Stephen Ward & Rachel Gibson Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford ACSPRI Centre, Australian National University Parties and the Virtual Campaign:The 2005 Election Online

Enhanced pluralism or normalisation? Professionalisation, decentralisation & postmodern elections Extending participation & engagement Research Themes

Technological factors - access doubled since 2001 (52-60%); Growth of broadband & mobile phones; Blogging and virals. Political factors - The 2004 US presidential campaigns (The Dean Phenomena) 2005 Great Expectations (Again)

“Wherever we look it is clear that internet tools like , websites and chat are going to be central to this election. It will happen at every level and goes far beyond the national campaign run by the national parties” (Bill Thompson, BBC Online,11 April 2004)

Function - Basic patterns same as Information provision & resource generation increasingly the focus. Competition - Big three outperform all others on a range of measures. Gap slightly wider than But some minor parties still competing effectively. Party websites

Focussed on 20 parties at national level (9 parliamentary and 11 non- parliamentary) Presence and access data - google links; BBC online news coverage; sample of 200 constituency- assessing local level activity Website feature analysis - national level & more basic local level surveys Interviews -party officials Public opinion data -NOP survey (n=1972) Research methods

Large growth in candidate websites esp amongst large parties. Overall around 37% candidates had web presence. Greater activity in marginals; incumbents more likely to be online; levels of access to the net also important; party matters (68% Conservative candidates had web presence). Growth of template politics. Local e-campaigning

Around 30% of Internet users went online for election information (BBC online mainly) 12% received election information via 3% visited national party sites; 1% visited candidate sites Internet activists are the already politically engaged (students?) Online activity surrounding the election more than doubled on range of measures since 2001 The Public Response

Net not a level playing field - it widens rather than levels ICTs facilitating top-down localism rather than decentralisation ICTs exacerbating existing participation divides. Databases narrowing the focus? This is not America - the UK political system minimises the Internet’s usefulness Summary & Conclusions