Times: TV-debates were crucial
The voters had not even had the chance to make their vote when the Times delivered its verdict: The TV debates ruled the election campaigns. 140 characters on Twitter were not quite enough to be a key factor, states the Times. Hardly any politician had been able to capitalise on the possibilities offered by the internet. Nevertheless, something was different this time around, probably due to the web: Parties and politicians found it much more difficult to set the agenda. Instead they had to deal with the topics the people forced them to talk about, says the Times.

Guardian: Parties missed their chances
In the Guardian the digital strategist of Obama´s successful presidential campaign, Joe Rospars, expresses his believe that the parties have not been able to use the internet properly. They just changed the battlefield, not the tactics. Rospars points out that some independent organizations have shown how to do it. The initiative „hope not hate“ for instance sought to prevent candidates of the British National Party from winning seats in the parliament. They organized most events via the internet. An example: Several hundred volunteers handed out 100.000 protest newspapers in two suburbs of London. In both election districts the nationalists fell considerably short of winning a mandate. According to Rospars the secret of the initiative´s success was their skill to transport clear instructions in their messages – and not to lose itself in woolly words. In Rospars`opinion they showed the strong leadership the parties did not deliver.

TechPresident: Not enough time?
TechPresident´s Nancy Scola, in response to Rospar´s analysis, identiefies the short period of time left for the partys’ electoral campaign as a key factor for unsuccessful e-campaigning. Wheras Obama had nearly two years to optimize his strategy, in Britain there was hardly one month left between the announcement of the election date and the polling day. Additionally, Scola assumes that Obama´s web-campaign perfectly matched his image, a fact that might have played a vital part in the campaign´s success.

Independent: Tweets of the day
The Independent compares internet and television with the classic poster ad. The results of the web-campaigns may have been disappointing, but nevertheless they spiced up the controversies between the contestants. Furthermore, the newspaper collected the best tweets of the election day. A rather radical message was for instance posted by the journalist Alex Wood: „Remember, everytime someone votes for David Cameron, a puppy dies.“

BBC: Web not ineffective at all
The BBC´s Rory Cellan-Jones firmly believes that the internet played an important role ahead of the election day. Especially young voters got involved with politics thanks to the web. The tie between the election commission and facebook helped to raise the number of first-time voters registering to vote, says Cellan-Jones. And the parties used the web for internal communication and organisation: The extensive usage of e-mail made f2f-staff meetings dispensable.

“It is vital for democracy that the citizens participate in decision making,” said the European Commission Vice President, Margot Wallström. Starting next year, the signatures of one million EU citizens will be sufficient to provide the Commission with issues to negotiate.

However, certain details have yet to be clarified: In how many different nations should the  signatures be collected? How can be determined whether the signatures are authentic? Should there be an opportunity to participate online in the citizens’ initiatives?

A so-called Green-Book is supposed to push forward the concrete embodiment of the citizens’ initiative. EU citizens have the opportunity to send in their suggestions and opinions via mail or e-mail until the end of January 2010.

This year, on 15-16th October 2009, there will be another follow up: Berlin in October 2009. Even though this Unconference is by invite only, we are still looking for suggestions of smart, interesting people to join. The only real criteria for attendees: the desire and the determination to get things built that actually help citizens, rather than just talking about how great it could be if someone else did it. If you feel that you would be matching this profile, please contact one of the organising institutions. There are still open slots. We especially welcome non-EU participants. Limited funding is available.

Geh nicht hin!

For those of you who are non-German speakers, find an english article about the project on DW-World.de. This article comes along with a radio interview including a statement by politik-digital.de executive director Stefan Gehrke.

1)The aim of the initiative is to brand and promote the name and idea of PEP-NET as well as to acquire new members;
2)Starting in September, PEP-NET will become an integral component of conferences organized by members of PEP-NET;
3)Presentation and implementation of PEP-NET during the conferences should remain within the responsibility of the respective organizers. Though the working group agreed on four minimum features which should be common in all conferences:

1. 1.A PEP-NET workshop should be organized along a specific question; the question remains the same in all conferences, yet provokes hopefully very different results since the participants of the respective workshops have very different backgrounds (e.g. scientists, politicians, NGO-practitioners).

1. 2.PEP-NET should always be presented in a short introduction, maybe also with the help of graphic displays (e.g. banner, stand-up displays, buttons).

1. 3.The working group will design a leaflet, which contains information about upcoming conferences, a short whois and maybe contact details; the leaflet will be circulated among the PEP-NET members and should also be handed out to the participants of PEP-NET workshops.

1. 4.Each PEP-NET workshop should start with the findings of the previous workshop and try to complement the views.

4) The results of PEP-NET workshops are thought to be summed up in a conference proceeding, which will be posted in a specific section on our web-log. A right-frame-teaser could possibly be created for the homepage.

The members of the working group are happy to receive your comments, feedback, ideas or support on this initiative. We encourage you also to communicate the new PEP-NET slots on conferences and to create awareness of our new initiative.

Zwischen Tür und Angel: Thomas Gensemer from politik-digital on Vimeo.

What makes “Bürgerforum Europa” so special is the fact, that the members were chosen randomly by the initiators. The Bamberger Centrum für Empirische Studien (BACES) contacted citizens based on a particular pattern that includes age, region and different levels of education. 361 of them were finally admitted to take part in the project.

The Bürgerforum worked both offline and online. Now that the citizens’ requests are put down to paper, a dialogue with German and European politicians is supposed to transport the ideas to Brussels.

The EU-profiler compiles around 30 political theses ranging from social and fiscal policies to questions concerning society, internal and external affairs. These theses are connected with the political viewpoints of numerous political parties from all 27 EU-member states. By answering to a random selection of the assumptions, the user positions himself within the political landscape. Additionally, he or she can indicate his or her affinity towards political themes and political parties, which gives further weight to particular answers or positions.

After the long clicking and ticking process, the EU-profiler is thought to provide an idea of the user’s individual political orientation and the respective match concerning a political party preference. Of course, the results compare more to an interpretation than a deep analysis. And it is obvious that a cross-country analysis can only bring approximate, no definitive results. However, the statistical and analytical steps leading towards the results as well as the interpretation of them bear some inconsistencies and provoke some question marks.

First of all, the selection of parties under examination appears to a certain extent randomly chosen. Next to the “common six” – meaning all six parties represented in the parliament of Germany (Bundestag) – the EU-profiler examines also the Newropeans (a pan-european politcal movement), Free Voters (Freie Wähler, a Bavaria based political registered association) as well as the two competing nationalist parties German People’s Union (Deutsche Volksunion, DVU) and The Republicans (Die Republikaner, REP). The 22 remaining parties, which are officially registered and admitted for the elections, find no reflection in the analytical comparison. This selection appears odd. Limiting the cases under examination is certainly a necessary step to keep the analysis manageable, but the selection criteria should follow a consistent pattern. The FAQ explains that “every significant party is featured in the EU Profiler“ meaning parties that „are polling to win seat this time around“. The latest polls, however, see none of the four smaller parties even close to win a single seat.

A second flaw in the analytical set-up is the fact, that some parties have only partly answered the list of theses, which were composed in an joint effort of seven European institutes under the lead of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. Hence, theoretically, a 100 per cent match can be based on one single assumption, which both the party and the user have answered in the same way. Furthermore, some theses appear out of the context of the national environment in the run up to the elections. In our test-runs we were asked to express our opinion about the Greek health system, a theme which seems only loosely connected with the German electoral campaign for the elections in the European Union. This is not to deny that the EU-profiler represents a massive collection of data on the standpoints of political parties in all EU-member states. Also,the intention to provide an overview over the arguably largest political landscape in the world is very honourable.