://www.wahlfakten.de/, hosted by
Germany's largest independent platform for politics and new media
http://www.politik-digital.de/ together with the BPB and the ZMI
(Center for Media and Interactivity) of the Giessen University.

In brief, the major online developments in the party-context can be
summarized as follows:

-       Targeted sites f.i. for journalists - http://www.wahlfakten.de/
(CDU). A rapid response tool: Arguments of political opponents are
analyzed and "corrected".

-       Mobile services - weekly sms service for registered supporters for
instance by the Green Party

-       Games and fun - political campaign simulation
http://www.wahlkreis300.de/ by the CDU

-       Volunteers and mobilization - E-Volunteers (CDU) and Campaigning
Teams (SPD) were found online and served mainly for offline-purposes

-       Cross-media aspects - More important than heavy traffic online is
to be mentioned in print media and TV. But: heavy traffic online can
get you into print news....

-       No political advertisement - In times of tight budgets all parties
decided not to invest into external online-advertisement

-       Fund-raising still marginal - although some parties introduced
online fundraising in 2002 German voters are still sceptical. More
successful however were some parties in finding new members through
web forms. The Green Party registered 3000 new members in the month
of September.

Selected Links:

The Social Democrats enlarged their usual online-portfolio
http://www.spd.de/ and http://www.gerhard-schroeder.de/ with two new
sites: http://www.kampa02.de/ - homepage of the campaign office
http://www.nichtregierungsfähig.de/ - a novelty: the first negative-
campaign-site in Germany

The Christ Democrats (http://www.cdu.de/), although not successful in
winning back the power they lost in 1998 featured the largest and
probably most innovative web-strategy:

http://www.wahlkreis300.de/ - Simulated campaign-game. A copy of
Germany´s largest independant
political simulation
http://www.dol2day.de/

http://www.wahlfakten.de/ - Rapid response tool

http://www.zeit-fuer-taten.de/ - (offline) Informative website around
the party´s programm

The Green Party introduced only one new website:
http://www.gruen-wirkt.de/ - Campaigning site with a relativly high
interactive potential

The German Liberal Democrats (http://www.fdp.de/) featured two
campaign websites:
http://www.guidomobil.de/ - (offline) Guido Westerwelle, head of the
Liberals featured his mobil-home tour through Germany on this site.
http://www.machenmachenmachen.de/ (offline) - "Why the Liberals are
best": Campaigning site

The election results can be found under:
http://www.bundeswahlleiter.de/


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Steven L. Clift    -    W: http://www.publicus.net/
Minneapolis    -   -   -     E: clift@publicus.net
Minnesota  -   -   -   -   -    T: +1.612.822.8667
USA    -   -   -   -   -   -   -     ICQ: 13789183

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