Here is the contribution of Alexander Alvaro MEP in two parts. The Q&A session of the panel discussion will be uploaded in coming days.

James

Thanks to Aart van Iterson, a former colleague now at Cambre Associates, who points out by email that our current survey of the use of the internet by Members of the European Parliament is not the first time we have undertaken to research how digital tools are being used in Brussels.

Back in 2000 the then GPC (even then an Omnicom company, but at that stage still to become part of Fleishman-Hillard) teamed up once again with Simon Leysen of Morris & Chapman to conduct “a first of its kind survey investigating primarily how the Brussels based international community use email and internet in their work.”

The highlights of the 2000 survey included the following:

• The Brussels based international (EU political) community generally prefer first contact to be established via e-mail rather than by letter.
  Over 90% of respondents directly receive and process their own e-mails.
• For almost half of those surveyed, the Internet has become their main source of information.
• Before dealing with an organisation, over 70% of respondents say they will visit the organisations’ web-site first to obtain background information.
• Close to 50% of survey participants prefer to download large amounts of data as opposed to receiving it in its original format.

Despite being less than ten years old, our findings from 2000 have an air of a different era about them. Almost like finding that more than half of us prefer the car to the horse to get to work.

In looking at the online communication activities of our MEPs, we should therefore not be too harsh. Much has changed in the tools we all use to communicate  in a very short time. At the last European elections the likes of YouTube and Twitter did not exist, google was not a verb and Facebook was only accessible to students at Ivy League schools. With this in mind, the use of any of these tools by MEPs, even just a third of them, is truly impressive. What’s more, I am sure that in another nine years our findings from 2009 will seem so beginning of the century.

James

Related articles by Zemanta

• The European Union Twitter Elections (textually.org)
• European Elections to Be YouTubed (businessweek.com)

Today we launch the results of our European Parliament Digital Trends Survey – www.epdigitaltrends.eu It examines how Members of the European Parliament are using the internet to communicate with their voters as well as how the same MEPs use the internet to inform their daily legislative work. As such, we hope that the results are interesting both for MEPs and for Brussels public affairs practitioners.

In summary MEPs are using the internet to communicate to voters but are not yet for the most part using all the tools available. No doubt MEPs have come a long way since the last elections, but there is still a road to travel.

For public affairs practitioners we believe that our results support the view we espoused when we started this blog 2 years ago. Like all of us MEPs are going online for information to inform their decisions. To be effective, our public affairs strategies need to integrate digital communications into their toolbox of tactics. Digital can not replace traditional tools such as contact programmes and media relations it complements them, rendering our activities more effective.

On the microsite  www.epdigitaltrends.eu you will find the following:

• Our main results with supporting statistics
• An e-brochure
• A full report
• A library of downloads, including graphs and the raw data for you to make your own analysis and graphs
• Commentary from MEPs
• An opportunity for you to post your own thoughts
• The charities we supported in conducting the research
• The methodology we used – sample size etc.

In the coming days we shall be taking time to reflect on what the different parts of our results mean for public affairs practitioners in Brussels on this blog.

Thanks to all MEPs who participated and to the hardworking FH team who made it all possible (everyone in the office played some role but in particular I’d like to thank Mike, Reg, Veronique, Liliana, Julie, Carey, Aurelie, Tim, Michele, Jay, Clara and Rosie)

We look forward to your reactions to the results on the microsite and to having a debate on this blog about what our survey says about digital public affairs.

James

Swedish MEPs’ willingness to embrace digital communication channels is a factor well worth bearing in mind for anyone wanting to engage with these MEPs in the next European Parliament. More about these trends soon in an FH report about how MEPs use digital tools.

– Magnus

Enviro.aero is the website of FH client ATAG, The Air Transport Action Group, a global association that represents all sectors of the air transport industry. It was launched with the purpose of providing clear information on the many projects and cutting-edge innovations that make up the aviation industry’s response to climate change. Enviro.aero has engaged in the latest social media in order to spread their message to a wider audience, gathering followers and fans on Twitter and Facebook. The Plane Talking blog has also been a valuable medium through which to engage the flying public. The judges praised enviro.aero for providing “a long-overdue industry-wide response to the aviation environment topic” and a “clear user interface that allows quick access to interesting information.”

Finally, I’d like to thank my Mum, my Dad, my team……

What Shai and Batya Mesisenberg are indirectly saying is that there’s an extreme need for real and concrete responses from politicians and when they don’t give them, they create an empty space that people try to fulfill by themselves, which is something already happening also in some democratic and developped countries like Italy – see post “Italy’s comic turn”.
This sort of “Bombing for dummies” digital handbook** should not only alarm for its content itself (which could also be read as a self-defence attempt), but it should lead to a deeper consideration about what takes people to bypass politics and politicians. It would be insane if the bridge between reality and the political debate was built by strong but blind and angry forces.

*See The Jerusalem Post of 11th February.

**The group’s description says “It cannot be so difficult: if those retards from the Gaza Strip can do it then so can you”.

After a bout of political car crash TV on yesterday’s The Politics Show (BBC), a quick and dirty scan through the listings on Facebook reveals that former UK MEPs Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg are still friends.  The Guardian speculates wildly today that whoever loses the UK Liberal leadership election campaign is not likely to find themselves on the Lib Dem front bench… If you like road kill, you can watch it again here.

Elsewhere in the world of Facebook, our weekend reading (sad, we know) of the European Voice spots a small article on the prevalence of MEPs on the social networking platform. Something regular visitors will know we have been keen on for a while. They highlight three MEPs with Facebook profiles, with due respect to political balance of course.

• UK PES member Claude Moraes (London) has a current tally of 386 friends.

• UK ALDE member Sajjad Karim (North-West England) has a current tally of 114, which includes former Lib Dem leader Ming Campbell MP, further evidence perhaps that Facebook is reaching out to older generations. He also is friends with Graham Watson MEP, which prompts the age old question of what to do when your boss asks you to become his friend?

• However, Swedish EPP member Christopher Fjellner wins in both quantity and quality of friends. His current tally of 628 friends is higher than the other two and it also appears to be stock full of an amazingly high percentage of attractive young professionals.

Finally, the European Voice suggests that one can contact both the Commission and Parliament Presidents by giving them a quick “poke” via Facebook, while underlining that their current profiles appear to be spoofs. Note to EV journalist – before “poking” a politician to see if they have received your latest request for an interview you may want to check this group out. In future, may we suggest using the Xme application to make sure that what you want to say is what is understood.

Whilst browsing the group’s page, we noticed that a related group is “I don’t live in London, I live in Essex” (13,000 members as opposed to the London network’s 1.7 million). Despite the fact that the UK boasts the highest number of members of Facebook after the US and Canada, we wonder how far the ability of members to join a geographical network with which they identify inhibits the use of the platform for political activism and companies marketing to consumers in Europe. In both cases, the ability to tap into Facebook users in a specific locality may be of great interest. For example, MEPs from Yorkshire may like to tap into the whole county in the run up to 2009, while local networks would have a greater allure to businesses wishing to provide local services or goods. It strikes us that the other tools such as the MeetUp site used by Beppe Grillo in Italy earlier this year may have certain advantages for certain types of local action.

Facebook is also clearly aware of some of the needs out there that are currently not addressed. Facebook groups that anyone can set up, such as the “we live in Essex” mob, may help and you can of course request that geographical networks be created. The site now also allows you to create pages for local businesses, products and indeed politicians. In addition, the Facebook blog promises new language versions, which presumably will also encourage non-native English speakers to request networks for their part of the world.

In Europe, currently the UK has 14 different regional networks, while users in other European countries can only belong to national networks such as “Belgium”. For now, it seems Belgians can at least live together in the virtual world.