Politicamp09, an event combining politics and the online world, has been hosted in Berlin last month. I was not able to be there but I was watching the lives streams. One discussion included some high-profile guests, such as Stefan Hennewig – Head of the online election campaign for the Christian Democrats (CDU), Kajo Wasserhövel – Party secretary for the Social Democrats (SPD) and also responsible for the online election campaign, Robert Heinrich – Head of the online election campaign for the Green Party (Grüne), Hans-Jürgen Beerfeltz – Party secretary for the Liberals (FDP), Halina Wawzyniak – dept. chairman of the party The Left (Linke), as well as Markus Beckedahl, a well-known German blogger.
They were discussing trendy new tools for the parties during this so-called “super election year 2009”, including various elections of state parliaments, the EU election, as well as the much anticipated Bundestag election.
The relevance of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and FlickR have been elaborated on as well the importance of the parties’ own websites and social platforms.
One participant was asking about the parties’ particular online strategies and this is what they had to say:
The Liberals believe in a reasonable connection/combination of the online and the offline world. Whatever is being started online should be continued offline because apparently, the outcome of an election is not determined online. Direct communication is possible online and allows the parties to distribute information right to the multipliers which again allows networking effects that have an impact on the offline world.
The Christian Democrats view their website as a launch pad that enables others to become active online and to give them some sense of orientation in order to make the right decisions on election day.
The Green party understands their own website as an extended campaign headquarters which needs to be used in order to continue the campaign online as well as offline. Mr. Heinrich talked about posters that can be printed out and put up for everybody else to see offline. Since the Green party often lacks money by the end of an election campaign this is a very useful tool for supporters that want to get their political point across.
Mr. Wasserhövel pointed out that mobilizing throughout the campaign is the most crucial thing for the Social Democrats. Enabling participation and trying to support creativity (he pointed out moveon.org during the Presidential Elections in the US as a great example for grassroots engagement). The SPD wants to advocate that.
Interestingly enough, the Left party looks at the online campaign as a mere addition to what is already there. They want to reach more people (not just though info booths), engage in direct conversations and help people to self-organize within their own communities.
So, after everybody mentioned their new trendy tools, Markus Beckedahl was pointing out one quite interesting fact: blogs and podcasts seem to not be relevant at all at this moment. While they can give many opportunites for politicians because it can be seen as another platform for them to reach the voters (just on a much more detailed basis), the parties seem to stay on the Facebooks of today, not realizing the potential that they are missing out on.
Not only blogs for politicians, also blogs about elections stay irrelevant. On a German blog called blogbar.de, the author donalphonso points out that one reason for blogs not being relevant might be the lacking competence of the bloggers. Many of them have no clue about the issues that are discussed, such as Carry Trades in East Europe and Maastricht Criteria.
So, I wonder, as the months pass by in this SUPER ELECTION YEAR 2009, what will come next?