Posts tagged ‘European Parliament’
Understanding the digital lives of MEPs
Eagle-eyed colleagues have spotted that French daily Le Monde cited this blog as a source in its profile of MEPs and what they do.
Well, some good news for those of you who want to know more about the digital lives of our European Parliamentarians. Fleishman-Hillard Brussels is currently engaged in surveying the digital lives of Members of the European Parliament. The audit is seeking to establish how far, and to what effect, MEPs in this Parliament are using the internet in communicating to the outside world in the run up to the elections and in informing their own views on policy issues in their daily working lives.
We shall be looking at everything from how many of them intend to use Twitter to reach out to voters, to how often their offices say they use Wikipedia to look stuff up. We are hoping that the results will be of interest both to MEPs themselves and to all those who are interested by MEPs – like us.
We hope to have the results of our research ready for public consumption in mid-May, at which stage they shall be made available on a dedicated micro-site.
If you are interested in learning more in advance of the official launch, drop us a line at the address below:
epdigitaltrends at fleishmaneurope dot com
We shall be keeping everyone informed through this blog and our twitter feed over the next couple of weeks.
James
Which MEPs are Twittering? I know a few…
Following on from our digital audit of MEPS last year, we now want to know which MEPs have caught the Twitter bug…
These are just a few we’ve found so far:
- Graham Watson
- Matthias Groote
- Katrin Saks
- Benoit Hamon
- Eoin Ryan
- Neena Gill
- Arlene McCarthy
- Peter Skinner
- Jim Nicholson
- Mary Honeyball
- Andrew Duff
- Daniel Caspary
- Jules Maaten
- Jeanine Hennis
- Sophie in ‘t Veld
- Daniel Cohn-Bendit
- Åsa Westlund
- Anna Hedh
- Kathalijne Buitenweg
- Helga Truepel
- Colm Burke
- Joost Lagendijk
- Gunnar Hökmark
- Dagmar Roth-Behrendt
- Alexander Alvaro
- Jorgo Chatzimarkakis
- Richard Corbett
- Ed McMillan-Scott
- Rodi Kratsa
- Vincent Peillon
- Urszula Gacek
- Jean luc Bennahmias
- Catherine Trautmann
- Bernadette Vergnaud
If you have come across any, please let us know. We shall update this list as we get new names.
Rosie
P.S. As we mentioned in a previous post, the utility of Twitter is still not clear to us. We do find Daily Show host John Stewart’s opinion about Twitter quite humorous: “They’re struggling because they confused new with good.”
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Exclusive here* – photos of the EP elections “tri-dimensional installation”
* These photos are probably not exclusive, as I happened to be walking by the Altiero Spinelli building yesterday with a camera, so I snapped a few photos. When I left the parliament an hour later, the workers were covering the structure with a blue cloth.
As it turns out, this is the ‘hard’ part of the EP communication strategy for the 2009 European Elections. It asks hard questions, such as “How open should our borders be?” and “How much labelling do we need?”. The “soft” part is the EP elections website, launched a few months ago.
The wall, I presume, shows choices, if if that wasn’t obvious, there is a phonebooth “Choice box” next to it.
Tune in to the EP live broadcast at 10:30 for the official unveiling.
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- Over the hedge?
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- How to hide in front of the EP.
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- Your choice… in a box.
Just give them the answer
The European Parliament is never afraid to take on the status quo and to challenge common knowledge. For example, for a poll to be a poll, does it actually have to show results?
Not if you’re a maverick like the European Parliament. On the bottom left of the EP’s home page, something that looks suspiciously like a poll asks, “The role of MEP’s in one of the Parliament’s delegations is?” and provides four choices with clickable buttons. But there is no ‘Vote’ button. Instead, clicking on ‘Delegations’ takes you to the Delegations home page, complete with definition.
And we have all learned something new.
Mike
Can the net help companies plant roots in Brussels?
Image by loungerie via Flickr
A post last week on the website Wired got me thinking about the use of grassroots in Brussels. The author highlights that GM has sought to use its own employees to lobby federal US policymakers for the money it needs to stay afloat as a company.
It reminded me of a recent dinner conversation about whether grassroots – digital or otherwise – can work in Brussels when conducted by corporations. The conversation was sparked by the Vattenfall campaign that has been running in PLux (see our recent post).
Principally our dinner conversation focused on two points:
- Whether contact from concerned individuals would have an effect in Brussels
- Whether it is acceptable for a corporation (as opposed an NGO) to undertake such a tactic
I’ve already argued, and continue to believe, that such contact can make a difference. In fact, I’ve even taken it to the extreme and argued that given our Brussels sensitivities about being in touch with citizens and the fact that direct contact with citizens is a relative novelty that it may be more powerful when done well.
Of course, when grassroots tactics have been used here they have tended to have been used by NGOs. Even a chemical-head like me has to take his hat off to the campaigns run by NGOs during REACH. Who could forget postcards featuring Barroso and Verheugen feeding chemicals to a baby through a test tube. Or delegations from the jam-making WI turning up in the European Parliament. Industry fights on fact, loses on emotion (again). Life ain’t fair, is it folks?
Thus, while I don’t buy the statement that just because it works in the US it can work here, I equally don’t buy that it can’t work here. It’s just going to be different. See some examples we’ve already featured in this blog (here, here and here). (more…)
Keep it simple stupid
Image via Wikipedia
The European Parliament today joined the Council and the Commission in adding RSS feeds to its website.
There’s a general feed for the general public, presumably that will be fed by the same stories currently featuring on the landing page. A second group of feeds is focused on the needs of journalists, offering background briefings, press releases and summaries of reports adopted.
Finally there are feeds for three types of podcast, the most interesting of which is probably the MEP’s own takes on upcoming issues – at least in theory.
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What do you mean you don’t have a website?
This morning, on my way back to the office, a marching brass band, 10 three-meter tall cardboard smokestacks and a few dozen people in black t-shirts carrying black balloons that read ‘NO MORE COAL’ headed the other direction towards the European Parliament building. I asked a girl for the group’s website address, hoping to learn more.
“We don’t have a website”, but she handed me a flyer.
What do you mean you don’t have a website?! She explained “We’re a coalition of groups, so you can get information on any of our websites”.
The groups involved, according to the black and white flyer, are WWF, CAN Europe, Greenpeace, Friends of Earth Europe, die klima-allianz, Christian aid, and the World Development Movement. Clearly this coalition invested a lot of time and money into the event, and I can’t help but think that they made a massive oversight by not having a website or a microsite for the event.
The cynic may point out that since Fleishman-Hillard offers a full-service digital group that builds anything from fancy emails to websites of all shapes and sizes, then of course we would argue that every event needs its own website. But in this day and age, with the low costs of websites, I can’t see any reason to not have at least a one page microsite or a dedicated page on an existing website, no matter how short-lived the event.
Just on the other side of Place du Luxembourg, one can see a digitally-driven campaign. Vattenfall has placed a massive digital screen asking people to go online and ‘Sign the climate manifesto’. The engaging website has a live webcam of the screen on Place du Luxembourg and a video of what happens when you ‘sign’ the online manifesto.
It’s for you: NGOs fill the digital space in the Telecoms Package
Image via Wikipedia
Leading up to last week’s vote in the European Parliament of the Telecoms Package, it was striking to see the myriad of digital advocacy tools that were used by a group of NGOs called ‘La Quadrature du Net/Squaring the Net’. To safeguard the openness of internet and to prevent the insertion of the so called graduated response (or 3 strikes and you’re out) ‘La Quadrature du Net” put together an impressive online campaign that included:
- A campaign wiki allows you to collaborate in the campaign – all the information related to the campaign was put on a wiki on their website that allows you to see their recommended voting list, download tools to help you contact MEPs, standard letter templates, information about the campaign and MEPs and the ability of course to add your own user generated content
- A simple but effective website includes a blog, newsletter subscription, RSS feeds and a press review to keep you coming back
- Search engine – if you searched for Telecoms Package on Google last week, La Quadrature du Net came up first
- Online banners and blogs – the blog posts in favor of amendments supported by La Quadrature du Net exploded – again all downloadable from their website
All in all, if you were the assistant responsible for briefing your MEP ahead of the vote and looking for information online you would have probably found their information. If you were a supporter, there’s all you need to get you started on advocating on the issue. Although one does not necessarily has to agree with their point of view, La Quadrature du Net did manage to create a lot of noise in very short period of time and their campaign is an excellent example about how to use digital.
Perhaps an example that digital industries can learn from?
Magnus
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Let them eat cake!
Given that the roof fell in on the Strasbourg Parliament building over the summer, MEPs supporting the one seat campaign have staged an event in the European Parliament to protest about the fact that they have to trek down to Strasbourg where they all don hard hats (see video above). Laughing at how they look aside, we have a feeling that despite the continued protest the French will be quite prepared to let them continue to eat cake.
James
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Bridging the EU’s Communication Gap?
As we all know there are millions and millions of EU citizens out there that feel a deep and distressing sense of emptiness and detachment from the EU legislative machine. Such citizens are just gagging to learn about the enthralling political dealings that occur here in Brussels and (as soon as extra hard hats are provided) in Strasbourg.
I am pleased to announce that their wish will soon come true! Yes, Europarl TV, a new web streaming service that this former intrepid intern has talked about before, is going live on the 17th September after a short ceremony in the European Parliament hosted by Mr Pöttering himself (we did of course get an invite and will report on its proceedings). So get ready for a collective sigh of relief from all four corners of the EU next week as all those citizens flock to their nearest PC and tune in to ‘Rapporteur’s Questions Time’ where they can learn all about issues such as the placement of plant protection products on the market and listen to those inevitable witty comments from their favourite MEPs.
To be honest, your friendly digital blogger has had a look at the working site and to give credit where it’s due (in this case to Michael Shackleton and his team) the site looks very promising and includes four channels with a wide variety of programming that in theory could cater to most of the public and not just us EU geeks. Feedback from a sample of EU citizens also proved to be very positive. Digital outreach will always be encouraged on this blog so don’t forget to tune in next week!
Digital Dave
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